land tenure and property rights matrix women ......quantity contract (iqc) contract no....

SEPTEMBER 2013

LAND TENURE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS MATRIX

WOMEN, LAND, AND RESOURCES

OVERLAY

This tool was prepared by Tetra Tech on behalf of USAID, under the Property Rights and Resource

Governance Program under the Prosperity, Livelihoods and Critical Ecosystems (PLACE) Indefinite

Quantity Contract (IQC) Contract No. EPP-I-00-06-00008-00, Task Order 002.

For more information on this tool, please contact:

Dr. Gregory Myers, Division Chief, Land Tenure and Property Rights, E3/LTRM, USAID,

[email protected].

Dr. Michael Roth, Task Manager, Task 3.01, Property Rights and Resource Governance

Program, Tetra Tech, [email protected].

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]

LAND TENURE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS MATRIX

WOMEN, LAND, AND

RESOURCES OVERLAY

SEPTEMBER 2013

DISCLAIMER

The author’s views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United

States Agency for International Development or the United States Government

LAND TENURE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS MATRIX – WOMEN, LAND, AND RESOURCES OVERLAY i

CONTENTS

CONTENTS .......................................................................................................................................... i

ACRONYMS ........................................................................................................................................ iii

PREFACE ............................................................................................................................................... v

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................ vii

1.0 RESOURCE CONFLICT AND DISPLACEMENT ........................................................... 1

1.1 LTPR ISSUE ................................................................................................................... 1

1.2 ILLUSTRATIVE INTERVENTIONS ......................................................................... 2

1.3 READINGS .................................................................................................................... 5

2.0 WEAK GOVERNANCE ........................................................................................................ 7

2.1 LTPR ISSUE ................................................................................................................... 7

2.2 VOLUNTARY GUIDELINES WITH RESPECT TO WOMEN AND

GENDER ........................................................................................................................ 9

2.3 ILLUSTRATIVE INTERVENTIONS ......................................................................... 9

2.4 READINGS .................................................................................................................. 12

3.0 INSECURE TENURE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS ......................................................... 15

3.1 LTPR ISSUE ................................................................................................................. 15

3.2 VOLUNTARY GUIDELINES WITH RESPECT TO DISCRIMINATION .... 17

3.3 ILLUSTRATIVE INTERVENTIONS ....................................................................... 18

3.4 READINGS .................................................................................................................. 21

4.0 INEQUITABLE ACCESS TO LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES ..................... 23

4.1 LTPR ISSUE ................................................................................................................. 23


4.3 READINGS .................................................................................................................. 28

5.0 POORLY PERFORMING (LAND) MARKETS ............................................................... 29

5.1 LTPR ISSUE ................................................................................................................. 29


5.3 READINGS .................................................................................................................. 33

6.0 UNSUSTAINABLE NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT/ BIODIVERSITY

LOSS ......................................................................................................................................... 35

6.1 LTPR ISSUE ................................................................................................................. 35


6.3 READINGS .................................................................................................................. 40

ANNEX A: WOMEN, LAND, AND RESOURCES MATRIX OVERLAY, SUMMARY

TABLES .................................................................................................................................... 41

LAND TENURE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS MATRIX – WOMEN, LAND, AND RESOURCES OVERLAY iii

ACRONYMS

FAO Food and Agriculture Organization

HIV/AIDS Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

IQC Indefinite Quantity Contract

LTD Land Tenure and Property Rights Division

LTPR Land Tenure and Property Rights

NGO Nongovernmental Organization

NRM Natural Resources Management

PLACE Prosperity, Livelihoods and Critical Ecosystems

PRRGP Property Rights and Resource Governance Program

UNDP United Nations Development Program

USAID United States Agency for International Development

USG United States Government

LAND TENURE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS MATRIX – WOMEN, LAND, AND RESOURCES OVERLAY v

PREFACE

Resource tenure and property rights challenges are present in almost every country where the United States

Agency for International Development (USAID) works. In many countries, tenure and property rights

problems are so grave that they create political instability, violence, population displacement, famine, and

environmental destruction, which significantly undermine or prevent successful implementation of many

USAID programs. Over the last decade the demand to address property rights issues has increased from both

USAID field missions and host country governments. The increase in demand is due, in part, to a growing

awareness among development practitioners of the role played by property rights (and natural resource access

and use) in economic growth, governance, and conflict and resource management.

USAID and its partners have learned a great deal over the last three decades about the relationship between

property rights and economic growth, productivity, and to a lesser extent, natural resource management and

conflict. There are several important lessons learned from the last decade of research and policy work on

property rights with a particular emphasis on land and resource tenure.

1. Land tenure and property rights (LTPR) systems are fundamental to a wide variety of

development outcomes. Secure land tenure improves food security, economic growth, and natural

resource management and reduces the impacts of conflict and climate change. Securing the rights of

women, youth and vulnerable populations and broadening their access to resources complements and

deepens the impact of interventions aimed at improving these outcomes. This is the case for people

across the economic spectrum from smallholder farmers to urban manufacturers. An effective land

governance and property rights system is fundamental to the broad process of economic and political

development.

2. Weak land governance systems limit economic growth; threaten good natural resource

management; often promote conflict; and pose special problems for vulnerable groups,

including minorities, indigenous people, the poor, and women. Recognition of customary rights to

land resources and the devolution of management authority improves land and resource governance and

is crucial to sustainable natural resource management. Although many countries have effective and secure

land governance and property rights systems, in numerous places, systems and rights are weak. The

results of these weaknesses include conflict over land and resources, corruption associated with poorly

functioning land governance systems, resource degradation, and limited economic growth.

3. In development programming, property rights are most frequently dealt with in the context of

land tenure reform, but they are increasingly being addressed through more integrated projects.

Programming decisions made in a variety of sectors that consider land tenure can have profound impacts

on land use and natural resource management, agricultural systems, and infrastructure development.

4. Too often, LTPR reforms are measured in terms of outputs rather than impacts (e.g., measuring

the number of land titles that have been issued as opposed to focusing on market performance and

investment increases, reduced conflict, or improved use of sustainable management practices). This focus

vi LAND TENURE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS MATRIX – WOMEN, LAND, AND RESOURCES OVERLAY

BOX A: ILLUSTRATIVE USAID LAND

TENURE PROJECTS

Afghanistan Land Titling and Economic

Restructuring

Biodiversity Conservation of Public Lands in

the Brazilian Amazon

Egypt Financial Services Project

Ethiopia Land Administration Program

Ghana Commercial Agriculture

Indonesia Marine and Climate Support

Liberia Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond

Development

Property Rights and Resource Governance

(Global)

Rwanda Land Project

Tajikistan Land Reform

Timor Leste Strengthening Property Rights

Ukraine Land Titling Initiative

Uganda Supporting Access to Justice, Fostering

Peace and Equity

See USAID Land Tenure and Property Rights Portal

(http://www.usaidlandtenure.net)

on outputs prevents USAID from fully understanding the efficacy and potential cross-sectoral benefits of

its property rights reforms and programs. A greater emphasis on impact evaluation is needed.

