EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

PURPOSE OF THIS BRIEF

Community forest management (CFM) is an approach to forest management and use that prioritizes the local population’s role. This brief provides United States Agency for International Development (USAID) staff who design and work on CFM activities with an accessible summary of Hajjar et al. (2020), a recent global synthesis of 697 cases in the CFM literature, including recommendations relevant to Agency programming. It highlights findings related to associations between CFM context factors and the achievement of positive CFM outcomes across multiple dimensions, while drawing attention to current knowledge on tradeoffs between CFM outcomes and the contexts in which such forests are often embedded. The brief outlines potential complementarities and divergences in Hajjar et al.’s findings with USAID CFM documentation including the Sourcebook for Community-Based Forestry Enterprise Programming, which synthesizes lessons learned from activities focused on community forestry-related private enterprises.1 In doing so, the brief points to opportunities for USAID to improve future activity designs and contribute to more effective CFM activity design and programming.

OVERVIEW OF CFM

Over the past decade, USAID has funded CFM activities around the globe to empower local communities, improve livelihoods, and protect the environment. Government- and donor-led programming in USAID partner countries to help communities address deforestation has changed over the past 40 years. While efforts previously focused on involving communities in state activities, programming now tends to support devolved management and use rights.

Research has highlighted several general drivers of CFM success, but there are still many questions about the specific impacts and drivers of observed change. In addition to forest outcomes, related governance and livelihoods outcomes including equity outcomes, for communities involved in CFM, are still open questions in the literature. While individual studies may address conservation or socioeconomic impacts, there has been limited analysis of the tradeoffs between different outcomes.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM HAJJAR ET AL.

Hajjar et al. includes the following key findings from the global literature on CFM:

Environmental and income benefits often appear to be achieved together. Most cases that reported on both income and environmental outcomes found positive change in both dimensions. It was less common for cases to document tradeoffs between these two sustainability dimensions (i.e., a decline in incomes but an increase in environmental outcomes, or vice versa). However, income distribution within communities can be problematic. About half of the cases examined reported that benefit sharing had become less equitable or mostly inequitable following CFM. Other studies provide many examples of wide disparities in who benefits from CFM within communities.

Declining forest resource rights and distributional asymmetries within communities are common. While information on forest resources rights was less commonly reported (39 percent of cases), most cases reported a decrease in forest resource rights for all or some community members (where this information was available). In some cases, those losing access rights were compensated with other livelihood benefits. In other cases, those who had their resource access rights curtailed were less likely to benefit from alternative livelihood strategies or new, formal forest-based community businesses. Distributional asymmetries within communities were prevalent among the cases.

The cases Hajjar et al. examined reflect a heavy reporting bias in the literature toward cases from South Asia (54 percent of 697 cases). About a third of the cases are of joint forest management, a type of CFM policy prevalent in India. There is an apparent under-representation in the literature of CFM in Latin America and East and Southeast Asia. However, the above outcome patterns hold even when India and Nepal (the second most common country in the sample) are excluded. Two-thirds of the forests in the sample were smaller than 500 ha.

KEY CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR USAID

The key messages this brief highlights for improved effectiveness of USAID’s CFM programming include:

• The nature of community de facto and de jure rights prior to CFM interventions, and the changes to them as a result of a given intervention, are highly important in achieving CFM’s diverse goals.
• CFM interventions should further consider who in local communities benefits from collective rights, who is left out of the creation of new community-based institutions, and who is negatively affected by changes to individual rights under CFM.
• Many contextual factors can influence the likelihood for a CFM intervention to achieve its stated goals. CFM program designers should take into consideration several context factors when thinking about where interventions might be located, the nature of programming provided, and expectations for outcomes. Hajjar et al. highlights key factors such as:
  • Type of CFM;
  • Time since policy change;
  • Type of forest;
  • Degree to which a community adheres to forest rules;
  • Nature of community de facto and de jure rights to forests;
  • Population size of management community; and
  • Migration

---

---

---

Banner Photo: Maromizaha protected area in Madagascar. Credit: Olaf Zerbock, USAID.

