Includes overview of phases of land deals and their gender implications, further evidence using recent case studies from Indonesia and Mozambique, promising initiatives and recommendations, identification of knowledge gaps.

Background paper for an IDS Sussex workshop on new ideas on the rights to land, housing and property. Contains a renewed focus on poverty and, within that, a new focus on land rights; livelihoods and rights-based approaches; the World Bank and received orthodoxy in land policy; DFID’s focus on land rights in Africa; Francophone perspectives; recent World Bank thinking; the mysteries of capitalism (a discussion of de Soto); lessons learnt.

Report divided into 5 sections: inheritance and property rights; disability rights, HIV & AIDS, women’s property rights and livelihoods; survival strategies, nutrition, psychosocial support, economic empowerment, and self-reliance; self-reliance and economic empowerment for women in the context of HIV and AIDS; inspiring initiatives from the region (Zambia, Uganda, and Kenya). Contains a number of personal testimonies. Launched the famous T-shirt: ’property and a piece of land give women peace of mind’.

Includes the issue of gender in access to land, a major source of inequality; FIG declarations and guidelines are gender sensitive; why mainstreaming and what is it about?; ideas for an action plan including – gender disaggregated land data and gender sensitive indicators; understanding and working with gender roles under plural legal regimes; making socio-economic studies a part of planning land reforms and cadastral systems; developing simple, local methods of land administration; improving the gender balance at all levels in land administration; ensuring participation of women in impleme

Contains the urban poverty challenge; from illegality to formal tenure; segregation of space – an urban poverty challenge; from government to governance; the role of the state; government as a land owner; management of public land and public spaces; settlement of administrative and community boundaries; local land tenure regularisation; better information and the role of statistical data.

Focuses on women’s perceptions of land rights in the communal areas of Namaqualand in the Northern Cape. Explores the links between patriarchal social systems and women’s conservative attitudes towards holding land and shows how current policy processes and legislation allow local customs to continue to entrench gender discriminatory practices. Findings indicate that women are disadvantaged by historical norms, values and attitudes, which afford them only secondary rights to land.

Investigates how access to and control over land and labour rights are governed by gender and how that determines men’s and women’s social goals in production and reproduction. Shows how land, besides being a natural resource for food production, is also an important social, cultural and intergenerational symbol, especially for men.

This was a major and highly successful workshop on women’s land rights in Southern and Eastern Africa, organised by FAO and Oxfam GB. It attracted an unusually diverse range of participants. This official report summarises the papers, presentations and discussions in the original order of the programme.

Includes the Draft National Land Policy – a step into land-reform direction, addressing constitutional issues, challenges in addressing security of tenure, reforming land administration and management institutions, key issues and policy recommendations of the DNLP, news.

The workshop was held in Lusaka as part of FAO’s initiative in the area of women’s property rights in the context of HIV and AIDS. Report covers legal issues of, and lessons on, women’s land and property rights in Zambia; Theresa Chilala’s case; testimonies by widows and orphans in Zambia; successful interventions to protect women’s property rights by authorities � lessons from the region; inspiring initiatives by women and grassroots groups; key recommendations; working group deliberations; press release; opening and closing speeches; strategic framework.

The focus is on management and use of wetlands in Kenya. Coverage includes their role in poverty reduction, Lake Naivasha, Yala, the Nzoia River Basin, and the need for securing wetlands as common property resources. Argues that secure access to wetlands for poor rural communities is fundamental to improving their livelihoods.

Includes the grabbing of parastatal land, Agricultural Development Corporation farms, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, Kenya Industrial Estates, Kenya Railways Corporation, National Social Security Fund, Kenya Food and Chemical Corporation Limited, State House and Military land.