l Interactive Map
Click on the map below to see how land rights impact the lives of women around the world.
l WOMEN’S LAND RIGHTS FACTS
Women represent half of the global population, produce the majority of the world’s food supply, perform 60% to 80% of the agricultural work in emerging economies, and yet women own less than 20% of land worldwide.
15 Countries
Where women do not have equal ownership rights to property
34 Countries
Where daughters do not have equal inheritance rights
35 Countries
Where widows do not have equal inheritance rights by law
90 Countries
Where customs inhibit women’s access to land
Sub-Saharan Africa
Women in Agricultural Labor
Women Agricultural Land Holders
Asia
Women in Agricultural Labor
Women Agricultural Land Holders
Middle East and North Africa
Women in Agricultural Labor
Women Agricultural Land Holders
WHY SUPPORT WOMEN’S LAND RIGHTS?
Women, families, and communities all benefit when women have rights to inherit and own the land they rely on.
Women with strong rights to inherit land earn up to 3.8 times more income.
Children whose mothers own land are up to 33% less likely to be severely underweight.
Families where women own more land devote more of their budget to education.
Women who own more land are up to 8 time less likely to experience domestic violence.
Where women’s property and inheritance rights are stronger, women’s individual savings are up to 35 percent greater.
Children in households where women own land are up to 10% less likely to be sick.
For a list of sources click here.
l BLOGS & ARTICLES
Video: Starting With Women
When it Comes to Land Rights, Women Should Never be an Afterthought
We know that when women have secure land rights, the benefits are amplified. Women’s status goes up, children’s nutrition improves, and families earn higher incomes. However, despite an increasing focus on women’s land rights as a vitally important issue, very few people – including development experts – know how to concretely strengthen them in practice.
Learn More
To Improve Land Rights in Ghana, Start with Women
Successful farming is a question of amassing and applying knowledge, adapting your approach to the ecological systems that confront you, and persevering in the face of new obstacles. For women farmers in Ghana and elsewhere in many other parts of Africa, this reality is mirrored in their struggle to secure their rights to the land that they work. It is a struggle I know all too well.
Learn More
Strengthening Women’s Land Rights: The Neglected Lever Towards Increasing AG Production
Efforts to improve the agricultural production of hundreds of millions of subsistence farmers around the world like Liberia’s Kou Berpa have – for the most part – focused on the usual trifecta: improving her access to technology, quality inputs, and markets.
Learn More
Documenting Women’s Rights
Even where land rights are documented, women are less likely to enjoy secure rights to the land and resources they rely on because in more than half the countries in the world, laws or customs undermine or block women’s rights to own, manage, or inherit land or property according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank.
Learn More
Let’s Work Together to Make Land Rights for Women a Reality
Around the world, rural women are a major provider of food and food security. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations argues that improving women’s access to productive resources (such as land) could increase agricultural output by as much as 2.5% to 4%. At the same time, women would produce 20-30% more food, and their families would enjoy better health, nutrition, and education.
Learn More
Achieving SDGs Through Land Rights (Tenure Security) for Women
Land in Tanzania is a scarce resource without which life cannot be sustained (FAO, 2007), and it is “increasingly recognized as an important governance issue” around the global (Palmer et al., 2009, p.1). Hundreds of millions of people including farmers, herders, forest dwellers and agro-industries all rely on land resources for their survival.
Learn More
Reforming Women’s Property Rights in Afghanistan
On paper, the law is clear: men and women enjoy equal property rights under Afghanistan’s 2004 constitution. But on-the-ground reality says otherwise as a combination of tradition and customary laws keep most Afghan women unaware of their land rights and far from owning property.
Learn More
Securing Women’s Land Rights: a Growing Momentum with SDGs and LPI
From 8 to 9 July Elisa Mandelli, representing IFAD, was in New York to participate in the Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on Securing Women’s Land Rights in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The meeting was jointly organized by the Global Land Indicators Initiative (GLII) in partnership with Landesa, Oxfam, Huairou Commission and UN Women.
Learn More
Q&A: Madhu Sarin on Strengthening Women’s Land Rights in India
International Women’s Day – 7 Women Who Refuse to Wait for Their Rights
If there’s one thing we learned from January’s historic Women’s March, it’s that women are fed up of waiting. More than 3 million people – of all genders – marched worldwide for women’s rights, spurred on by US President Donald Trump’s misogynistic remarks and the growing backlash against women’s human rights around the world.
Learn More
Women and Land – How to Get From Intentions to Change on the Ground
Everyone was energised by the trek of 29 women from 22 African countries up and down Kilimanjaro this month to raise awareness of women’s land rights, producing a charter of 15 demands on how to protect and enhance these rights. A powerful statement and great mobilising action.
Learn More
Land Rights Provide Stability and Security for Women Living with HIV
First, Maame Kraba was diagnosed with HIV. Shortly thereafter, her husband died of the disease. For Maame, a young mother of two children living in Western Region, Ghana, her husband’s death marked an abrupt change in her family’s circumstances, one that would put her rights to land in jeopardy.
Learn More
Why Women’s Empowerment Must Start with Land Rights
Property and citizenship are in many ways what define us, and they interact in fascinating ways. To understand how property ownership strengthens people’s ability to enjoy full citizenship – and here we are talking about civic identity and the ability to enjoy economic and civil rights as opposed to legal citizenship – you don’t have to go back to the ancient Greeks and Romans who based the right to vote on landownership (and gender and age).
Learn More
Three Myths about Rural Women
As the U.N. International Day of Rural Women on Oct. 15 spotlights the key role women play in the dynamic economies of the developing world, you may see some striking statistics and platitudes on the topic. These are meant to highlight the inequality and discrimination rural women around the world face, and inspire us to recommit to advancing their rights and agency.
Learn More
Land Corruption Eroding Women’s Rights in Ghana
In Ghana, land is an indispensable asset. It’s a source of livelihood and social identity, and men and women should have equal opportunities to benefit from it. But when entrenched patriarchy tips the power scales, and corruption reinforces cultural norms, the impact on women can be devastating.
Learn More