Browse Approaches

Land and Property Rights

Rights, agency, and decision-making authority linked to land and property ownership.

Lack of access and rights to land lie at the heart of women's poverty and exclusion, limiting their ability to benefit equally from peacebuilding processes and to invest in community welfare.

From the Report: Women and Natural Resources Unlocking the Peacebuilding Potential

Case Study

African Women's Development Fund advocates for policies that support women's choices

Sample Grant

Fund For Global Human Rights, Inc. gave to Association pour la Paix et les Droits de l'Homme for general support of this organization, whose activities include providing mediation services and legal aid to victims of land rights violations and educating communities about women's rights.
The National Endowment for Democracy gave to Aide et Action Pour la Paix to promote peaceful land management in North Kivu Province and greater inclusion of women and gender equality.
The UN Women's Fund for Gender Equality gave to HAGURUKA Association for Defense of Women and Children's Rights for a programme to shift the social power balance more in favor of women to increase capacity to claim and hold on to legally protected land rights.

48% of the land in Rwanda is arable land.

Reports

Intensifying programmes geared towards raising the community awareness of their land rights will help protect women's position in the community as regards land issues. Such awareness will help break discriminatory cultural traditions against women such as "women have no right to inherit land and can neither make decisions regarding family land".

From the Report: Strengthening Women's Access to Land into IFAD projects: The Rwanda Experience