Much of Nigeria's recent economic growth can be attributed to its non-oil economy-primarily agriculture. But the recent agricultural growth has been driven mainly by expansion in areas planted while productivity has remained flat or declining. This brief provides insight for formulating policies and strategies to enhance profitability and productivity of major crops across Nigeria's agroecological zones.

Despite the fact that nonincome dimensions of well-being such as nutrition and health are now placed on the global development agenda, substantial gaps remain in our knowledge about patterns and trends in nutrition inequalities in many developing countries.

In Nigeria, conventional financial institutions serve only about 35 percent of the active population, and the poor, especially women, have limited access to financial services. Private sector-led microfinance institutions (MFIs) are increasingly playing a role to fill this need. This brief provides an overview of the institutional environment of microfinance in Nigeria, as well as insights and recommendations for better reaching this audience, based on focus group discussions and case studies of self-employed women in rural areas of Edo State, Nigeria.

The lack of updated information about food security is of concern to many countries, especially during and after economic crises, natural disasters, and conflicts. In this paper we present an analytical framework for assessing the effects of such crises on food security. This methodology can compensate for the lack of recent data in the aftermath of various crisis situations and thus provide important information to policymakers. We apply this methodology to Yemen, a country where the recent food price crisis and global economic recession have been especially damaging.

This training course from the Global Land Tool Network is part of the Network’s activities on Islamic dimensions of land. In most Muslim countries, Islamic law, principles and practices make an important contribution to shaping access to land. GLTN therefore has as one of its objectives the identification and development of Islamic land tools and case studies through a cross-cultural, interdisciplinary and global process, owned by Muslims, but also including other civil society and development partners.

Esta dissertação aborda as imbricações de classe e gênero nos processos organizativos relacionados ao acesso à terra. A pesquisa visou compreender de que forma a participação das mulheres no Movimento de Mulheres Trabalhadoras Rurais tem contribuído para gerar mudanças em relação ao acesso e controle da terra no Sertão Central de Pernambuco, Brasil.

This training package provides an introduction to the important, complex, and sometimes daunting theme of improving land governance as a means to enhance gender equality and grassroots participation in land matters.

Iraq is seeking to be a peaceful and stable nation under the auspices of a federal democracy. It is also seeking to be an effective nation that functions in accordance with market mechanisms and a regional economic power.

This study was undertaken by the Rural Development Institute for the World Justice Project. The study reviews the formal and customary laws and practices governing the rights of women to inherit land in six South Asian countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). The study includes an analysis of existing laws and customs and their impact on inheritance and land rights in all six countries. It also provides recommendations for how to design interventions that can attempt to improve women’s inheritance rights.

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.

The Women’s Land Rights in Southern Africa Project (WOLAR) is aimed at enhancing women’s access to, ownership of, control over land and other productive resources and services in order to meet their basic livelihood needs and become more economically independent and secure.

Female-headed households often experience inequalities in access to resources and income-generating opportunities. Conflicts may make women poorer. But it is important to realise that conflicts also offer an opportunity for change in which gender stereotypes shift and gender roles and identities can be renegotiated. Did genocide and civil war in Rwanda lead to new opportunities for rural women?