5. The ultimate objective is to secure property rights that will promote economic growth, food

security, natural resource management, and stability. Security of tenure can be achieved through a

variety of approaches and should result in greater confidence that property rights will not be

indiscriminately taken or unjustifiably restricted. Securing land and resource rights can be achieved

through a variety of legal, administrative, and judicial means. It may require legal reform in one context

and dispute resolution in another. USAID promotes the implementation of “secure enough” tenure

rights and does not consider land titling or land formalization as the ultimate objective.

Issues and constraints regarding property rights vary from

region to region, and they will continue to evolve over

time. The most volatile of USAID-presence countries—

and those that are often in the greatest need of property

rights reform—are fragile states. Since property rights are

so closely linked to development agendas across the globe,

there is a need to understand how these rights shift as

economies move through the stages of economic growth

and democratization (and, in some cases, from war to

peace) and how these shifts require different property

rights interventions.

In light of these common concerns and issues, a whole-of-

government approach to addressing land tenure and

property rights has been developed through USAID and

the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). USAID’s

LTPR Division (LTD) coordinates issues of LTPR

programming with other USAID bureaus, US government

(USG) entities, and multilateral organizations. USAID

currently works in close to 30 countries around the world

to promote land governance systems (both formal and

informal) that enable broad-based economic growth,

human rights protection, and effective natural resource

management. Because weak land governance systems

compound vulnerability, our efforts are particularly beneficial for vulnerable groups. These efforts are

investing over $800 million to strengthen the land tenure and resource rights of men, women, and children in

the developing world.

LAND TENURE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS MATRIX – WOMEN, LAND, AND RESOURCES OVERLAY vii

INTRODUCTION

A FRAMEWORK FOR LAND TENURE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS

USAID has developed a suite of tools and methodologies designed to enhance the understanding and

programming of LTPR challenges and activities to advance USG Development Objectives in a number of

areas, including food security, global climate change, conflict mitigation and women’s economic

empowerment. This body of work has been highly experimental, consultative, and developmental and has

grown commensurate with growth of US investments in this sector.1

This work includes four components as summarized below, and are meant to be mutually reinforcing as

illustrated in Figure 1: LTPR Framework.

1. The LTPR Framework serves as

the overarching conceptual

methodology tying together

overarching themes, definitions,

tools, assessments, designs, and

training programs that USAID uses

to improve LTPR programming

and capacity building. The

Framework also includes:

LTPR Matrixes—A

Methodology for determining

USAID-recommended

interventions for different asset

and social classes (e.g., men and

women); and a methodology for

identifying constraints and

opportunities.

LTPR Intervention Sequencing

of land tenure and land reforms

tailored to each country, region, or project context that leads to stronger and more efficient property

rights systems. Beyond identifying interventions to address LTPR constraints, sequencing in addition

requires assessment of appropriate scale, timing, and ordering.

The LTPR Glossary is a guide to key LTPR terms and concepts, gathered from frequently cited

international references.

1 This body of work updates tools that were originally produced under the Lessons Learned: Property Rights and Natural Resource Management

contract

FIGURE 1. LTPR FRAMEWORK

viii LAND TENURE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS MATRIX – WOMEN, LAND, AND RESOURCES OVERLAY

2. LTPR Assessment Tools—A Methodology for Assessing LTPR Constraints and Interventions—

includes two tools to guide USAID mission programming:

LTPR Situation Assessment and Intervention Planning (SAIP) Tool, which is a diagnostic and

programming tool to help USAID missions understand and assess LTPR issues and determine how these

contribute to or impede realization of Development Objectives; and

LTPR Impact Evaluation Tool, which provides a methodology for designing evaluations to determine

the outcomes and impacts of land and natural resource tenure and property rights programming, whether

as a project’s main focus or a component of a broader set of goals.

In addition to these Framework and assessments tools, USAID has developed:

3. LTPR training materials, which include short courses and other trainings to transfer knowledge and

best practices about land tenure and property rights and strengthen LTPR knowledge, capacity, and

understanding of USG program staff and implementing partners. Curriculum may be found on the LTPR

web portal at www.USAIDlandtenure.net; and,

4. LTPR Knowledge Management, which consists of USAID Program Briefs on land tenure projects,

LTPR Country Profiles, Issues Briefs, films, and LTPR research. This can be found at the USAID Land

Tenure and Property Rights Portal (www.usaidlandtenure.net), which serve as the foundation for LTPR

knowledge management within the Agency.

The intended audiences for all of these tools are USAID missions, USAID Washington Bureau staff, and

other USG personnel who seek to understand how property rights issues may be affecting program

outcomes, how to design interventions that can help address those issues, and how to evaluate the impacts of

those programs to inform new program development. The tools may likewise prove useful to a range of

development practitioners outside the USAID sphere who encounter property rights challenges in their work

and seek to understand and address them more effectively.

This report presents the Matrix Overlay for Women, Land, and Resources, one of the sub-tools

comprising the Land Tenure and Property Rights (LTPR) Matrix and LTPR Framework, which are

elaborated in the document Land Tenure and Property Rights Framework USAID, September 2013). Both the

LTPR Matrix and LTPR Framework are briefly presented here to contextualize development of a base Matrix

that is used to harmonize the population of five Matrix overlays—Land Tenure and Property Rights;

Freshwater Lakes, Rivers, and Groundwater; Minerals; Trees and Forests; and Women, Land, and

Resources—that serve the conceptual foundation for USAID LTPR programming. This document presents

the matrix Women, Land, and Resources Matrix Overlay constraints and interventions. The population of other

overlays is contained in companion documents.

LTPR MATRIX: A TOOL FOR VISUALIZING THE LTPR UNIVERSE

As early as 2004, USAID felt the need for a conceptual framework that would simply and eloquently help

USAID and contractors identify and assess LTPR issues (constraints) and “toolboxes” of interventions to

address those constraints. Land tenure and property rights is concerned with questions of access to land and

natural resources, the distribution of rights to those resources within society, the security of tenure held by

various individuals and groups over these resources, and the sustainability of their use.

http://www.usaidlandtenure.net/

LAND TENURE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS MATRIX – WOMEN, LAND, AND RESOURCES OVERLAY ix

The current generation base LTPR Matrix described in this section is aimed at addressing these questions and

is now the conceptual backbone of all interventions that follow. The Matrix illustrates a fairly complex but

finite set of LTPR themes, constraints, and interventions. It is not meant to be read sequentially from left to

right, nor from top to bottom; instead, it provides a menu of constraints and interventions that need to be

considered within the realm of LTPR programming. The base Matrix consists of six categories of LTPR

issues and potential constraints, three crosscutting constraints, and seven categories of policy and program

interventions.

