Since 2004, Rwanda has embarked on an ambitious land tenure reform programme (LTR) aimed
at increasing security of tenure to all land owners and the elimination of all forms of
discrimination. This has largely been achieved through the establishment and implementation of
a new legal, regulatory and institutional framework.
This paper discusses the ongoing land tenure reform programme and its impact on women’s land
rights. It focuses on the role of women in the decision making in the course of developing the

The majority of the world live in rural areas and are dependent on land and land based resources. The increasing pressure on land, particularly that used for food production, by countries and private investors poses a huge risks to millions of these rural communities. One of the major causes is weak and poor governance in land tenure systems, as most Governments have so far failed to provide adequate safeguards to protect poor people from eviction or dispossession leaving them without compensation and remedy. 

We use data from the 2007 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey to examine the relationship between women’s status and nutrition in Bangladesh using indicators of empowerment such as mobility, decisionmaking power, and attitudes toward verbal and physical abuse. We also examine the role of variables reflecting maternal education and height, in relation to child nutrition. All models control for age and sex of the child, household wealth, and region.

Fiscal instruments are tools that governments use to manage revenue and expenditure and therefore influence the growth (or stability) of the various sectors of the economy. Government revenue is derived primarily through taxation. In Kenya, land taxation has contributed less than 1% of government revenue for the past three years. The Sessional Paper No.

The limited research on the benefits of women gaining secure rights to land and property suggest positive results: an increase in women’s participation in household decision-making; an increase in net household income; a reduction in domestic violence; an increased ability to prevent being infected by HIV/AIDS; and increased expenditures on food and education for children. Understanding the complexity surrounding women’s land rights is critical to ensuring that those rights are protected and improved.

Property rights to land represent the key institutional asset on which rural people build their livelihoods. In fact, in many countries, landlessness is the best predictor of poverty. The nature of farmers’ property rights to land substantially impacts their willingness and ability to adopt productivity-enhancing inputs and investments.

The Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Development (AFA) and Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (WOCAN) agreed to undertake an outcome-based evaluation of the ten provincial training activities conducted from May –December 2010, under a twoyear Rural Women’s Leadership Project (RWLP), supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) through the Government of Norway.

In view of the 2012 United Nations Commission on the Status of Women’s thematic focus on rural women’s empowerment, the gender team at the Development Centre has launched an issues paper, “Do discriminatory social institutions matter for food security?”.

The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is an intergovernmental body and functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) mandated to promote gender equality and the advancement of women. The fifty-sixth session of the CSW, which takes place at the UN Headquarters in New York from 27 February to 9 March 2012, will focus on the theme “The empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges”.

Significant progress has been made over the past decade or so in the development of policy and legislation that support the recognition of customary rights to land, with important legal rulings in Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, South Sudan, and South Africa. At the same time, the strengthening of communities’ traditional rights to use resources has progressed through community forest reserves and community conservation areas.

From 23 January to 6 February, ILC held an online discussion leading up to the ILC-IFAD-FAO side event at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), 27 February – 9 March 2012, New York. The discussion was held simultaneously on the Land Portal and in the FSN-Forum – 70 contributions were received from 32 countries, from grassroots activists, researchers, NGOs and government staff.