RELATED RESOURCES

• Project Brief: Liberia’s Land Rights and Community Forestry Program (LRCFP)
• PROSPER Community Forestry Curriculum: Forestry Training Institute
• PROSPER Report: Curriculum Design and Teacher Training Needs Assessment: Preliminary Community Forestry for the Forestry Training Institute
• A Sourcebook for Community-Based Forestry Enterprise Programming
• Liberia: Land Rights and Community Forest Program
• Productive Landscapes: An assessment of critical enabling conditions for community-based forestry enterprises
  

---

---

---

In most countries, women do not enjoy the same opportunities around access to, control over, and benefits from artisanal mining in their communities.

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is a significant source of income for tens of millions of people in developing countries. ASM refers to small groups and individuals engaged in low-cost and laborintensive excavation of minerals using minimal mechanization. ASM techniques are used in the production of precious minerals such as gold and diamonds, fertilizers used in agriculture, garnet used to filter water, and gravel and stone used for building bridges and paving rural roads. According to current estimates, at least 40 million people globally work directly in the ASM sector, and about 300 million people in more than 70 countries depend indirectly on the sector (Stocklin-Weinberg et al., 2019). Women are estimated to represent 30–50% of the global ASM workforce but are often overlooked by donors and governments. In Ghana, women account for as much as 90% of the gold mining labor force, and women represent the majority of gemstone miners in Tanzania (Yakovleva, 2007; Craig & Antonocci, 2014).

While there is significant variation across countries, women tend to earn only one quarter of what men earn in the ASM sector (Eshun, 2016; Lahiri-Dutt, 2018). Despite earning less than their male counterparts, ASM still represents a critical source of income for women. In some countries, the relative economic opportunities in the ASM sector are comparatively more valuable for women than men. For example, while women in ASM in Uganda earn less than men, women can still earn 335% more at the mine site compared to non-mining activities, while men can only earn 65% more (Buss et al., 2019).

In most countries, women do not enjoy the same opportunities around access to, control over, and benefits from artisanal mining in their communities. The division of labor within the ASM supply chain is typically gendered with women more often occupying non-digging jobs, such washing and crushing stone, and creating ancillary businesses, such as selling food and goods around mining sites (Arcos et al., 2018; Buss et al., 2017). However, women are increasingly stepping out of indirect supportive roles and engaging directly in mining (IGF, 2018).

Development interventions focused on the legalization of the ASM sector that do not explicitly promote women’s economic empowerment can have the unintended consequence of further excluding women from the economic benefits of ASM (Buss et al., forthcoming). At a national level, even when existing laws treat women and men equally, these laws are often still enforced and interpreted using existing societal norms—a reality that can often exacerbate inequalities between men and women.

Understanding how and why women and men differentially interact with, and are impacted by, ASM production and commercialization is key to bringing about reforms in this important economic sector. Gender differences can be found at all levels of the commodity chain, from the point of production to processing in the international economy. By exploring the gendered dynamics in ASM contexts, one gains a deeper understanding of how women in the ASM sector contribute to poverty alleviation, national revenue generation, and foreign exchange earnings. Social relations between women and men are structured through traditional gender norms and power relations. Much can be learned from applied research on the sector and the small suite of projects working in this sphere.

Shifting Views on Gender in the ASM Sector

The literature on gender relations in the ASM sector has evolved greatly over the past three decades. Over this period, the focus of research has shifted from an emphasis on the negative impacts of artisanal mining on women and children, the natural resource base, and labor violations to the important economic roles of women in the sector.

Prior to the 1990s, the ASM sector was largely viewed as illegitimate and a threat to the more efficient and profitable industrial mining sector. The sparse research on ASM tended to focus on extraction, placing an emphasis on the role of the miner in the economy. Women were described in terms of the roles they played in non-digging activities such as rock crushing, sluicing, washing, panning, sieving, transporting, and food vending. Early literature depicted women as a cheap and readily available reservoir of labor, but one that needed special protections (Lahiri-Dutt, 2012). To protect

women and children, some countries prohibit pregnant women from accessing mine sites to reduce their risk of exposure to mercury, a powerful neurotoxin. Other countries restrict the roles available to women in the sector, ostensibly to protect women from the risks of heavy labor.