CATEGORIES OF LTPR CONSTRAINTS

1. Resource Conflict and Displacement (Column 1) – Conflict over access and use of land and natural

resources often resulting in landlessness, squatting or population displacement due to macro causes of

genocide and war, social and ethnic conflict, climate change, and resource scarcity.

2. Weak Governance (Column 2) – Deficiencies in capacity to manage and/or disparities in power,

influence, and wealth that lead to mismanagement, lack of accountability, and inability of individuals,

communities, legal entities and groups to act upon and defend their rights in land, resources and

property.

FIGURE 2. LTPR CONSTRAINT ANALYSIS AND INTERVENTIONS

MATRIX

Crosscutting themes:

Gender/Women Vulnerability Ethnic and Socially Marginalized Populations

Lack of Government and Community Capacity

x LAND TENURE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS MATRIX – WOMEN, LAND, AND RESOURCES OVERLAY

3. Insecure Tenure and Property Rights (Column 3) – The consequence of inadequate rights awareness

or the perception of having too few rights, inadequate duration of rights, or inability to protect rights

from encroachment by others due to problems of open access, weak governance, rights inequality, weak

statutory and customary tenures, and expropriation without fair compensation.

4. Inequitable Access to Land and Natural Resources (Column 4) – Disparities in access and control

over resources between classes and gender that are often affiliated with poverty and social strife and

result in problems of landlessness, uneconomical and fragmented holdings, squatting, informal

settlements, and weak and unsustainable livelihoods.

5. Poorly Performing Land Markets (Column 5) – Absent/weak sales, rentals, sharecropping, and

exchanges that restrict the transfer of resources between willing sellers, buyers, lessors, and renters

thereby constraining economic growth, or that fail to serve the poor and disadvantaged due to imperfect

information, lack of capital, unequal bargaining power, or risk of distressed sales.

6. Unsustainable Natural Resources Management and Biodiversity Loss (Column 6) –

Overharvesting or degradation of land, water, forests, pasture, and wildlife resulting in unsustainable use

and biodiversity loss, or in the context of minerals, environmental degradation and practices that abuse or

usurp the rights of communities/miners due to weak property rights and governance systems.

Crosscutting Constraints:

7. Gender/ Women Vulnerability (Crosscutting) – This constraint category further nuances other

constraint columns in the matrix by asking the question of LTPR constraints for whom, and addresses

discrimination in property rights, land access, land markets, and ability to sustain natural resource

management by women and men.

8. Ethnic and Socially Marginalized Populations (Crosscutting) – The constraint categories to the left

in the matrix are further nuanced in this constraints column by the questions of LTPR constraints to

marginalized and disenfranchised populations including among others HIV/AIDS affected households,

pastoralist societies, indigenous populations, and post-conflict and climatically vulnerable populations

discriminated against or left behind by political and economic change, or needing LTPR support or

protection in face of political, economic and climatic shocks.

9. Lack of Government and Community Capacity (Crosscutting) – This constraints category relates to

the identification and development of human capital in service to land property rights reforms.

CATEGORIES OF LTPR INTERVENTIONS

1. Institutions and Governance (Row 1) – Institutional arrangements that improve the governance of

property rights from central to local levels by establishing rule of law, devolving authority, decentralizing

decision making, ensuring impartiality of the judiciary, providing for citizen participation, and ensuring

accountable and democratic governance.

2. Legal and Regulatory Framework (Row 2) – Interventions that provide individuals, groups,

communities, or legal entities with important legal rights of ownership, usufruct, exclusion, and

transferability, and typically focus on legal and regulatory reforms that increase clarity of rights,

strengthen rights ownership, and provide for legal recourse and due process.

LAND TENURE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS MATRIX – WOMEN, LAND, AND RESOURCES OVERLAY xi

3. Rights Awareness and Empowerment (Row 3) – Interventions aimed at raising citizen awareness and

understanding of their property rights as well as the procedures and facilities available to claim, defend

and enforce those rights. Illustrative interventions include mass media, human capacity training,

communication strategies and informational meetings targeting beneficiaries.

4. Conflict and Dispute Resolution (Row 4) – Formal and informal conflict mediation and dispute

resolution strategies and mechanisms aimed at mediating conflict, resolving disputes, dispelling or

averting violence, providing effective legal recourse and enabling compensation in the event of

resettlement and public takings.

5. Restitution, Redistribution, and Consolidation (Row 5) – Land reform and resettlement to redress

land concentration, privatize ownership, restitute rights, resettle displaced populations, or consolidate

small, fragmented units into larger ones with the aim of redressing historical injustices and achieving a

more fair, equitable, and productive land and agrarian structure.

6. Rights Delivery and Administration (Row 6) – Effective and low-cost land administration

interventions that connecting rights to land, resources and property in law with the exercise of those

rights in practice and focus on improving the effectiveness and reach of government in support of rights

registration, land demarcation, surveying, mapping, and cadastral development.

7. Resource Use Management (Row 7) – Strengthened property rights and governance to improve land

and natural resources management, conservation and bio-diversity protection, or land use planning for

municipal/urban development, and include such interventions as participatory decision-making, zoning,

trusts, conservancies, protected areas and co-management models.

The Matrix in Figure 2 serves as the template for regularizing and developing empirical overlays for five

natural and human resource domains in Figure 3:

Land Tenure and Property Rights;

Freshwater Lakes, Rivers, and Groundwater;

Minerals;

Trees and Forests; and

Women, Land, and Resources.

MATRIX OVERLAYS

Sections 1.0 to 6.0 populate the Women, Land, and Resources Matrix Overlay with salient issues and key

interventions, and link these to information sources for easy reference. Annex A provides summary tables on

issues and interventions extracted from the overlay which serve as useful tools for training exercises or as

“quick sheets” when undertaking assessments. Overlays and quick sheets for resource domains can be found

in the following volumes, all developed under the USAID Property Rights and Resource Governance Task

Order:

Overlay 1: Land Tenure and Property Rights Matrix;

Overlay 2: Freshwater Lakes, Rivers, and Groundwater Matrix ;

Overlay 3: Minerals Matrix;;

Overlay 4: Trees and Forests Matrix; and

Overlay 5: Women, Land, and Resources Matrix.

xii LAND TENURE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS MATRIX – WOMEN, LAND, AND RESOURCES OVERLAY

Each overlay is organized into chapters (see Sections 1.0 to 6.0) centered around constraint categories which:

Provide an overview of issues and sub-issues related to respective constraints;

Describe various policy and program interventions USAID recommends bundled according to

intervention categories;

Explain how the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)’s Voluntary Guidelines

on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security

addresses the constraint (where applicable); and

Include a list of related reading for each topic.

