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Paper discusses Zambia’s dual land tenure system, the ways in which gender issues have been incorporated in legal and policy documents, and the extent to which this has been reflected in practice. It also examines the role of donors in legal and policy processes and donor support to civil society in relation to women’s land rights. Gender and land policies provide for the allocation of land to women, but have little impact on the ground. Customary law is on the whole discriminatory against women, in particular with regard to land ownership. A gender policy and two subsequent land policies have aimed to redress gender inequality by providing for women to be allocated 30% of the land, but this has not been implemented in practice. Laws on inheritance have tried to redress unequal land succession rights, but implementation and enforcement of these laws lag behind.
