[From the BRIDGE website] This Overview Report explains what is meant by gender-sensitive indicators and measurements of change; makes the case for gender-sensitive measurements; and outlines how to go about measuring in practice. It includes sections that focus on measuring the impact of gender mainstreaming and on assessing specific areas of gender inequality - such as gender-based violence or the gender dimensions of poverty. A range of international measurement instruments are discussed, including widely recognised goals and indices, as well as innovative new approaches.

[From the BRIDGE website] Gender-sensitive measurements are critical for building the case for taking gender (in)equality seriously, for enabling better planning and actions by gender and non-gender specialists, and for holding institutions accountable to their commitments on gender equality. Yet measurement techniques and data remain limited and poorly utilised, making it difficult to know if efforts are on-track to achieve gender equality goals and commitments.

The present Poverty Reduction Strategy and Action Plan (PRSAP) 2007 provides the framework for poverty focused planning and budgeting in the short to medium term. Poverty reduction will be central to all sectoral development plans and the medium term expenditure framework. Part 3 defines the Overarching Policy Objective as follows: The overriding goal of the PRSAP is to reduce poverty by more than 50% by 2015 and then ultimately eradicate it by 2022.

This paper analyzes how women’s participation affects institutional outcomes related to the decentralized governance of community forests in Madhya Pradesh, India. The analysis is based on data from a representative sample of 641 cases of joint forest management, India’s flagship program to involve communities in forest governance. We focus on two outcomes relevant for local livelihoods: control of illicit grazing and control of illicit felling in the forest.

In Rwanda, two factors make land a highly important and contested issue. First,
Rwanda has the highest person-to-land ratio in Africa. This creates tremendous
pressure on land in a country where most of the population lives in rural areas, and
where agriculture remains the central economic activity. Second, Rwanda is recovering
from massive population shifts caused by decades of ethnic strife and the 1994 civil war
and genocide, which resulted in displaced populations and overlapping land claims.

This paper presents the preliminary findings of a study on land conflicts between refugees and host communities in southwestern Uganda and their impact on refugee women’s livelihoods. Uganda has a long history of hosting refugees that dates back to the 1940s, when it hosted Polish refugees; Rwandese and Sudanese in the 1950s (Holborn 1975:1213-1225).

The overall objective of the present national cross-sectoral Forest Policy is to achieve sustainable forest management that would ensure sustainable increases in the economic, social and environmental benefits from forests and trees for the present and future generation including the poor and the vulnerable groups.

The study is based on the premise that it is important for women to have effective rights in land and it studies the land rights of women in Tripura, a state in north-east India. The study assesses the extent to which the women of Tripura enjoy effective rights in land and suggests measures for enhancing the effective rights in land that are presently enjoyed by the women of the state.

The research study was carried out by the Tripura Commission for Women and was sponsored by the National Commission for Women, New Delhi.

Increasingly, economists are examining how the dynamics within households affect the outcomes of household decisions. This paper uses data from the 1991/92 and the 1998/99 Ghana Living Standards Surveys to examine how the share of assets owned by women in Ghanaian households affects household expenditure patterns. In this analysis, assets include business assets, savings, and farmland. The results indicate that women’s share of assets do have an impact on household budget shares for a number of expenditure categories in each time period.

This report presents strategies of grassroots women's organisations in Eastern and Southourn Africa in working toward land tenure security, including home-based care and counselling, increased participation of women in government bodies, raising awareness about land issues, providing support for women's legal procedures, increasing economic security through skill development and microcredit loans as well as leadership development. The report concludes by giving some recommendations for increased effectiveness and scope for these grassroots activities.

The effect of prime-age adult death and its consequences on access to land for the survivors has not been fully explored nor incorporated into policy regardless the fact that high adult mortality is now the lived reality in countries affected by HIV/AIDS, particularly in Africa. This paper explores the gendered relationships between adult death due to HIV/AIDS and changes in land rights for the survivors particularly widows. In many African societies, women have traditionally accessed land through marriage.