USAID programmatic recommendations are guided by the following principles:

Land tenure and property rights systems that recognize, record, and administer a multiplicity of statutory

and customary land tenure and property rights, whether held by individuals, groups or legal entities;

Land tenure and property rights systems that protect the rights of women and other marginalized groups

in society;

Fully participatory processes to define, delimit, record, and administer land tenure and property rights

and obligations;

FIGURE 3. LTPR CONSTRAINT ANALYSIS AND INTERVENTIONS MATRIX

LAND TENURE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS MATRIX – WOMEN, LAND, AND RESOURCES OVERLAY xiii

Market-mediated approaches to provide access to land;

Land governance systems that are reasonably accessible, in terms of location and cost, to all members of

society;

Land governance systems that allow and support the creations of transparent and effective land markets,

including land sales, leases, and the use of easements and other mechanisms; and

The equitable application of laws, regulations, and administrative practices for all market participants.

Importantly, the US government does not support the following: Expropriations and forcible

evictions/relocations (or the use of compulsory purchase/resumption) that violate rights to due process

and do not award prompt, adequate and effective compensation or that take private property for private

purpose.”

Whether for trainings, assessments, or project designs, there is a programmatic need to order the “universe”

of possible LTPR issues and interventions. The LTPR Matrix and overlays address this need. The process of

using the Matrix and overlays to examine LTPR issues and constraints generally comprises the following

steps:

1. Use the Matrix and overlays to clarify or identify key issues; for example, land conflict created by

disagreements over tribal/clan boundaries.

2. Identify categories of policy and programmatic interventions suited to addressing the constraints under

the appropriate toolbox of interventions.

3. Within the toolbox of interventions, identify specific policy and programmatic interventions (i.e., the

tools). For example, within the toolbox entitled Legal and Regulatory Framework, one might consider

granting legal recognition of customary institutions in land law or policy to address land conflict created

by clan disagreements. Within the toolbox of Rights Delivery and Administration, one might recommend

community land demarcation as an appropriate intervention to connect rights in law to specific

boundaries of community land.

4. Each of the five overlays can be used individually or in combination, as in a landscape, watershed, or

ecosystem assessment.

The specific interventions mentioned in the Matrix and overlays, while illustrative, nonetheless serve to

accelerate or expand thinking when needing to conduct “how to” courses and transfer knowledge in training

programs, help to target or focus questions or lines of enquiry when conducting LTPR assessments, or

recommend appropriate intervention strategies whether by way of making recommendations or formulating

project designs. The Matrix is thus the conceptual framework for ordering and clarifying thinking on LTPR

constraints and interventions, and the causal linkages between them.

LAND TENURE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS MATRIX – WOMEN, LAND, AND RESOURCES OVERLAY 1

1.0 RESOURCE CONFLICT

AND DISPLACEMENT

1.1 LTPR ISSUE

Violent conflict increases women’s vulnerability. Women can experience increased sexual and gender-based

violence right before and during times of conflict, while they are in internally displaced population camps, and

even after they have resettled, if their households or communities continue to be economically or socially

vulnerable. When conflict disrupts land tenure, whether or not land is the source of conflict, it also increases

women’s vulnerability, and engenders the deterioration of their rights to land. Climatic events that result in

displacement also tend to rupture the rights of women more than those of men. This is especially the case

when the prevailing legal, institutional, religious, and/or customary systems do not afford women the same

2 LAND TENURE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS MATRIX – WOMEN, LAND, AND RESOURCES OVERLAY

rights as men, and women derive access primarily through men. Women who have lost their husbands,

fathers, or other close male relatives may lack adequate rights to land or the ability to enforce those rights.

SUB-ISSUES

Male bias in resettlement. Governments may lack the ability to address the land and housing needs of

women affected by conflicts unless they can count on strong institutions, gender-sensitive programs, and staff

who have been equipped to understand how women’s needs, preferences, and constraints may differ from

men’s and how to provide gender-sensitive services.

Women’s loss of indirect access to land. In many regions, a woman’s access to land is tied to a male

relative, typically their husband or father. Therefore, conflicts that result in large numbers of men dying or

fleeing can severely hamper a woman’s ability to access land with devastating consequences for her and their

children.

Disruption of social networks. Women are more likely to depend on their support networks to access

capital, plow animals, seeds and fertilizers, technical assistance, information, etc. Since conflicts and

displacements are associated with the weakening or disruption of these networks, women are likely to have

more limited access to these resources and, as a result, they may exhibit lower land productivity.

Women’s barriers to dispute mediation. The social dislocation associated with conflict and displacement

increase the role of dispute resolution institutions in allocating rights to land. An inferior status in the public

arena as well as specific factors such as language, distance, and security concerns may create more significant

barriers to accessing these institutions for women than for men. Once accessed, traditional, state, and project

dispute mediation institutions often treat claims raised by women differently, giving preference to claims

made by men.

Vulnerability of female-headed households. Conflicts typically lead to an increase in the proportion of

female headed-households. These households often face additional difficulties reintegrating into society post-

conflict. Associated with their general vulnerability are challenges in gaining access to land. Female-headed

households may be denied access to land by their spouse’s families and may not be accepted by their

communities of origin. Programs designed to reallocate land after displacement often prioritize male-headed

households, allocating individual women and female-headed households smaller plots, or land of lesser

quality.

Underrepresentation in decision-making bodies. Women are often underrepresented in implementing

bodies responsible for dispute resolution, resettlement programs, and allocation of land.

1.2 ILLUSTRATIVE INTERVENTIONS

The range of possible interventions relevant or applicable to this particular issue constraint can be quite broad

depending on circumstances, and the need in any policy context to carefully adapt, target, sequence and

nuance interventions according to institutional context and need. The interventions cited below are thus

generalized and illustrative. The reader is further encouraged to review interventions for other constraint

categories as well as a single intervention can be relevant to multiple constraints, particularly in contexts when

multiple constraints across columns of the matrix are present or when of bundle of interventions across rows

is required. Issues and interventions should thus be addressed holistically rather than concentrating on a

single column or row.


Resource Conflict and Displacement

Institutions and

Governance

Restore law and order. Reestablish the rule of law, provide safety and security,

protect human rights, and restore peace and stability. Focus specific attention on

violence against women.

Strengthen capacity of traditional dispute resolvers. Strengthen capacity of

traditional dispute resolution mechanisms including local leaders, chief and village

councils, women’s groups, religious leaders, and other recognized local authorities to

hear and mediate disputes and grievances over land and related resources

particularly as they relate to women.

Increase women’s access to justice. Provide fair and impartial judiciary, courts,

and magisterial systems. Locate courts in areas women can visit and offer a women-

friendly environment and hours of operation that meet women’s needs. Grant

women a say in who represents their interests.

Improve civil society advocacy for affected populations. Expand the capacity

and role of civil society, including women’s organizations, in advocacy, protection of

human rights, and assistance to the displaced and other affected populations,

including identifying and addressing gender biases in land rights allocation.

Create reconciliation commissions. Ensure that councils or commissions

established to hear grievances and restore land rights after conflicts are accessible to

all and free of gender bias. If the situation requires, create a separate council for

women or establish a women’s ombudsman.

