In this paper, we explore how different norms around property rights affect the empowerment of women of different social positions over the life cycle. We first review the conceptual foundations of property, empowerment, and intersectionality, and then present the methodology and empirical findings from ethnographic field work in Nepal. Going beyond formal ownership of property, we look at changes in property rights over personal and joint property at different stages of women’s lives.

FAO and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH have been providing support to the Western Balkans region to promote progress on Gender Equality, with a focus on measuring the proportion of countries where the legal framework guarantees women’s equal rights to land ownership and/or control.

Urban agriculture has been theorized by social scientists, and even some urban growers, as a means of reclaiming the commons. But what does “reclaiming the commons” entail? A longue-durée genealogy reveals distinct socio-legal imaginations of the commons and visions of how it might be reclaimed. Social thinkers and reformers have split over how to address the key problem of private property identified by John Locke: landless people who can’t find paid employment.

Investment in land administration projects is often considered key for agricultural productivity and rural development in developing countries. But the evidence on such interventions is remarkably mixed. This paper reviews the literature and discusses a number of challenges related to the analysis of the impacts of land administration programs, focusing on developing countries where the starting position is one of land administration systems based on the Napoleonic code, with existing individual rights that may be imperfect and insecure.

Property rights are a cornerstone of economic development and social justice. A fundamental way of understanding the strength of property rights is through citizens' perceptions of them. Yet perceptions of tenure security have never been collected at a global scale.

This primer provides guidance for including and protecting vulnerable groups in the context of a land-based investment. It outlines the importance of identifying and engaging with vulnerable groups, who often have weak claims to land rights and are particularly susceptible to negative impacts from changes in land use. It provides

• an overview of who may qualify for inclusion in a vulnerable group and descriptions of specific vulnerable groups, and

• step-by-step guidance for governments, business, and communities..

This primer on monitoring and evaluation (M&E) offers a brief explanation of what M&E is, why it is important and what common best practices are associated with it, all in the context of supporting the implementation of a socially responsible land-based investment. It also includes specific guidance on how to develop and execute an effective M&E plan for the implementation of an investment.

From the outset, the development of agriculture has been strongly associated with women’s endeavour. In fact, women’s contribution to agriculture goes back to the origins of farming and the domestication of animals when the first human settlements were established more than 6 000 years ago. Over the years, the division of responsibilities and labour within households and communities tended to place farming and nutrition-related tasks under women’s domain. Nowadays, in many societies women continue to be mainly responsible for family food security and nutrition.

Private forests are widespread in Europe providing a range of ecosystem services of significant value to society, and there are calls for novel policies to enhance their provision and to face the challenges of environmental changes. Such policies need to acknowledge the importance of private forests, and importantly they need to be based on a deep understanding of how property rights held by private forest owners vary across Europe. We collected and analysed data on the content of property rights based on formal legal requirements existing in 31 European jurisdictions.

This guide is about making the recording or registration of tenure rights more relevant to people who hold those tenure rights, and particularly to people who are currently poorly served by systems to record or register tenure rights. It provides practical advice on ways to improve the recording of tenure rights, including by addressing barriers that prevent people from using recording systems.

We propose a theory of urban land use with endogenous property rights that applies to cities in developing countries. Households compete for where to live in the city and choose the property rights they purchase from a land administration which collects fees in inequitable ways. The model generates predictions regarding the levels and spatial patterns of residential informality in the city. Simulations show that land policies that reduce the size of the informal sector may adversely impact households in the formal sector through induced land price increases.

There is a direct relationship between women’s right to land, economic empowerment, food se-curity and poverty reduction. A gender approach to land rights can enable shifts in gender power relations, and assure that all people, regardless of sex, benefit from, and are empowered by, development policies and practices to improve people’s rights to land. This brief gives an over-view on how to consider gender aspects in pro-jects and programmes addressing land rights.