Women represent a large part of the 2.5 billion people who depend on lands managed through customary, community-based tenure systems and are especially reliant on commons for their lives and livelihoods. They have very often limited and unsecured access to land and natural resources and tend to be excluded from decisions concerning them.

A recent study of two Senegalese villages showed how training women on land access is helping them claim their land rights. But disparities in results between locations and the use of customary practices as the preferred way of accessing land highlighted that civil society organisationsstrategies and approaches need to reflect local realities and ensure women from different groups and geographies also benefit.

Más de 10 años después de la oleada de grandes transacciones de tierras (las GTT) en países en desarrollo y que siguió al aumento, de finales de la década del 2000, en los precios de las materias primas agrícolas, la Iniciativa Land Matrix hace balance de la “carrera mundial por la tierra”, y de sus repercusiones ambientales y socioeconómicas. A partir de la base de datos Land Matrix y de una revisión bibliográfica para analizar y comprender mejor los amplios efectos de las GTT, nuestras conclusiones son aleccionadoras y, en parte, alarmantes.

Describes how community-level dialogues uprooted harmful gender norms that hinder women’s rights to land. Showed that shifting harmful gender norms at the community level is crucial in supporting women to access land rights. Customary leaders like indunas and village headpersons are a key entry point for that shift. Change can be slow. But spaces for dialogue;critical reflection and support for action-planning enabled the indunas to not only change their own beliefs;but also begin to see their role and their communities in a different light.

The article reviews the latest available statistical information on gender inequalities in labor markets and in access to financial institutions, social services, and education.

USAID programs and Missions implement activities that improve land rights, support inclusive land and resource governance, build resilient livelihoods, and promote women’s empowerment. This brief explores the relationship between gender norms and women’s land rights, introducing key social norms concepts and tools to identify and shift harmful norms in the context of land and natural resources.

This one-pager provides details on the LAND-at-scale project in Rwanda. This project is implemented by Kadaster International and IDLO, and financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs via the Netherlands Enterprise & Development Agency. 

Desde el asesinato de Berta Cáceres en 2016 hasta el 2021, al menos 21 defensoras de tierra y territorio han sido asesinadas en Mesoamérica. Otras 45 defensoras sufrieron intentos de asesinato. Entre 2016 y 2019, registramos un total de 7141 agresiones, 1 de cada 4 de estas fueron dirigidas a defensoras de tierra y territorio. Casi la mitad de las agresiones ocurrieron en Honduras. La mitad de las agresiones entre 2019 y 2020 fueron realizadas por agentes estatales; las empresas realizaron 3 de cada 10.

This one-pager provides details on the LAND-at-scale project in Mozambique. This project is implemented by Centro Terra Viva and Terra Firma, and financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs via the Netherlands Enterprise & Development Agency. 

For more than five years, the Women’s Land Tenure Security (WOLTS) Project has been investigating the intersection of gender and land relations in mining-affected pastoralist communities in Mongolia and Tanzania. The aim has been to develop a methodology for long-term community engagement and capacity building to protect and support the land rights of all vulnerable people – thus to fully mainstream attention to gender equity in land tenure governance within a framework that would facilitate improvements in community land rights across the board.

Depuis plus de cinq ans, le projet WOLTS (Women’s Land Tenure Security) étudie le croisement entre les relations de genre et de droits fonciers dans les communautés pastorales affectées par l’exploitation minière en Mongolie et en Tanzanie.

Land in Ethiopia is held by the state, who acts as a custodian for the Ethiopian people. Even though it is the state which controls land ownership, farmers and pastoralists are guaranteed a lifetime ‘holding’ right that provides rights to use the land, rent it out, donate, inherit and sharecrop it. Everything except sell and mortgage it. On paper and under existing formal laws, women have equal rights to men as far as use and control of and access to land is concerned.