Include women on staff of land agencies. Increase the presence and capacity of

women in positions of authority in land registry, cadaster, titling, and other agencies

addressing land and resource tenure issues, using quotas if necessary.

Legal and Regulatory

Framework

Codify women’s basic rights. Clarify and formalize rights that can strengthen

women’s tenure security, their access to legal recourse and to fair and equitable land

allocations. Include women’s rights to inherit, buy, sell, own, transfer, lease, and offer

land as collateral in their own name; the right to enter freely into contracts without

consents that are not required of men; and the right of joint ownership of and title

to land acquired during their marriage.

Reform legal framework to protect women’s rights. Review and revise all

laws and regulations related to land and property allocation, secondary rights, and

family and inheritance to ensure they grant women equal access to land. Design

reforms with a thorough understanding of current local practices. Inform reforms

with input from the communities, and ensure that the entire process includes and

listens to women.

Conduct law review forums focused on gender. Educate the judiciary on

statutory and case law relevant to gender-equitable distribution of land and

resources, gender-equitable participation in resource governance, the role of dispute

resolution forums in resolving discriminatory distribution of land and resources, and

impediments to women receiving impartial resolution of disputes.

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Rights Awareness and

Empowerment

Inform women of rights assistance options. Strengthen capacity of government

and civil society to inform women of their rights and how to seek assistance,

including the provision of women-only sessions to facilitate attendance and

participation. Provide women with information on their rights; how to record, claim

and enforce them; and the types of legal, financial, social, and emotional support

available. Use non-technical terms, local languages, accessible formats, and the

information channels women use.

Build conflict awareness. Increase understanding among male and female

government officials, leaders of civil society organizations, and community leaders of

the importance and benefits of ensuring women have secure tenure, and how

conflict undermines women’s rights to land and natural resources.

Strengthen capacity of civil servants and community leaders to deliver

unbiased assistance. Build capacity of administrators, elected officials, and the

judiciary working in conflict and displacement settings to apply law and policy using

unbiased methods accessible to all. Provide male and female community leaders in

conflict and displacement settings with information on women’s legal rights to land,

procedures for determining land rights in an unbiased manner, and resources

available to women as they try to claim, enforce, and advocate for their rights.

Support organizations that assist women in conflict or post-conflict

situations. Support groups that improve women’s economic and social conditions,

including their ability to settle into new communities, and function as heads of

households.

Provide gender training to development practitioners. Ensure that

development practitioners are aware of conditions that can have a disproportionally

negative impact on women, model gender-sensitive behavior and mentoring, and

offer suggestions that take women’s needs into consideration.

Conflict and Dispute

Resolution

Promote gender-sensitive approaches in dispute resolution. Strengthen the

capacity of local formal and customary dispute resolution institutions in their ability

to identify constraints that women face, and apply gender-sensitive approaches to

resolve conflicts and disputes over land.

Improve women’s access to dispute resolution. Ensure dispute resolution

mechanisms are accessible to all potential claimants—offices or locations that are

safe, not too distant, open at times women can attend, in places women can visit,

staffed with other women, and with paperwork requirements that are easy to

understand.

Strengthen numbers and capacity of female advocates. Build the capacity of

female leaders to effectively communicate, negotiate, mediate, and advocate for

women’s rights in the resolution of conflicts and disputes.

Restitution,

Redistribution, and

Consolidation

Explicitly address gender in resettlement efforts. Design and implement

resettlement programs that equitably allocate men and women rights to land, and

address possible impediments to this goal that statutory law and local institutions

may present.

Provide gender-sensitive training to decision makers. Ensure official and

informal leaders charged with land restitution, redistribution, or consolidation

understand the importance of ensuring equivalent rights to women and men. Provide

training on gender-sensitive approaches to address conditions of conflict and

displacement.

Foster gender equity in restitution, redistribution, and consolidation.

Establish protocols that ensure that men and women have fair and equitable access.

Ensure female-headed households are given the same priority as male-headed

households. Take secondary rights into account, and ensure that women who are in

polygamous relationships, or are in consensual unions but not formally married, are

treated as co-owners of marital property.

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Strengthen gender sensitivity of ex-combatants. Sensitize, train, and support

local government agencies and nongovernmental organizations who provide

humanitarian, technical, economic, and skills-development assistance to help ex-

combatants and their families reintegrate into a post-conflict society so that their

services are gender-sensitive.

Endorse gender equity in post-conflict land interventions. Implement

restitution, redistribution, and consolidation programs through a participatory and

open process, taking into consideration the complete spectrum of rights and

applying equitable common rules to prevent women from losing their rights.

Create ad hoc groups to address women’s constraints. Facilitate the creation

of ad hoc or single purpose committees, councils, and support groups, potentially

composed exclusively of women, to address constraints to women’s ability to

maintain or regain rights to land through restitution, redistribution, or consolidation

programs.

Rights Delivery and

Administration

Document women’s rights. Take advantage of restitution, redistribution, and

consolidation programs to record and formalize all of women’s rights including those

that widows and women in polygamous and informal marriages derive from their

husbands. Record usufruct rights, secondary rights, and rights to common pool

resources through registration or formal or informal contracts in order to secure

rights and provide the basis for their post-conflict or post-dispute restitution.

Address secondary rights in post-conflict interventions. Design resettlement

and post-conflict land allocation efforts to recognize the role of secondary rights to

land and natural resources, such as rights to land women derive from husbands or

usufruct rights to forest products allocated by communities.

Institutionalize gender equity in rights delivery. Ensure the agencies charged

with post-conflict resettlement and allocation of land and resource rights employ

protocols that address cultural and social barriers that can constrain women’s equal

participation in claiming rights and titling land.

Publicize procedures for securing land rights using language and

mechanisms that women use. Provide the members of affected communities,

both men and women, with information on how to register, formalize, claim, and

enforce their rights, and where to seek assistance in post-conflict resettlement

efforts.

Collect, store, and report data disaggregated by sex. Ensure that information

systems built to record displacement and dispossession by violence collect, store,

and report data disaggregated by sex.

Register women’s rights in at-risk areas. Document women’s rights under

customary natural resource tenure regimes in pre-conflict and disaster-prone

regions to establish a foundation for equitable reestablishment post-conflict or

during resettlement.

Resource Use

Management

Validate women’s role as natural resource stewards. Raise the awareness of

environment and agriculture ministry staff, local leaders, and other decision-makers

concerning women’s role as natural resources stewards, women’s rights to land and

natural resources, and the importance of clear and stable rights to effective natural

resource management.

1.3 READINGS

Bouta, T.; Frerks, G.; and Bannon, I. 2005. Gender, Conflict, and Development. Washington DC: World Bank.

El Jack, A. 2003. Gender and Armed Conflict, BRIDGE Development-Gender Overview Report. Institute of

Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.

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Lastarria, S. 2005. Gender and Property Rights within Post-Conflict Situations. Issue Paper No. 12.

Washington, DC: USAID.

