We at Resource Equity have seen the ways securing and protecting people’s land rights leads to benefits for societies. The ongoing work being done to secure the collective land rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities is therefore much needed. However, it is vital that this work be done in a way that is gender sensitive. We know that protecting women’s rights to land is good for women, for their families, and for their communities. This is why we produced the report for Landesa, Gender and Collectively Held Lands: Good Practices and Lessons Learned from Six Global Case Studies, aimed […]

One late afternoon, I plodded up a wide muddy road, through a village center, back to the rented SUV where my patient and amiable driver waited. In the Madagascar highlands, everything shouts color: blue sky, red clay hills, green rice shoots, white clouds. The colors drowned out my thoughts. As I walked, I noticed four women, out of place in their Sunday clothes and lambas, white woven cloth worn around their shoulders and waists, in front of a one-story mud-brown building, also out of place among the two-story red laterite clay structures surrounding it. A policeman in a brown camouflage […]

In Northern Uganda, as elsewhere, women are rarely thought of first, especially when it comes to land. There is one woman’s story that comes to mind: Rosalyn (not her real name) was a widow. She bought land with her late husband when he was still alive, near the local trading center in Pader district. Now that he has died, her in-laws have taken the land.

We are pleased to announce the launch of the Research Consortium, a new powerful hub for the collection, sharing, and exchange of knowledge on how to effectively advance women’s land rights.