A guest post by Nayna J Jhaveri, Ph.D., Resource Tenure Specialist, Tetra Tech

Strengthening women’s rights to own and inherit property provides them with greater opportunities to generate income and exercise control over family resources, which can improve women’s ability to feed and educate their children. This simple but powerful message is highlighted by Deborah Espinosa’s recent Huffington Post blog In Kenya, Land Rights Bring New Hope for Women and Girls. Espinosa is a senior attorney and land tenure specialist at Landesa, which implements USAID’s Kenya Justice project.

The Botswana High Court recently issued a landmark ruling: four sisters are permitted to inherit their family home even though a customary rule prohibits women from inheriting property. The High Court ruled that the customary rule violated women’s equal rights. Remarkably, the High Court issued its decision in the face of strong government support of the customary rule. The details of this watershed case are featured in a recent article by City Press.

According to a recent article from the IPS News Agency, women in Cameroon produce 80% of the country’s food needs yet own only 2% of the land. Though a 1974 Land Tenure Ordinance provides women with equal rights to property ownership, in reality customary tenure practices which discriminate against women sometimes trump national laws. In some cases, customary systems have provided women with secure rights to use land and resources however, recently women have experience greater difficulties protecting rights under these systems.

Remarks by Gregory Myers, during negotiations for the Voluntary Guidelines for Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests on March 8, 2012 Ministers, Excellencies, honorable representatives of member countries, civil society participants and guests: This morning we begin our session with recognition of International Women’s Day. Each year the United Nations declares an International Women's Day theme.

In December 2009, Kenya adopted a new National Land Policy with the purpose of resolving the myriad of land tenure problems throughout the country. The policy calls for the recognition of customary community lands and land governance, addressing inequitable land distribution rooted in historical injustices, instituting a transparent and accountable system of land administration, and ensuring the effective protection of women’s rights to land and related resources, including the provision for joint spousal registration and documentation of land rights.

On April 10, representatives from U.S. NGO Landesa presented an impact evaluation on USAID’s Kenya Justice Project during the World Bank’s Annual Conference on Land and Poverty. Kenya’s 2010 constitution provided greater legal recognition of women’s rights to own and inherit land; the Justice project – which is implemented by Landesa – has piloted a model for improving community awareness and acceptance of those formal rights in order to make them a reality for rural women.

In a groundbreaking symposium on women's access to land in Africa, with mostly researchers and institutional officials as attendees, the Huairou Commission delegation provided a unique community-based perspective. The Huairou Commission delegation of 12 grassroots women leaders from Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa participated in two important panels, "Promoting Security of Tenure and Land Rights for Women in Urban Areas" and "Grassroots Women's Practices on Land Access and Control".

Girls Not Brides, a global partnership of more than 200 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) committed to ending child marriage, recently featured an article on how women's land rights can help reduce child marriage. The article describes how USAID’s Kenya Justice project has helped improve girls’ access to education by working with customary justice systems to strengthen women’s land rights in target communities.

On December 15th, USAID and the Afghanistan Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA) launched a nationwide public information and awareness campaign about Afghan women’s rights to inherit and own land and property. The campaign is part of USAID’s Land Reform in Afghanistan (LARA) which works with the Government of Afghanistan to build the local capacity necessary to design and implement transparent, effective land tenure reform.

Assesses the process to establish a system of land registration and improve land tenure security, and its outcomes for poor and marginalised groups in Amhara, Ethiopia .The registration process is found to be generating conflict at the local level, due to illegal land grabbing, encroachments into common lands and land sales.

This study explores the relationship between HIV/AIDS and land rights in Kenya, with a particular focus on women as a socially vulnerable group. It examines: the ways that HIV/AIDS-affected households are coping in terms of land access, use and management; the consequences of these coping strategies on security of access and rights to land; and how changes in land tenure, access and rights to land among different categories of people are affecting agricultural productivity, food security and poverty.