United Nations Centre for Human Settlements. 1999. Women’s Rights to Land, Housing and Property in

Post-Conflict Situations and During Reconstruction: A Global Overview. Land Management Series, No.

9. Nairobi: UNCHS/UN Habitat.

Zuckerman, E. and Greenberg, M. 2004. The Gender Dimensions of Post-Conflict Reconstruction: An

Analytical Framework for Policymakers, Gender & Development 12 (3): 70-82.


2.0 WEAK GOVERNANCE

2.1 LTPR ISSUE

The capacity to govern equitably is a fundamental measure of a government’s strength. This is as true in the

management of land and natural resource tenure as in all other domains of government. In many countries,

legislative reforms are leading a trend toward improved formal rights for women in land. Increasingly,

statutory law includes gender-neutral language, explicitly recognizes women’s rights, or prohibits gender-

based discrimination. However, institutional weakness and lack of resources or political will often mean that

laws are only sporadically enforced, particularly in remote rural areas, making it difficult for women to claim

and enforce their formal rights. In practice, rural women’s land rights are often defined by religious and/or


customary institutions regulating inheritance and marriage practices that typically favor men with ownership

rights over land. Ill-conceived or improperly implemented efforts to formalize land tenure may reinforce

these existing land and resource tenure-based inequities.

SUB-ISSUES

Incomplete or imperfect implementation of women’s rights in law. Governments in developing

countries often lack capable or sufficient human, technical, and financial resources. This lack of capacity

results in the poor implementation of laws, including those intended to strengthen gender equity in land

tenure. Requisite regulations may not be drafted and enforced, courts may be difficult to access and judges

may be ill-informed, and administrative systems are often limited to poorly staffed and ill-equipped urban

centers, and based on dated protocols and tools for mapping and registering land. A classic illustration of this

discontinuity is observed in countries in which the law grants husbands and wives equal rights to land but title

documents only provide space for the household head.

Limited and biased dispute mediation systems. Decision-makers in both formal and informal systems are

often unaware of the importance of protecting women’s land rights and the multiple factors threatening

women’s ability to own, use, and access land. Informal dispute resolution institutions may not adequately

understand the formal law, or the religious and customary institutions that regulate disputes may favor men’s

rights to land as a matter of principle. Judicial and administrative authorities in charge of mediating land

disputes may also be biased or lack the capacity or incentives to defend the land rights of poor or socially

marginalized citizens, including women.

Underrepresentation in positions of authority. A critical shortage of female professionals weakens

governmental capacity to address the concerns of all its citizens. Women are typically underrepresented in—

and often entirely absent from—decision-making bodies and implementing agencies responsible for crafting

policies and regulations, allocating rights to land and resources, enforcing laws, and resolving disputes.

Lack of literacy and civic education. Citizens of developing countries with weak educational systems and

low levels of literacy are less likely to know their rights and be able to enforce them. In poorly educated

communities, women tend to have lower levels of literacy than men, and sources of information are often

segregated along gender lines. As a result, women may be less aware of the land rights they do have, and the

administrative procedures to claim them.

Inadequate gender data to guide decision making. Weak governments are characterized by systems that

provide inadequate, inaccurate, or out-of-date information. They may be particularly deprived of data

reflecting gender differences in land use. As a result, laws, regulations, policies, and administrative systems

affecting women’s access and security to land are often designed and implemented without clear knowledge

of stakeholder needs, preferences, and constraints.

Social protection undermined by HIV/AIDS epidemic. The extraordinary scale of the HIV/AIDS

epidemic has overwhelmed community support systems as well as customary and state systems of land rights

administration that are facing a much larger number of cases while internal capacity is being compromised. As

organizational structures break down and management becomes burdened, previously well-functioning

governance systems tend to become confusing and discriminatory, leaving the most vulnerable—widows and

orphans—dependent on the compassion of their communities, traditional authorities, and local government

officials. This is particularly worrisome in patriarchal communities where gender biases against widows are

compounded by the stigma of the disease.


2.2 VOLUNTARY GUIDELINES WITH RESPECT TO WOMEN

AND GENDER

Section 3.1 of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the

Context of National Food Security provides the following guiding principles with respect to responsible tenure

governance include:

“States should:

1. Recognize and respect all legitimate tenure right holders and their rights. They should take reasonable

measures to identify, record, and respect legitimate tenure right holders and their rights, whether formally

recorded or not; to refrain from infringement of tenure rights of othersProvide access to justice to deal

with infringements of legitimate tenure rights. They should provide effective and accessible means to

everyone, through judicial authorities or other approaches, to resolve disputes over tenure rights; and to

provide affordable and prompt enforcement of outcomes…”

Further, with respect to Section 3B, Principles of Implementation, the following is essential for responsible

governance of land, fisheries, and forests:

1. “Human dignity: Recognizing the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable human rights of all

individuals.

2. Non-discrimination: No one should be subject to discrimination under law and policies as well as in

practice.

3. Equity and justice: Recognizing that equality between individuals may require acknowledging

differences between individuals, and taking positive action, including empowerment, in order to promote

equitable tenure rights and access to land, fisheries, and forests, for all, women and men, youth and

vulnerable and traditionally marginalized people, within the national context.

4. Gender equality: Ensure the equal right of women and men to the enjoyment of all human rights, while

acknowledging differences between women and men and taking specific measures aimed at accelerating

de facto equality when necessary. States should ensure that women and girls have equal tenure rights and

access to land, fisheries, and forests independent of their civil or marital status…”

2.3 ILLUSTRATIVE INTERVENTIONS

The range of possible interventions relevant or applicable to this particular issue constraint can be quite broad

depending on circumstances, and the need in any policy context to carefully adapt, target, sequence and

nuance interventions according to institutional context and need. The interventions cited below are thus

generalized and illustrative. The reader is further encouraged to review interventions for other constraint

categories as well as a single intervention can be relevant to multiple constraints, particularly in contexts when

multiple constraints across columns of the matrix are present or when of bundle of interventions across rows

is required. Issues and interventions should thus be addressed holistically rather than concentrating on a

single column or row.


Weak Governance

Institutions and

Governance

Strengthen civil service to employ gender-sensitive approaches. Build the

capacity of male and female public officials and community leaders to employ gender-

sensitive approaches to their functions relative to land and resource rights.

Train women’s offices within government bodies. Expand the capacity of

governmental offices responsible for women’s development, such as the Ministries of

Women’s Affairs or Gender Monitoring Offices, to identify and address issues

related to land and resource tenure.

Support transparent, inclusive, and participatory decision making. Support

transparent and inclusive decision-making processes that strengthen governance and

collaboration between local government and traditional authorities or local

communities to clarify and enforce women’s rights. Strengthen gender sensitivity at

local government levels.

Improve sharing of information between jurisdictions. Develop systematic

linkages and increase information sharing between state, informal, and local judicial

structures, such as community justice centers. Establish protocols for the review of

local decisions by the state to extend the application of progressive and gender-

sensitive national laws.

