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Gender & Youth

Gender & Youth

Women’s Land Rights (WLR) have been recognized by the international community to be essential to achieve the SDGs, including Goals 1, 2 and 5 – eradicating poverty, ending hunger and gender equality. Progress has been made in many cases to embed land rights for women in national land laws. However, women continue to face challenges to exercise their rights and to achieve real impact on the ground. Learn more about the challenges women around the world face on this page.

Similarly, access to land is a challenge that many youth around the world face. Land continues to be essential to start a business, produce food and/or generate an income. However, many youth face obstacles in getting access to land. Learn more the challenges that youth around the world face on this page.


Learn more: LANDac Resources

Brief – Women’s Land Rights and COVID-19 (2020)

Following the Webinar Series and Online Discussion on Land Rights Implications of COVID-19, LANDac, together with Landesa, the Land Portal Foundation, New America and the Norwegian Refugee Council published a Brief Series on the impact of COVID-19 on Land and Housing. This brief (one out of four) focuses on the impact of COVID-19 on Women’s Land Rights.


Policy Brief 7 Migration, youth and land in West Africa: Challenges for inclusive development (2019)

Current (policy) assumptions about West-African migration are too simplistic for generating sustainable solutions. A better understanding of migration patterns, their connections to land dynamics and livelihoods, and how youth are affected is needed to establish opportunities for, and impediments to, inclusive development in West-Africa.

Also read the academic article on this research project here (open access) in Land, MDPI Journal.

Ref: Kaag, M., Baltissen, G., Steel, G., & Lodder, A. (2019). Migration, Youth, and Land in West Africa: Making the Connections Work for Inclusive Development. Land, 8(4), 60. doi:10.3390/land8040060


Webinar: Realizing women’s land rights in Africa and Beyond (2019)

There has been increased attention for women’s land rights by grassroots movements, local governments, civil society organisations,
academics, and international organisations. Nonetheless, despite progressive policies, legal frameworks, and strong civil society engagement in many countries, there is still a lot to be done to feel a real impact on the ground. This webinar featured experiences from several grassroots initiatives and highlighted how they fight for women’s improved access to and control over land and other natural resources and to scale up women’s land rights.


Research Program: Securing Women’s Land Rights in Africa (2018)

ADECRU and Fórum Mulher in Mozambique, ENDA Pronat in Senegal, GROOTS Kenya and ActionAid Kenya, Oxfam in Malawi in collaboration with LANDAc have implemented a year-long action research programme: Securing Women’s Land Rights in Africa: Scaling Impact in Senegal, Kenya, Malawi and Mozambique. The programme, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, aimed to identify, build upon and scale successful practices and experiences of grassroots organisations and movements that work to strengthen women’s access and control over land and natural resources in Africa. Read more on the Women’s Land Rights in Africa (WLRA) programme outcomes and publications.


Gender Justice: Equal Land Rights for Women – Public Dialogue (2018)

On 14th December 2018, LANDac and its partners organised a public event to highlight the importance of Equal Land Rights for Women at the Humanity House in the Hague. The dialogue presented stories, film and photography from successful grassroots movements in Africa and the Netherlands on women’s rights to land. Speakers from the Netherlands and Malawi shared with the audience their experiences and the lessons we can learn from the role of local champions and the importance of building movements and international solidarity. This report shares some of the main experiences, reflections and discussions from the dialogue.


Kick-off event: Strengthening Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in Land Governance (2018)

On December 13th, over 70 policy makers and representatives of civil society organizations, knowledge institutes and the private sector gathered at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a kick-off event and photo exhibition on Strengthening Women’s Land Rights. Four women from Kenya, Uganda, India and Malawi shared successful examples of grassroots activities, which emphasised the importance of involving grassroots women and women’s groups in decision-making procedures to strengthen women’s right to use, control, access and take decisions about land.


Seminar Women’s Land Rights: From Global Commitments to Local Results (2017)

In many countries women cannot have their name on land title deeds, which means that they are not recognised as farmers. Yet women can end up doing most of the manual work on the land but are often not recognised for their labour input as usually the men are the registered as the land owners. Therefore women are unable to claim their land rights. Catherine Gatundu, an environmental and women’s land rights expert working at ActionAid International, was invited to share her experiences of the major learnings, challenges to achieving equitable land rights, and the way forward.


