The spillover effect that brought the big smiles of the rural women 

By Mesai Mitiku (GIZ)

Like many countries, Mongolia has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic and its government has been accelerating investments in the mining sector to help the economy. However, this has led to protests by local communities concerned about their land rights, and about their health. Among them is the community of Dalanjargalan, where the WOLTS project has been working with local champions who have been trained in land law, gender issues and participatory decision-making.

Empowering women to occupy leadership roles and to take an active part in decision making processes in land governance has demonstrated that strides can be made towards gender justice.

This blog describes the common trends and actions across the projects, and is enriched with additional insights from the LANDac Annual Conference 2022 and other events.

For land governance interventions to be equitable and sustainable, the role of women must be actively brought to the forefront. But, how do you do this? How do you measure this? These are questions posed within the LAND-at-scale program. 

Just like many African countries, a majority of Zambian tribes follow a matrilineal system, that is, an affinity system in which descent is derived through maternal instead of paternal lines which essentially means children are recognised by the names or family of their mothers. This does not only affect decent but also involves the inheritance of titles and property including land through the female line. One might ask why women have less access and control of land in Zambia when land and property is inherited through maternal lines.

Can we transform our cities by addressing the gender insecurity and inadequacy women face? In the northeast state of Pernambuco in Brazil, Espaço Feminista reflects on lessons learned from fighting for women’s land rights by achieving land regularisation in informal settlements.

The Brazilian Housing Deficit is a Gender Deficit

Why does land inequality in Brazil impact women in particular?

This Country Insights Digest explores the challenges faced by informal spouses and other "invisible" women to secure their land tenure, particularly in the context of land rights formalization and land titling campaigns.

The recently updated portfolio on Land & Gender provides an overview of the key challenges for women to access land, as well as the status of global policies and practices that aim to promote more equal opportunities to tenure security for women. The portfolio also provides quick access to a curated selection of news, blogs, datasets, publications and other resources on land & women. 

It’s that time of year again! March means International Women’s Day and the annual meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. It’s not surprising, after COP26 in Glasgow, that this year’s CSW66 links gender equality with climate change. The official theme is ‘achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in the context of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies and programmes.’