In the early 2000s, the discourse on the ASM sector began to shift, and with it, the discourse on gender also began to shift. The international development community began highlighting the ASM sector’s potential to drive economic growth, alleviate poverty, and contribute to development. In terms of gender, a new focus was placed on the income-generating opportunities for women involved in the various stages of mineral extraction. However, the literature continued to portray roles typically filled by women (e.g., rock crushing, washing) as ancillary, despite their importance to ASM supply chains.

Increasingly, gender considerations are being incorporated into high-level policy documents and duediligence systems. For example, the 2012 Washington Declaration Diagnostic Framework, launched with support from USAID, includes a commitment to strengthening women’s rights. The Washington Declaration Diagnostic Framework helps countries assess their artisanal diamond mining sector and improve implementation of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) – a due-diligence system aimed at preventing “conflict diamonds.” The Washington Declaration calls for participants to “promote gender equity and strengthen efforts to guarantee women equal access to land rights, education, credit and training programs” (Washington Declaration, 2016). Although the Kimberley Process Core Document does not address gender explicitly, gender safeguards call for a commitment to gender equality within Kimberley Process documents, an expansion of the definition of conflict diamond to include violence against women, and the establishment of a trust fund to support interventions for women in mining communities (GIZ & Levin Sources, 2019).

Best practices dictate that development programs in the ASM sector should approach gender as a cross-cutting issue. Gender should be an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of ASM development policies and programs. A normative view is emerging that ASM sector programming should aim to:

1. Reduce gender disparities in the ASM sector including access to, control over, and benefit from resources;
2. Reduce gender-based violence in and around mine sites; and
3. Empower women and girls – economically, socially and politically.

 

---

---

---

 

This Issue Brief outlines the relationship between artisanal and small-scale mining and development, describes USAID’s programs, highlights illustrative best practices, and shares key resources.

Summary

Approximately 40 million people worldwide work in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), which describes mining conducted by individuals, families, or groups using rudimentary and often non- mechanized processes to extract minerals or gems. An additional three to five times that number receive support from the ASM sector indirectly (Buxton, 2013; World Bank, 2019). Thus, more than 300 million people in more than 70 countries depend directly and indirectly on artisanal mining to provide for themselves and their families (Stocklin-Weinberg et. al 2019).

Accounting for approximately 20 percent of the world’s production of gold, diamonds, tin, and tantalum, and 80 percent of colored gemstones, ASM is a major source of minerals for electronics, investment (in the case of gold), and jewelry (IGF, 2017). ASM has economic potential but also many challenges, such as environmental degradation; uneven distribution of benefits; conflicting claims to resource rights; illicit trade, armed conflict, corruption, human rights, and labor violations; and discriminatory practices. To achieve its potential as a driver of sustainable social and economic development, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) supports formalization and regulation of ASM.

Formalization of the ASM sector aims to ensure “responsible” artisanal minerals production and trade through transparency, due diligence, and compliance with legal frameworks. This includes the active management of risks such as avoidance of human rights abuses, financing of terrorism, money laundering, and public corruption (OECD 2016; RAGS Forum, 2018). A formalized and well-regulated ASM sector can be a powerful engine for economic growth for men and women and an important source of domestic resource mobilization for developing countries. Importantly, formalization can help address problems that sometimes characterize ASM, such as human rights abuses and the use of minerals to finance conflict, armed groups, criminal networks, and terrorist organizations (OECD, 2016).

USAID works with partner countries to formalize and regulate ASM gold; diamonds; tin, tantalum, and tungsten; and semi-precious stones. USAID programs foster ASM supply chains that are not only legal, but also environmentally and socially responsible. USAID is working closely with the US Departments of State, Labor, and Commerce; the US Geologic Survey (USGS); and the Environmental Protection Agency to tackle the complex array of ASM-related development challenges. Since 2014, USAID has implemented 14 projects with an ASM focus in Africa, Latin America, and Central Asia (see map graphic), and ASM is an integral component of at least four additional projects. USAID’s ASM-related projects are cross-sectoral in nature and advance a variety of development goals, such as economic growth, women’s economic empowerment, the environment, land tenure, governance, peace, justice, and human rights.

USAID Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Activities (2014–2020)

In recognition of the permanent and growing nature of the ASM sector and the vital role it plays in the journey to self-reliance for millions of men and women, USAID continues to address ASM’s development challenges. Through innovative solutions in partnership with the US Government (USG), civil society, and private sector partners, USAID is helping improve ASM, through respect of women’s rights, rule of law, environmental considerations, property rights, peace, justice, security, and human and labor rights.

