Do women have effective land rights in practice? Research and policy have only recently begun to engage with the need for women to have independent rights to fields of their own. What needs to be done? Four areas for action are identified with associated strategies: improve women's claims on private land (e. g. through gender equal inheritance laws); improve women's access to public land (e.g. through land reform schemes); improve women's access to land via the market (e.g. through subsidised credit); and improve the viability of women's farming efforts (e.g.

As governments, the private sector, multilateral institutions, and international development organisations weigh the options for improving food security around the world, they must consider one of the most promising elements for addressing the needs of the world’s hungry and malnourished: secure land rights. Addressing land rights issues—in particular, women’s land rights—in programmes and policies designed to address food security and nutrition through agriculture can deepen the impact of those interventions and lead to improved development outcomes.

Case study of the gender aspects of small-scale farming in the Vihiga District of Kenya, focusing on gender differences in access, control and ownership of land, and gender relations and attitudes to land tenure.

This study attempts to analyse changing patterns of land transfer and ownership, as well as school investments by gender over three generations in customary land areas of Ghana's Western Region. Traditional inheritance rules deny land ownership rights to women. Yet the increase in the demand for women's labour due to the expansion of labour intensive cocoa cultivation has created incentives for husbands to give their wives and children land. Through this and other gift mechanisms, women have increasingly acquired land, thereby reducing the gender gap in land ownership.

Studies have shown that a key factor associated with rural poverty is access to land. Yet in many parts of India there remains a huge gender gap in land ownership and control - with significant implications for women's economic and social status.

An investigation of the potential gender implications of the shift from communal to more individualised forms of land tenure in the Bambara area of Mali.

Across Africa, land is integral to identity and existence. Access to, and ownership of land for women is often problematic – particularly when laws and culture collide. Land issues, including family property matters, are often determined within entrenched cultural norms, resulting in the application of a hybrid legal interpretation of both customary and national law that leaves many women at a disadvantage. Under the Commonwealth Plan of Action for Gender Equality 2005-2015, the Commonwealth Secretariat has spearheaded efforts to secure women’s rights to land in Africa.

In Africa, the pursuit of gender equality in inheritance rights remains one of the most difficult challenges due to its entrenched patriarchal characteristics. This is also the case in the rural communities of South-Eastern Nigeria. This article investigates gender discrimination in the region, among the Igbo ethnic group, with regard to land property rights; and makes policy recommendations to overcome the failures of past intervention efforts, many of which considered this problem as too culturally sensitive.

While the majority of women in Sub-Saharan Africa and particularly Eastern Africa provide a living for their families on land, they largely do not own it. This comprises one part of a study on women and land in five countries in Eastern Africa - and was commissioned by the Eastern African Sub-Regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI).

Previously in China, all land was controlled by the communes. Over the past twenty years, with the break up of the communes, new land tenure arrangements have given greater control over land to individual households. This essay argues that recent transfers in land tenure between households have caused women to lose rights and decision making power over land, as well as possibilities to benefit from land. Men's migration to cities has caused a 'feminisation' of agriculture which fuels a market for tenure transfer.

The biofuel boom has become a core issue in Zimbabwean land and development debates. Biofuels require large tracts of land for production; and the land acquisition programmes by the various state, non-state actors and individuals have been termed ‘land grabbing’. The increasing global demand for biofuels has different gender specific socio-economic and environmental effects in Zimbabwe. Males and females in the biofuel producing zone may face a differential risk matrix, comprising different issues.

Gender issues in land tenure systems. Sections include: key issues; females' less visible roles; instances when women and girls may need special attention; examples of gender sensitive terms of reference; and mini case studies.