Land tenure security is crucial for women's empowerment and a prerequisite for building secure and resilient communities. Tenure is affected by many and often contradictory sets of rules, laws, customs, traditions, and perceptions. For most rural women, land tenure is complicated, with access and ownership often layered with barriers present in their daily realities: discriminatory social dynamics and strata, unresponsive legal systems, lack of economic opportunities, and lack of voice in decision making.

This paper examines the marginalization of women's land rights by governmental institutions and rural women's movements in Brazil.

This brief explores the reform of land tenure institutions which re-emerged in the 1990s, and asks if these reforms are any more gender sensitive than those of the past?The paper highlights that a focus of the recent reforms has been on land titling, designed to promote security of tenure and stimulate land markets. The reforms have often been driven by domestic and external neoliberal coalitions, with funding from global and regional organisations which have argued that private property rights are essential for a dynamic agricultural sector.

Este artigo examina a evolução da reivindicação dos direitos da mulher à terra na reforma agrária brasileira sob o prisma dos três principais movimentos sociais rurais: o Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), os sindicatos rurais e o movimento autônomo de mulheres rurais. O mérito maior por levantar a questão dos direitos da mulher à terra é das mulheres dentro dos sindicatos rurais.

The Burkina Faso-SIGI country study is a tailor-made policy and research tool, adapting the methodology and conceptual framework of the global SIGI to the national context. The adapted Burkina Faso-SIGI framework is the result of consultations, workshops, in-depth research and field surveys.  

The Uganda-SIGI shows that investments in reducing gender inequalities holdimportant potential to improve women’s rights and reduce gender gaps. Over the pasttwo decades, Uganda has achieved solid progress, courtesy of comprehensive laws andpolicies strengthening women’s political participation and land rights, among others.

However, gaps and challenges remain across some key areas affecting women’srights. Gaps between opinions, perceived and actual practices highlight the urgency to tackle discriminatory social institutions through a multi-pronged and holistic approach.

Up to 2.5 billion people hold and use the world’s community lands, yet the tenure rights of women—who comprise more than half the population of the world’s Indigenous Peoples and local communities—are seldom acknowledged or protected by national laws.

ABSTRACTED FROM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Land rights systems in Southeast Asia are in constant flux; they respond to various socioeconomic and political pressures and to changes in statutory and customary law. Over the last decade, Southeast Asia has become one of the hotspots of the global land grab phenomenon, accounting for about 30 percent of transnational land grabs globally. Land grabs by domestic urban elites, the military or government actors are also common in many Southeast Asian countries.

Rural and livelihood studies, alongside development organisations, are stressing the importance of gender awareness in debates over food security, food crises and land tenure. Yet, within the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, these gender dynamics are frequently disregarded. In Vietnam, rice is intimately linked to the country’s food security. Over the last decade, rice export levels, production methods, and local and global market prices have remained constant preoccupations for governmental and development agencies.

ABSTRACTED FROM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This report highlights important dimensions of food security in rural Lao PDR, including: the different gender roles in agriculture; reliance on community-level social cohesion as both a coping mechanism and means of livelihood; and the ongoing challenge of shifting rural livelihoods from a subsistence basis towards market-orientation. The findings of this report give a snapshot of rural livelihoods and practice.

What is the legacy of armed conflict on the roles and experiences of women in Africa? This collection of reports, testimonies and analyses portrays the diverse experiences of women all over Africa who have lived through civil wars, apartheid, genocide and gendered political violence such as rape. Contributions include discussions of violence against women in Rwanda, Chad and Liberia; the involvement of and impact on women of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission; and the increase in violence against women caused by the proliferation of SALW.

In a globalising world where the role of the local, the national and the global is shifting, the meanings of citizenship are also changing. This article presents some new theoretical discussions on gender and citizenship. It argues that, rather than something which sees everyone as "the same", citizenship should be understood as multi-tiered and formed through many different positions according to gender, ethnicity and urban/rural location.