Support land administration entities to better serve women’s interests.

Review and streamline land administration agencies to improve their operating

efficiency, their transparency, their governance, and their enforcement of statutory

laws formalizing and securing women’s rights to land and natural resources. Such

agencies may also provide separate spaces for women if it is socially uncomfortable

or culturally inappropriate for women to share space with men.

Legal and Regulatory

Framework

Ensure non-discriminatory laws and regulations. Review and revise all laws

and regulations related to land and property allocation, secondary rights, and family

and inheritance to ensure they grant men and women equal access to land. Design

reforms with a thorough understanding of current local practices. Inform designs

with input from the communities, including the voices of women. Ensure that laws

are not gender neutral on their face while being discriminatory in practice.

Provide gender sensitivity training to the judiciary. Educate the judiciary on

statutory and case law relevant to gender, land and resource tenure, and property

rights, including family law.

Verify impact of laws affecting women. Evaluate the implementation of laws

affecting women’s rights to land. Identify problems that might result from

interpretation of laws, conflicts between laws, or clashes with religious or customary

practices. Revise legislation or regulations to ensure that they are clear, inclusive, and

gender-sensitive; understood by the communities; and adequately implemented by

the governing bodies.

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Weak Governance

Rights Awareness and

Empowerment

Promote women’s access to local-level government services. Increase

availability of government resources through policy that requires services to be

offered at times and in locations that enable people of both genders to participate.

Reward implementers that take gender differences related to access into account.

Train and inform female leaders. Support female leaders by providing them with

clear and complete information on women’s rights to land and natural resources and

with examples of sustainable resource management efforts, which have been

successfully adopted by women in other communities. Provide them also with clear

information on the type of legal, financial, social, and emotional support available to

women as they try to adopt new resource management strategies.

Improve communication directed at women. Strengthen the capacity of

government and civil society to inform women of their rights and how to seek

assistance, relying on women-only sessions as needed to facilitate attendance and

participation.

Train officials and judiciary on laws aimed at securing women’s rights.

Train administrators, elected officials, and the judiciary on laws relevant to securing

women’s rights to land and property and how to implement them. Build the capacity

of state institutions to effectively and equitably protect the rights of citizens.

Inform local leaders. Provide local government and traditional leaders, male and

female, with information on women’s legal rights to land and natural resources,

successful cases, best practices in managing land and natural resources, and

information on resources available to women as they try to claim, enforce, and

advocate for their rights. Encourage local leaders to champion women’s land rights.

Support community conversations on women’s issues and rights. Support

community conversations designed to raise awareness of the importance and benefits

of ensuring that men and women have equivalent opportunities to participate in and

be heard by all the decision-making bodies tasked with managing land, property, and

resource rights. Encourage the community to identify current practices biased against

women and come up with appropriate gender solutions.

Create women’s community organizations to advocate rights and needs.

Provide the conditions for the creation of women’s community organizations capable

of addressing needs that government is unable to provide, including mutual support

for understanding, claiming, and defending rights to land.

Conflict and Dispute

Resolution

Enhance gender-sensitive dispute resolution. Strengthen the capacity of local

formal and customary dispute resolution institutions in their ability to identify

constraints that women face, and apply gender-sensitive approaches to resolve

conflicts and disputes over land.

Improve women’s access to dispute resolution. Ensure that dispute resolution

mechanisms are accessible to all potential claimants. Ensure that offices or locations

are safe and not too distant, open at times that women can attend, in places that

women can visit, staffed with at least some women, and with paperwork

requirements that are easy to understand. Support actions that help women be

heard and communities understand that existing dispute resolution mechanisms will

not discriminate against women.

Support legal assistance groups. Provide grants and training to legal assistance

groups that work with women to improve legal recourse and the effectiveness of

conflict/dispute resolution.

Build capacity to negotiate, mediate, and advocate women’s rights. Build

capacity of civil society organizations and female leaders to effectively communicate,

provide early warning, negotiate, mediate, and advocate for women’s rights in the

resolution of conflicts and disputes.

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Weak Governance

Restitution,

Redistribution, and

Consolidation

Mainstream gender. Incorporate gender awareness into all aspects of restitution,

redistribution, and consolidation programs. Employ women, raise rights awareness,

ensure accessibility of services, and provide equity in the allocation and enforcement

of the rights of men and women. Support women leaders and advocates and, if

needed, create separate women’s boards, committees, or councils.

Use open and participatory processes. Implement restitution, redistribution,

and consolidation programs through a participatory and open process, taking into

consideration the complete spectrum of rights and applying equitable common rules

to prevent women from losing their rights.

Record and formalize women’s rights. Record and formalize rights through

restitution, redistribution, and consolidation programs, including those rights that

widows and women in polygamous and informal marriages derive from their

husbands.

Rights Delivery and

Administration

Strengthen government capacity to clarify and record women’s rights.

Build government capacity to register, map, or otherwise record women’s rights to

land and natural resources and common pool resources to clarify and secure

women’s rights, and provide a legal basis for their enforcement.

Remove gender bias in administration of land rights. Review land registry,

cadaster, titling, and other procedures to remove gender biases in the administration

of land rights. Ensure they are consistent with laws that allow women to register or

hold title to land, individually or jointly with their husbands. Hold administrators

responsible for gender-equitable services.

Build women’s trust in public institutions. Train staff of rights formalization

programs to provide services without gender biases to strengthen women’s trust in

land administration systems.

Make records and procedures transparent and accessible to women.

Provide information, including at local government levels, on rights and the steps

necessary to formalize, claim, or enforce rights to land and natural resources. Use

local language, friendly formats, and information channels everyone, including women,

can access. Establish and implement procedures to create cadasters that are

publically accessible, with provisions for citizens who are illiterate or lack technical

knowledge.

Resource Use

Management

Include women in natural resources management institutions. Use

community titling and co-management options to protect and reinforce women’s

ability to be included and heard when communities make decisions regarding the

management, use, and stewardship of common pool natural resources.

Practice inclusive and participatory land use planning. Involve women as

stakeholders in participatory land use planning that balances local, regional, and

national priorities and that recognizes and negotiates among competing interests.

Broaden awareness of women’s rights in natural resource planning. Build

nongovernmental organizations’ capacity to inform government decision-making

through research and conversations about women’s rights to land, forest, pasture,

and water resources, and the health of these resources.

