The Rural Women’s Land Rights Charter of Kenya is a bold expression of the concerns/ issues and their aspirations of women living in rural areas on land matters. At the core of these aspirations is the  realization of secure and protected women’s land rights and security for their land-based livelihoods. Women from rural areas in 24 counties in Kenya highlighted their issues and expressed the kind of change they would like to see on matters land through the Rural Women’s Land Rights Charter.

Land is one of the terrains of struggle for most rural women in Africa because of its importance in sustaining rural livelihoods, and social-cultural and geopolitical factors that hinder women from enjoying land rights. Even when there are progressive land laws, as it is for Tanzania, women have not really enjoyed their rights. However, this has not stopped women to keep fighting for their land rights.  They have sought their own approaches by leveraging opportunities within traditional, religious, and formal systems standing for their rights. 

This preliminary study involved consultation of responsible district government officials and relevant Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) on various issues related to land and investments. Among other areas, the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) was selected as a study site and study used the Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) to obtain information. Questionnaire designed reflected land investment  governance  process  thematic  areas.

Moçambique é um país repleto de instrumentos – políticas, estratégias, pacotes legislativos – para o desenvolvimento. O combate à pobreza, a desigualdade de género, o desenvolvimento rural, entre outros, são temas tratados nesse leque de instrumentos orientadores. Este trabalho tem como objectivo discutir a integração da mulher camponesa no processo de desenvolvimento rural, tendo em consideração as constantes preocupações com a equidade de género.

Em vários países em desenvolvimento, a agricultura é a principal actividade e é tida como a base para o crescimento das suas economias. Em Moçambique, apesar do emergente crescimento da indústria extractiva nos últimos anos e da redução considerável da percentagem de pessoas que tem a agricultura como actividade principal (de 60% em 2005 para 54% em 2012, segundo o Inquérito Agrário Integrado de 2012), a actividade agrícola continua a ser o principal sector económico, empregando a maior a parte da população, sobretudo no meio rural.

Women face many problems with regard to land inheritance and land rights in Kenya. Individual and community land ownership do not favour women. The reason for this is that ownership of land is patrilineal, which means that fathers share land amongst sons, while excluding daughters. This practice is traditionally widespread and partly accepted although it goes against the interest of women and is prohibited by the constitution.

While women’s rights to land and property are protected under the Kenyan Constitution of 2010 and in various national statutes, in practice, women remain disadvantaged and discriminated. The main source of restriction is customary laws and practices, which continue to prohibit women from owning or inheriting land and other forms of property.

Kenya’s Vision 2030 aims at transforming the country into a newly industrialized middle income country

and infrastructural development is high on the agenda to achieve this. Competing land uses and existing

interests in land make the use of eminent domain by government in acquiring land inevitable. However

most of the land earmarked for compulsory acquisition comprises of un- registered land whose interests

The study tried to assess the state of data in India, particularly to track and report two critical land governance indicators viz. women land rights and forest rights, critical to ensure equity and sustainability in terms of public policy. 
With UN’s SDG, defining similar indicators, study  also attempts in aligning them around SDG indicators. Status of these two parameters were analyzed using nation-wide datasets collecting whole population data, through census of India, Agriculture Census  operations following robust processes and reporting them open access.

This paper was presented at the “2017 WORLD BANK CONFERENCE ON LAND AND POVERTY”, The World Bank - Washington DC. This paper provides a comparative appreciation of all the datasets especially the metadata and methodology along with a SWOT vis-à-vis reporting requirement of SDG indicator.