The European Union (EU) provided an overview of the main challenges and opportunities surrounding the promotion of women’s land rights while presenting what the EU is doing to promote women’s land rights.
Fostering gender equality in women’s land rights is critical to guarantee women’s fundamental human and socio-economic rights, but it is also central for the well-being of their families and households and the broader community where women live. Promoting women’s land rights can directly contribute to improve agricultural and rural development and achieve particularly SDGs 1 and 2.
However, this is a very complex objective to realize because women’s access and control over land is challenged by several cultural, religious and socio-economic dynamics which vary from one context to another and highly depend on the customs and habits of the community where women live. Addressing biased power relations and making sure that laws and policies that favour women’s land rights are in place and promoted through a transformative approach is key to realizing women’s land rights and contribute to the SDG agenda.
The EU is trying to achieve this objective through policy dialogue in national and international arenas as well as through project support at national level, mainly by: a) promoting gender-balanced land legislation (e.g. in Malawi); b) enhancing women’s participation in land decision-making processes (e.g. in Honduras); c) improving women’s access to legal services when their claims are not respected (e.g. Zambia); d) directly supporting the registration of their rights (e.g. Angola, Namibia and Colombia); e) increasing rural women’s voices, reinforcing women’s organisations and holding governments accountable for their commitments on women’s land rights (e.g. Malawi, Cameroon, Togo, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Ethiopia and Tunisia).
The webinar provided a platform to share innovative approaches related to the promotion of women’s land rights. To read a brief detailing EU engagement on this subject, click this link.