In Africa, land has an emotional and mystical value beyond the economic consideration and
represents the social security and the continuity and independence of a family. In much of rural
Africa, land constitutes the primary source from which millions of people derive their daily
livelihoods (Bhandari 2001)
1
. In sub-Saharan Africa, women contribute between 60-80% of labor
used to produce food for both household consumption and sale to agricultural production while
women’s access to and control over land in Africa remains minimal (FAO, 1998).

We present a report on the results of a 10-month pilot project conducted in North- Western Rwanda that aimed to explore fruitful ways to engage with customary law in order to empower rural communities and rural women in particular. The focus is on the effectiveness of land dispute resolution at the community level and the respect for women’s formally guaranteed land rights by the institutions involved.

This framework aims to help civil society organisations to monitor land reforms. It identifies indicators on outcomes on land tenure and access to land that will help CSOs critically examine whether the rural poor’s land tenure is more secure, and whether their access to land has been enhanced.

Last 25-26 October 2010, the Association for Land Reform and Rural Development (ALRD), the Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC) and the International Land Coalition (ILC) jointly organised this Regional Workshop on Women and Land Rights, as a response to the urgent need to cast the spotlight on women and their access to and ownership of land. The objectives of the workshop were identifying strategic areas and developing a road map for 2011-2012, to strengthen ILC Asia’s work on women’s land rights.

This paper explores the tradeoffs between domestic and productive uses of biomass energy sources in the Nile Basin of Ethiopia using a non -­‐separable farm household model where labor and other input allocations to energy collection and farming are analyzed simultaneously.

This article explores the effects that gender composition of forest user groups has on property rights and forestry governance, based on data from 290 forest user groups in Kenya, Uganda, Bolivia, and Mexico. Findings indicate gender composition of user groups is important, but not always in the expected ways. Female-dominated groups tend to have more property rights to trees and bushes, and collect more fuelwood but less timber than do male-dominated or gender-balanced groups.

Improving women’s access to land is high on the agricultural policy agenda of both governmental and non-governmental agencies. Yet, the determinants and rationale of gendered access to land are not well understood. This paper argues that gender relations are more than the outcomes of negotiations within households. It explains the importance of social norms, perceptions, and formal and informal rules shaping access to land for male and female farmers at four levels: (1) the household/family, (2) the community, (3) the state, and (4) the market. The framework is applied to Ghana.

The year 2015 saw a new global commitment to sustainable development that will require a reshaping of the world’s food system. The well-being of people and the planet will depend on creation of a food system that is more efficient, inclusive, climate-smart, sustainable, nutrition- and health-driven, and business-friendly.