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Improving Women’s and Girls’ Land Rights: Illustrative Interventions from India and Uganda Tim Hanstad Rural Developme

Improving Women’s and Girls’ Land Rights: Illustrative Interventions from India and Uganda Tim Hanstad Rural Development Institute (RDI). Outline. Introduction Why do women’s land rights matter? Barriers to women’s land rights: a legal perspective

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Improving Women’s and Girls’ Land Rights: Illustrative Interventions from India and Uganda Tim Hanstad Rural Developme

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  1. Improving Women’s and Girls’ Land Rights: Illustrative Interventions from India and Uganda Tim Hanstad Rural Development Institute (RDI)

  2. Outline • Introduction • Why do women’s land rights matter? • Barriers to women’s land rights: a legal perspective • Putting a gender lens on land projects targeted at “households” • Illustrative interventions targeting women’s or girls’ land rights • Land Purchase for Women: Andhra Pradesh, India • Daughters, Dowry, and Early Marriage: West Bengal, India • Women and Girls in IDP Camps: Uganda

  3. Why Do Women’s Land Rights Matter? • More than half of all women in developing world work in agriculture • Women effective agents of economic and social change • Land as key resource – food security, income, wealth, power, credit, status, government services • Secure land rights for households impact females differently than males

  4. Benefits of Women’s Land Rights • Access to markets • Incentive framework for productivity • Social security • More bargaining power • Children’s welfare • Reduced domestic violence • Reduced Risk of HIV/AIDS

  5. Barriers to Women’s Land Rights: A Legal Perspective • Formal Law Framework: Discriminatory or poorly drafted laws and regulations • Legal Literacy and Aid: Lack of awareness and understanding of rights • Customary Law: Entrenched customs, especially related to land and marriage, divorce, bride price/ dowry, polygamy, and inheritance. Land rights must be both legally and socially legitimate to be usable and enforceable.

  6. Gender Lens on Land Projects • Legal and field analysis to identify gender factors and limitations • Involve women in project planning and design • Outreach and awareness aimed at females • Incorporate activities and elements designed to address legal and cultural issues. • Monitor involvement from and impacts on women

  7. The IKP Land Purchase Program: Andhra Pradesh, India • 80% of women workers in rural India depend on agriculture • Women rarely have rights to land • IKP Program: State Govt of Andhra Pradesh, World Bank, and RDI help landless women purchase land

  8. IKP Land Purchase Program: Andhra Pradesh, India • Women SHGs identify land on market, negotiate price with seller, and obtain financing • Community Coordinators support process • Plot is subdivided, individually titled • Grant + loan + beneficiary contribution

  9. Benefits of the IKP Land Purchase Program • Women are generating 72% of total household income from plots • Women have improved status and respect, both within families and communities • Women report improvements in family’s diet and health • Women’s families are better able to access credit • Women report lower incidences of domestic violence • Women report decreased likelihood that husbands will evict them • Spending on children's education has significantly increased

  10. Daughters, Dowry and Land:West Bengal, India • Girls considered a burden: Fewer prospects to earn income and almost always leave family at marriage • Girls often do not inherit land, even though there are formal inheritance rights: • Hindu daughters have a right to equally inherit land; • Muslim daughters have a right to inherit a portion; • Most families know the law, but don’t follow it

  11. Daughters, Dowry and Land:West Bengal, India • Poor families have greater pressure to marry daughters early • Early marriage can mean trafficking or “unsafe migration” • Ongoing program context: State govt land purchase and allocation

  12. Daughters, Dowry and Land:West Bengal, India • Program design: 1)Government: Prioritized allocation for families with vulnerable girls and ensure girls’ rights to land 2) Community: “community conversations”; girls’ and boys’ groups; to increase awareness of girls’ vulnerability and land rights

  13. Vulnerable Women & Girlsin Post-Conflict Uganda • Many Ugandans have been living in internally displaced person (IDP) camps over last 20 years • Women’s access to land is through her husband, father or brother • Many women and girls in the IDP camps lost family ties through death, rape, disappearance • Now IDP camps are closing; many women and girls have nowhere to go

  14. Vulnerable Women & Girlsin Post-Conflict Uganda • RDI intervention: • Help women and girls in IDP camps get access to land as a group • Promote collective input purchasing and marketing of goods they produce • In partnership with local NGO, identify and dialogue with chiefs and elders willing to allocate a portion of clan land • Uphold the women and girls’ right to the land

  15. Final Remarks Critical to understand the complexity, challenges and barriers to women’s and girls’ land rights; but it IS possible to design interventions to overcome those barriers

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