Artisanal Mining in the Journey to Self-Reliance

Download the Full Issue Brief

 

---

---

---

 

Land Rights, Household Investments, and Agricultural Productivity

Secure land and resource rights provide positive incentives to invest in and conserve valuable resources, including land, pastures, and forests. Conversely, when these rights are insecure, people have more limited incentives to invest labor and capital to improve soil, plant perennial crops, manage rangelands, and invest in irrigation. The relationship between tenure security and land-related agricultural investment is widely documented.

• When land rights are secure, farmers invest more in their land and agricultural productivity improves. In Thailand, land titling increased investment, input use, and yields. In Ethiopia, land certification led to land productivity increases of 40 to 45 percent in the Tigray Region, and soil and water conservation investments rose by 30 percent in the Amhara Region. In Rwanda, investment doubled in farmers’ soil conservation. In rural Benin, communities that participated in a process to map and recognize land rights, were 39 to 43 percent more likely to shift their crop investments from subsistence to long-term and perennial cash crops, and tree planting. Additional studies from Nicaragua, Peru, Cambodia, and Vietnam found statistically significant effects of land titling interventions on agricultural investment and productivity.
• When land rights are insecure, investment, productivity, and yields fall. In Uganda, when plot ownership and control was disputed, yields were 20 percent lower; with eviction risk, yields were 37 percent lower. In Burkina Faso, productivity dropped 40 percent when households had concerns regarding land disputes. In Malawi, the probability of investing in conservation was approximately 14 percent lower on informally rented plots where tenure was less secure than on inherited or purchased plots.
• When land rights are secure, household participation in land markets increases. Research has shown that better functioning land markets—including rental markets—positively impact agricultural productivity and food security by allocating land more efficiently to the most productive users and allowing less productive farmers to migrate or work in other sectors. In Ethiopia, household land certification increased participation in the leasing and amount of land rented out. Another study from Ethiopia found that female-headed households with access to formal land rights are more likely to engage in land rental activities as landlords. In the Dominican Republic, insecure property rights decreased land rental activity. The same study suggests that improving tenure security would increase the total area rented to the poor by 63 percent.

Women’s Land Rights and Food Security

Women make up approximately 43 percent of the agricultural labor force and produce a significant portion of the food grown in the developing world. While land is the most important resource for those dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods, women consistently have less access to land than men, and women’s land rights are less secure. At the same time, research shows that if women had the same access to resources for agricultural production as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20 to 30 percent; this could raise total agricultural output in developing countries by 2.5 to 4 percent, and in turn reduce the number of undernourished people in the world by 12 to 17 percent. This and other evidence supports the global consensus that closing the gender gap in secure access to land for women is fundamental to food security and women’s empowerment.

• When women have secure land rights, agricultural investment and production increase. In Rwanda, women whose land rights were formalized were 19 percent more likely to engage in soil conservation, compared to 10 percent among men. In rural Benin, women were historically unlikely to invest in soil fertility by leaving their land fallow; but this gender gap disappeared in communities where female-headed households mapped and documented their parcel boundaries. In these communities, female-headed households were just as likely as male-headed households to leave their land fallow. Gender-sensitive allocation of micro-gardens in India increased use of credit and inputs like fertilizer. In Ethiopia, land certification led to increased productivity on plots owned by women.
• When women have secure access to land, nutrition outcomes improve. In Ethiopia, an increase in land allocated to women decreased household food insecurity by 36 percent. Studies from Nicaragua and Honduras have found that increases in female landholdings are associated with increases in household food expenditure and child educational attainment. In Vietnam, children in households where women own land are up to 10 percent less likely to be sick. In Nepal, in households where women own land, children are 33 percent less likely to be severely underweight.

Land Rights and Responsible Agricultural Investment

The global imperative to improve food security and promote economic development is driving some countries to actively support investment in large-scale commercial agricultural production. However, evidence suggests that there is no one “right” model for agricultural development. In some contexts small-scale farmers may be as efficient as larger-scale producers. In other cases, larger-scale commercial production may be common, especially in areas where people can buy and sell land with assurance that their contracts will be impartially enforced.