2.4 READINGS

African Union. 2010. Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa: A Framework to Strengthen Land Rights,

Enhance Productivity and Secure Livelihoods. Available at http://rea.au.int/en/content/framework-and-

guidelines-land-policy-africa

../../../../AppData/Local/AppData/Local/Microsoft/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/AppData/Local/Microsoft/brenda.bergman/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/05WI21D0/Con%203-Insecure%20Tenure%20and%20Property%20Rights.rtf../../../../AppData/Local/AppData/Local/Microsoft/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/AppData/Local/Microsoft/brenda.bergman/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/05WI21D0/Int%205-%20Restitution-Redistribution%20and%20Consolidation.rtf../../../../AppData/Local/AppData/Local/Microsoft/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/AppData/Local/Microsoft/brenda.bergman/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/05WI21D0/Int%205-%20Restitution-Redistribution%20and%20Consolidation.rtf../../../../AppData/Local/AppData/Local/Microsoft/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/AppData/Local/Microsoft/brenda.bergman/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/05WI21D0/Int%205-%20Restitution-Redistribution%20and%20Consolidation.rtf../../../../AppData/Local/AppData/Local/Microsoft/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/AppData/Local/Microsoft/brenda.bergman/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/05WI21D0/Int%206-%20Rights%20Delivery%20and%20Administration.rtf../../../../AppData/Local/AppData/Local/Microsoft/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/AppData/Local/Microsoft/brenda.bergman/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/05WI21D0/Int%206-%20Rights%20Delivery%20and%20Administration.rtf../../../../AppData/Local/AppData/Local/Microsoft/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/AppData/Local/Microsoft/brenda.bergman/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/05WI21D0/Int%207-%20Resource%20Use%20Management.rtf../../../../AppData/Local/AppData/Local/Microsoft/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/AppData/Local/Microsoft/brenda.bergman/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/05WI21D0/Int%207-%20Resource%20Use%20Management.rtfhttp://rea.au.int/en/content/framework-and-guidelines-land-policy-africahttp://rea.au.int/en/content/framework-and-guidelines-land-policy-africa


Daley, E. and Park, C. M. 2011. Governing Land for Women and Men. Gender and Voluntary Guidelines on

Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land and Other Natural Resources. Land Tenure Paper 19. Rome:

FAO.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2012. Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible

Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forest in the Context of National Food Security. FAO: Rome. Available

at http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/025/md708e.pdf

Jappah, Ruth; Scalise, Elisa; and Hannay, Leslie. 2012. Women’s Land Rights Study. Liberia Land Policy and

Institutional Support Project (LPIS). USAID Land Tenure Division.

Manji, A. 2008. Gender, Land Rights, and Democratic Governance. Oslo Governance Center Discussion Paper 2.

Geneva: UNDP.

Sewornu, R.E. 2010. The Role of Good Governance in Improving Women’s Access Right to Land.

International Journal of Sustainable Development 1(5): 37-53.

World Bank. 2008. Gender and Agricultural Livelihoods: Strengthening Governance. Gender in Agriculture

Sourcebook, Module 2. Washington DC: World Bank.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/025/md708e.pdf


3.0 INSECURE TENURE AND

PROPERTY RIGHTS

3.1 LTPR ISSUE

In developing countries across the world, the governance institutions and local practices that determine land

and natural resource tenure provide women only tenuous rights. While countries increasingly incorporate

provisions in statutory law to secure women’s rights to land, the impact of these laws on the ground can be

weak. Legal provisions tend to be poorly understood and poorly implemented, and they often fail to reach

women effectively. In some cases, provisions from land laws and regulations conflict with what inheritance or

marriage laws stipulate. Largely, local and customary institutions and norms tend to grant women indirect


access to land through their husbands, other male relatives, or the community. The rights women secure

through these relationships are often limited to usufruct rights and are vulnerable to changes in the social

relationships from which they derived. Women’s social status often prevents, or makes more difficult, the

protection of the rights that they do have through formalization, as well as their defense through public

dispute resolution mechanisms. Women become particularly vulnerable in times of extensive change in land

rights. Women’s tenure vulnerability, in turn, reduces their ability to make long-term investments in land and

property, seek credit, influence family decisions, and participate in their communities.

SUB-ISSUES

Rights vulnerability due to customary family norms. Local customary tenure regimes often grant women

access to land through male relatives. This limits women’s ability to take part in decisions about land and,

given the key role that land plays in their livelihoods, it can further reinforce women’s vulnerability. It also

makes women’s rights to land vulnerable to divorce, the death of a husband, or the breaking of bonds with

other male relatives. In polygamous marriages, the usufruct rights women derive through their husbands may

be lost if their husbands marry additional wives, or if other wives give birth to sons. Female-headed

households can be vulnerable to unclear land rights.

Legal pluralism. In most developing countries, women’s rights to land are governed by a web of religious or

socio-cultural local and national institutions and dispute resolution mechanisms. The presence of these

overlapping systems provides advantages to people skilled in negotiating who can appeal to the rules and

authorities that best serve their interests at the expense of less powerful claimants, such as women.

Inadequate reach and bias of judicial systems. Government efforts to increase the security of women’s

land tenure through statutory law are ineffective if that law is not applied and enforced. Various factors

reduce women’s ability to enforce rights through formal government channels and thus decrease their

capacity to maintain rights over time. The barriers that women face in appealing to courts include a lack of

awareness of their rights, unfamiliarity with judicial procedures, and the inability to submit claims due to

literacy, transportation, or financial constraints, or social norms that do not allow women to publically

confront others. Similar constraints reduce the likelihood that women will seek assistance in order to make or

defend claims. Customary dispute resolution systems tend to be more accessible to women, but often make

decisions based on customary law rather than formal law, which may be less beneficial to women.

Inadequate reach and bias of administrative systems. The barriers that women face when they try to

access agencies that title land, register marriages, or perform other administrative services can limit their

ability to formalize and preserve their land rights. Administrative agencies are often far from rural villages, are

costly, and require a public appearance or the consent of a husband or father. Women often do not know

their rights or understand the procedures required to register their land or their marriages. Agencies are

frequently staffed with men with little gender sensitivity. Regulations that require an action be taken within a

strict period of time may also limit women’s ability to participate.

Secondary rights often overlooked. Programs designed to formalize customary rights to land are rarely able

to capture all rights. Efforts designed to convert land to individual title have often assigned ownership to

household heads, overlooking use rights that wives tend to derive from their husbands. These programs have

also assigned individual titles to common pool resources, effectively reducing women’s harvesting rights to

natural resources. Furthermore, programs that consolidate, redistribute, or restitute land ownership may fail

to recognize—and thus end up terminating—usufruct rights held by women.


Higher land values leading to loss of property rights. Because women’s rights to land tend to be insecure

and informal, they are vulnerable to changes in the value of land. When land becomes more valuable, because

of the introduction of more remunerable crops, new physical infrastructure, better-defined rights, or land

scarcity, their husbands or other male relatives may reclaim the land.

Gender bias resulting from overlapping or conflicting legislation. Tenure insecurity increases when

people can claim land rights under different, and sometimes conflicting, rules or laws. Men who are often

more literate, educated, and better able to navigate legal systems may use conflicting legislation to secure their

own control over resources at the expense of their female partners.

Forced removal of HIV/AIDS widows and property grabbing. Widows who lost th

land tenure and property rights matrix women ......quantity contract (iqc) contract no....

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