The brief describes development planning consultations, locally known as musrenbang, conducted in stages through different levels of governance: village, sub-district and district. The brief then documents lessons from experience catalyzing collective action among local community goups (in particular women’s groups) to engage in this development process and to help articulate the women’s aspirations in such a way that they could be heard by district decision makers.

The brief illustrates two communities’ efforts through collective action to secure property rights over their land. As conflict over natural resources and the need for sufficient farm land continue to increase, both men’s and women’s groups tried to negotiate their rights to manage natural resources to maintain their livelihoods. The groups also tried various governmental schemes and other approaches to secure their rights over land.

Reports findings from a study of spheres of influence of men & women, esp. as they affect the dairy subsector, in Fulani agropastoral households in Nigeria; with particular reference to decision making & control over herd management; milking; allocation & utilisation of milk; milk processing & marketing; household income from milk sale; womens' household expenditure and investment in agropastoral production. Analyses implications of these for development of dairy production.

This paper will first explain briefly why gendered relations around property rights are an important development and welfare issue. Then it will explore what has happened to women’s rights under agrarian reforms, titling and registration programmes, and land privatization programmes in general. The paper will then briefly describe how women have attempted to respond to threats on their rights. The final section will explore the relation between property rights and access to factor markets, a crucial relation in agricultural production for the market.

This Backgrounder is the first in a multi-authored series on Cultivating Gender Justice. In this series, we seek to uncover the structural foundations of sexism in the food system and highlight the ways people, communities, organizations, and social movements are dismantling the attitudes, institutions, and structures that hold patriarchy in place. To end hunger and malnutrition, we must end injustices in the food and agriculture system.

WLE’s Gender Strategy sets out a path for the program to engage in pioneering research that generates findings and catalyzes action to address the gender-based challenges facing women and men, who are dependent on water, land and ecosystems for their livelihoods, food, nutrition and water security, and incomes. The strategy starts out and tests the hypothesis that gender equity promotes sustainable agriculture in vibrant ecosystems.