Report Women’s Land Rights Expert Meeting (2017)

This report contains the outcomes and key themes from the Women’s Land Rights expert meeting, which was held on 27th – 29th November at Marialust in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. The event was organised by: The Gender Resource Facility, Kadaster, LANDac, The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oxfam Novib and the Centre for Development Innovation at Wageningen University. The purpose of the meeting was to bring together practitioners, scholars, policymakers and representatives of grassroots movements to develop strategies and outcomes that address one crucial question: how to successfully improve and scale women’s land tenure security and land rights?

Also take a look at: Women’s Land Rights Expert Meeting Declaration: A roadmap towards equity and sustainability.


Book Global Trends in Land Tenure Reform: Gender Impacts (2015)

Edited By Caroline S. Archambault and Annelies Zoomers (2015).
This book explores the gendered dimensions of recent land governance transformations across the globe in the wake of unprecedented pressures on land and natural resources. These complex contemporary forces are reconfiguring livelihoods and impacting women’s positions, their tenure security and wellbeing, and that of their families.

Ref: Archambault, C. S. (Ed.), Zoomers, A. (Ed.). (2015). Global Trends in Land Tenure Reform. London: Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315765822


Research: Impact of the Land Reform on the Land Rights of the Majority Rural, especially Women (Rwanda) (2011)

Good land governance today is one of the current global debates because of its centrality in managing diverging interests, competing claims, and processes of inclusion and exclusion related to land rights as a key resource of majority of developing countries. The importance of good land governance in strengthening women’s land rights as a major source of their livelihood cannot be over emphasised. However, major challenges remain posed by recent global pressure on land.


Other Resources

KIT, WCDI & YPARD – Youth in Agricultural Cooperatives (2018)

KIT Royal Tropical Institute, the Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation (WCDI), the Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD) with the financial support of Food & Business Knowledge Platform recently conducted a research on youth inclusion in agricultural cooperatives. The extensive literature review conducted for this explorative study highlighted knowledge gaps, specifically with regards to the role of youth in agricultural cooperatives. The findings presented in this report take into account gender dynamics at play. The different socio-economic realities amongst young women and men – which are critical in determining how easily and under what conditions they can access key resources, such as knowledge, land, and finance – are also highlighted.


KIT – Strengthening Vocational Training Capacity in Mali (2019-2021)

KIT Royal Tropical Institute is the lead organisation in the ‘ReCaFoP’ (Renforcer les capacités de formation professionelle) project, which aims to improve the supply of technical and vocational training (TVET) needed to tackle challenges such as natural resource management and the lack of economic opportunities for young people and women in Mali.


KIT & SNV – Unleashing potential: gender and youth inclusive agri-food chains (2015)

Solutions for meeting food needs and for mitigating environmental constraints include: sustainable agricultural practices; innovative technologies to increase productivity and improve food chain efficiency; and, improved market access for farmers. But these solutions tend to be technologically biased, focusing on agricultural and value chain technologies – without enough attention given to gender and social disparities […]. Read more here.


Oxfam Novib – Women’s Land Rights for Inclusive Development and Growth in Africa (2018 -2020)

The Women’s Land Rights for Inclusive Development and Growth in Africa (WLRIDGA) project by Oxfam Novib was conceived with the specific aim to promote women’s land rights and to empower women and CSOs in the process. With the ultimate goal of gender just land governance, the WLRIDGA project is intended to support evidence-based and transformative advocacy efforts of civil society in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Togo and Tunisia, and at the continental level. Learn more about the project here.


Landesa – Center for women’s land rights

Rights to land are a foundation for transforming poverty into thriving. The Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights exists to help women thrive equally: they focus on women and girls because they experience poverty more harshly, especially when it comes to land. Landesa has a number of interesting resources for you to explore. Visit their website here.


Stand for her land campaign

The Stand For Her Land Campaign aims to close the gap between laws and practice so that millions of women can realize land rights in their daily lives, across contexts and around the world. The campaign partners include The World Bank, GLTN, Habitat for Humanity, Huairou Commission, ILC, Landesa and Rights + Resources. Learn more here.


LANDac Videos

Scaling Up Women’s Land Rights in Africa – Highlights Learning Event 2018

Scaling Up Women’s Land Rights in Africa – Learning Event 2018

Scaling Up Women’s Land Rights – Expert Meeting 2016


News Items

This article by Louis, Mauto, Dodd, Heidenrich, Dolo and Urey (2020) was published in Land and summarizes the evidence on Read more
The engagement of youth and young professionals plays a key role achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) since today's youth Read more
In a conversation to mark the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, Landesa's Beth Roberts and Shipra Deo discuss Read more