The purpose of the Guide is to provide advocacy information, advice and tools to those wishing to use the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and its Optional Protocol to secure the land and property rights of women. It is directed at NGOs and advocates working on these specific issues. Includes overview of CEDAW and key actors, how can NGOs use and engage with CEDAW review processes?, complaints, themes and general recommendations, additional resources.

Paper prepared for the FAO’s Southern and Eastern Africa Office. Covers the impact of HIV/AIDS on sub-Saharan Africa; the underlying causes of HIV/AIDS; its economic impact; its impact on the household livelihood strategies; and a conceptual framework. Looks at HIV/AIDS and poverty, regional migration, poverty-driven commercial sex work; the impact on the macro economy and the rural economy, on agricultural production and coping strategies, and women, children and the elderly and HIV/AIDS.

The reform of land tenure institutions is now back on the national and global policy agendas. While at a certain level of generality the principle of gender equality in access to resources, including land, has been endorsed by a diverse range of policy actors, there are many tensions and ambiguities likely to obstruct women’s effective access to land and its contribution to decent livelihoods. There are important questions about liberalisation policies vis-a-vis land, given the well documented difficulties that low-income women in particular face in accessing land through markets.

Argues that decentralisation holds much potential for lively, participatory democratic lawmaking and enforcement through which rural women can gain greater power and secure more rights. Essential that all decentralisation policy be guided by constitutional principles. Explores the guiding principles necessary to safeguard democratic decentralisation.

A study in the Oromiya and Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples regions of Ethiopia assesses the impacts of land registration and certification since 2004, including joint certification for husbands and wives. Includes gender implications of land certification and empowerment of women, position of polygamous wives, perceptions of benefits of the reform, recommendations.

Contains a critique of food and land reform policies in South Africa, findings, analysis and recommendations. Findings focus on women and farming: significance, roles and responsibilities, accessing and cultivating land, support from the private and public sector, reflections of emerging women farmers

Asks whether land reform is still a goal worth pursuing for rural women. Includes gender and land reform; changing livelihoods and de-agrarianisation; insecurities; land tenure and land titling; limitations to land; arguments for landholding; a few policy and practical initiatives; conflicts over land and property. Concludes that, despite all the problems outlined, land reform for rural women is worth pursuing since, among other things, it would lessen the risks of hunger and malnutrition and also provide links to rights in other spheres.

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).