Aims to provide detailed guidance to support the adoption and effective implementation of laws, policies and programmes to protect women’s rights to land and other productive resources. Presents an overview of international and regional legal and policy instruments recognizing women’s rights to land and other productive resources, and discusses ways of advancing a human rights-based approach to them. Sets out recommendations in a range of areas accompanied by explanatory commentaries and good practice examples and case studies from countries.

Includes land use and livelihoods, rights and rules governing land use and natural resources, women’s rights to land, local governance institutions in Liberia, disputes, dispute resolution mechanisms, sources of tenure security and insecurity, community recommendations, policy recommendations.

As the development of Liberia’s natural wealth intensifies, a coherent set of policies that address questions of persistent gender inequality, sustainable rural livelihoods and long-term security of access to natural resources is needed. The capacity of rural women to maintain the local food economy must be preserved and enhanced, as must their ability to make informed decisions regarding the sustainable exploitation of natural resources.

Includes the rise of land deals in sub-Saharan Africa; land grabbing and risks for small scale farmers; land grabs: another yoke over women’s land rights?; is land grabbing threatening pastoralism?; opportunity for groups at risk: the African Union’s continental standards on the land question.

Report explores and analyses community perceptions of the obstacles facing women’s participation in decision-making about jointly held land. Also examines the factors that prevent women from participating in community-level decision-making structures, specifically those related to land. Conducted in 4  districts of Rwanda: Ngororero and Rutsiro (Western Province), Huye (Southern Province) and Ngoma (Eastern Province).

Report presents grassroots women’s approaches to access justice with a focus on land and property rights in Africa. This community empowerment-based research undertaken by the Huairou Commission and its partner groups across 7 African countries – Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe – showcases women’s rights challenges and effective strategies to improve women’s access to justice. These groups are making an impact through strategies such as community mapping exercises, local-to-local dialogues, and developing community watchdogs and training community paralegals.

The current Ethiopian government originated in a Marxist revolutionary movement, which early in its struggle against the Derg regime recognized the widespread discrimination against women in Ethiopian society and placed gender emancipation at the centre of its revolutionary strategy.

Rwanda has provided a picture of promising change for improving gender equalities in land rights. This report draws upon extensive qualitative field research in 20 sectors of Rwanda to examine the current state of gendered rights to land in practice. Among Rwandan communities, there is now widespread knowledge of laws granting gender-equal rights. More and more women are receiving inheritance and inter-vivos gifts and are increasingly receiving these in equal shares, while formally married women are exercising greater decision-making power over land held jointly with their husbands.

Provides an overview of different forms of shared tenure, whether between husband and wife, stable partners, extended families, women’s groups or communities. Analyses to what extent they are beneficial to women. Includes a preliminary examination of the impact of shared tenure on women’s effective land and housing rights, on women’s access to credit and on domestic violence. Seeks to contribute to the development of tools and strategies towards women’s security of tenure.

Gives views of the Alliance on co-ownership in current controversy with the Vice-President. Mentions studies carried out by the Alliance and the Ministry of Lands. Concerned about government’s marginalisation of issues concerning women and poverty. Urges it not to distort co-ownership but to try to understand it.

Includes women and livelihoods; gender equality in land policy and policy development; the Communal Land Reform Act; women’s rights to land and livestock; conclusion and recommendations.

Includes methodology and research sites; land, the law and women’s rights in Uganda; women’s rights – lost in the land rush; economic policy and land as a commodity; women’s rights activists – promoting women’s land rights; recommendations. Uganda’s eco-feminist movement is one of several working at the interface of environmental degradation, corporate human rights abuses and patriarchy, urgently building women’s campaigning and resistance skills.