¿Qué derechos tienen las mujeres rurales al recurso tierra? Estos derechos, ¿son definidos por el Estado o por los usos y costumbres de la comunidad? ¿Qué papel ha jugado la legislación agraria para garantizar el derecho de las mujeres a la tierra? ¿Cuáles son los factores más determinantes (legales o de otro tipo) en el acceso de las mujeres a este recurso?

A través del análisis de estos dos procesos, las autoras discuten una diversidad de temas que alimentan el debate en varios campos: los estudios agrarios, los estudios sobre género y desarrollo y los desafíos del feminismo en América Latina.

En los años noventa la intervención estatal en la agricultura latinoamericana se concentró en los programas de titulación de predios (TIERRA), diseñados para promover la seguridad de tenencia y fortalecer los mercados de tierras. Un examen de siete de estos programas sugiere que con frecuencia se diseñaron sin prestar atención suficiente a los códigos civiles y los regímenes matrimoniales que protegen los derechos de propiedad de las mujeres. Muchas veces ignoraron que en un hogar la tierra puede formar parte de tres tipos de propiedad: la de la esposa, del esposo y el patrimonio común.

This research report examines three questions that are central to IFPRI research: How do property-rights institutions affect efficiency and equity? How are resources allocated within households? Why does this matter from a policy perspective? As part of a larger multicountry study on property rights to land and trees, this study focuses on the evolution from customary land tenure with communal ownership toward individualized rights, and how this shift affects women and men differently.This study’s key contribution is its multilevel econometric analysis of efficiency and equity issues.

The topic of gender relations in the context of conflict covers highly sensitive terrain, not only within the war-torn society, but for intervening institutions. Like other international humanitarian agencies, Oxfam Great Britain (GB) has faced difficult questions about whether its presence has sometimes done more harm than good. External agencies also have to ask themselves whether their interventions impact negatively on women and gender relations.

Delegates at the Harare conference on farm workers in Southern Africa noted with concern the continued marginalisation of farm worker communities and made recommendations on: weak labour legislation, citizenship rights, basic human rights, women farm workers/dwellers, HIV/AIDS, child labour and child abuse, globalization, debt cancellation, xenophobia, farm workers and land reform, the need for a regional summit.

Asks whether land reform is still a goal worth pursuing for rural women. Includes gender and land reform; changing livelihoods and de-agrarianisation; insecurities; land tenure and land titling; limitations to land; arguments for landholding; a few policy and practical initiatives; conflicts over land and property. Concludes that, despite all the problems outlined, land reform for rural women is worth pursuing since, among other things, it would lessen the risks of hunger and malnutrition and also provide links to rights in other spheres.

Women play important roles as producers of food, managers of natural resources, income earners, and caretakers of household food and nutrition security. Giving women the same access to physical and human resources as men could increase agricultural productivity, just as increases in women’s education and improvements in women’s status over the past quarter century have contributed to more than half of the reduction in the rate of child malnutrition.

Trade liberalisation processes impact differently on men and women due to the fact that men and women have different roles in production. Despite the fact that women are actively involved in international trade, WTO agreements are gender blind and as such have adverse impacts on women. The General Agreement in Trade and Service (GATS), for instance, provides for a level playing field in service provision between big foreign owned companies and small locally owned companies.

The Commission for Gender Equality has put land restitution programme at the top of its agenda for the gender summit in August. Cites paper by Dr Funiwe Jaiyesimi-Njobe saying the big problem is that land is usually allocated to groups headed by males. Women and communities are too often viewed as homogeneous groups. Calls for encouragement of a critical mass of women entrepreneurs in rural areas. Also cites Samantha Hargreaves of the National Land Committee saying women are usually excluded from restitution programme and are unlikely to be represented on CBOs.