Includes the legal and policy situation relating to women’s land rights in Southern Africa; women farmers speak out on which land rights are being enjoyed, or not; potential springboards to the realisation of women’s land rights; baseline trends and key conclusions; recommended action points.

Contains introduction, the FAO Gender and Land Project with CFJJ, Forum Mulher in collaboration with partners, CLUSA: soy bean production and land rights, Norwegian People’s Aid with partners, recommendations. Draws attention to the need for a more concerted and focused initiative in Mozambique to support women’s land rights and recommends that Norway now responds to that challenge. The major challenge is to implement the Land Law. Individuals and communities need economic and political resources to be able to claim and secure legally established rights to land.

Examines 8 reasons why addressing housing, land and property issues is important in humanitarian response, including: addressing loss of land or inability to return to land and homes after disasters, and protecting women and supporting their recovery.

Contains an overview and thematic notes on gendered access to land and property; legal reforms and women’s property rights; land dispute resolution; gender-responsive titling; case studies from Nepal and Honduras; further reading.

Key findings: Customary tenure remains strong with only 1.2% of plots held under statutory tenure. Over 86% of women reported they have access to land under customary tenure and c.63% of women reported they “own” land under customary tenure. Tenure security is not dependent on formal documentation as proof of ownership. Men play a dominant role in land management. General knowledge of statutory and customary land law and management systems is poor. c.50% of the population have experienced land conflicts, 72% are within household, family or clan.

Report divided into 5 themes: legal issuers of women’s rights to land and property in Namibia; traditional institutions on women’s land and property rights; HIV/AIDS, land and property rights, and livelihood strategies; Namibian experiences; regional experiences (Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe).

Includes the predicaments, concerns and challenges faced by rural women – commercialization of natural resources, how rural women value land, from ‘women’s crops’ to ‘men’s crops’, plantation economies and rural women, the water factor, women are not parties to the deal. Towards solutions for rural women, invest in local food systems, women’s rights to land, build toward collective action. Conclusions and recommendations.

ROAPE’s Janet Bujra questions Marjorie Mbilinyi about her fifty years of campaigning against patriarchal oppression on many fronts in Tanzania. Mbilinyi traces the legitimisation of feminism as a means to understand and a way to organise for and with women. This is not a feminism lifted from Europe or the US, but one generated in response to Tanzanian and African realities.

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.

Contains introduction; determinants of property rights and consequences of loss (including country examples from Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia); policy context: influencing strategies to promote property and housing rights; finding what works: mapping good practice in local and national activities (including legislative frameworks, judicial capacity and litigation, public awareness); lessons and suggested next steps; conclusion; appendices; references.

In 1999 Ghana engaged in an ambitious land reform process with the adoption of a National Land Policy implemented through a Land Administration Project. The reform aims at strengthening land administration institutions and increasing the security of land tenure for landholders on both customary and state land, but the process is facing multiple challenges, e.g.

Examines the role of development cooperation in land reforms and the extent to which donor organisations have addressed concerns related to gender equality. Reviews the reforms in 15 countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia, with a focus on Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Nicaragua. Legislation upholding gender equality is now present in different degrees in most of the countries examined. However, implementation often does not follow suit and women still face discrimination, in part due to social and cultural barriers and the inaccessibility of institutions able to support them.