However, research suggests that large-scale acquisitions of agricultural land in countries where land markets are constrained and the rights of small-scale producers are insecure can lead to harmful effects on local livelihoods. At the same time, companies may face reputational, financial, and operational risks in markets where land rights are undocumented or land governance is weak. The Munden Project (2012) quantifies these costs to investors. Taking time to get investments right can yield sustained, positive outcomes in food production and safeguard the property rights of local communities. See USAID’s Operational Guidelines for Responsible Land-Based Investment for more information.

USAID’s Land and Food Security Programming Past and Present

For decades, USAID has supported coordinated policies and programs that clarify and strengthen land tenure and property rights as a way to increase food security and spur agricultural investment. From supporting legal and policy reforms that improve women’s land rights, to developing and testing mobile applications to secure tenure, to supporting public-private partnerships for responsible land-based investment, USAID is working through multiple channels to address the complex set of issues around tenure and food security in 14 countries and at the global policy level in support of the goals of the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, Feed the Future.

• In Tajikistan, a Feed the Future project is supporting land policy reforms and legal aid clinics that focus on strengthening women’s property rights and restructuring farms to develop a robust market in land use rights.
• In Tanzania, another Feed the Future project is scaling a pilot program that uses a low-cost mobile application to clarify and document the rights of smallholder farmers, providing them formal land documentation—for the first time—and allowing women to register their land.
• In Ethiopia, USAID is supporting communal certification of pastoral land rights, as well as strengthening pastoral communities’ capacity for land use planning and management and investment negotiations. This program builds on the successes of a series of USAID-supported land certification programs that issued half a million land use rights certificates between 2005 and 2013, including 130,000 joint certificates for married couples and over 70,000 individual certificates for women-headed households.
• At the global policy level, USAID is actively supporting implementation of international mechanisms like the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT) and the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems (RAI) that prioritize respecting and protecting tenure rights—particularly for women and other vulnerable populations—in the context of agricultural investments and national food security strategies.
• In 2017, USAID will support a series of public-private partnerships for responsible land-based investment to “road test” and share lessons from the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition’s Analytical Framework for Land-Based Agricultural Investments and other related guidance.

As a result of these programs and others, since 2013, more than 140,000 households have received formal documentation of their land rights, 18 laws or policies have been adopted that strengthen land rights, more than 87,000 people have been trained on land tenure, and 182 million people are able to benefit from laws and policies adopted that strengthen land rights.

For more information, visit: www.land-links.org/issue/food-security/

Yet, throughout much of the developing world women have less access, control, and ownership of this key asset, and their land rights are less secure. This often limits women’s economic opportunities and leaves them more vulnerable to poverty, hunger, gender-based violence and displacement. Efforts to formalize and strengthen women’s land tenure and property rights are narrowing these gaps, leading to positive change in women’s empowerment, food security and family nutrition, livelihoods, economic growth, and broader rural and urban development. A sample of evidence is highlighted below.

Fewer Rights, Less Land

Women play critical roles in food production in the developing world, and are also often responsible for producing for their own families’ consumption. But women are less likely to own or control land than men. Although there is currently limited rigorous data on gendered land ownership, the best available data shows large differences between women’s participation in agricultural production and their ownership of agricultural land:

• In sub-Saharan Africa, women comprise 48.7 percent of agricultural labor, but only 15 percent of agricultural land holders.
• In Asia (excluding Japan), women comprise 42 percent of agricultural labor and 11 percent of land holders.
• In Latin America, women comprise 20 percent of agricultural labor and 18 percent of landowners.
• In the Middle East and North Africa, women comprise 40 percent of agricultural labor and 5 percent of landowners.

Even when women do own or control land, the quality is often lower and the amount less than that owned or controlled by men. In addition, women frequently own fewer assets; in fact, women’s assets are seldom worth even half the value of men’s assets. A study in Ethiopia found the average land area women control is 43 percent smaller than that controlled by male farmers. Other research in the Tigray Region found that plots owned by female-headed households were 23 percent smaller those owned by men.

Limitations on women’s access to and use of land restricts economic gains. For example, evidence from Ethiopia has found that female-headed households received 10 percent fewer visits from agricultural extension agents and 12 percent fewer visits by development agents than male-headed households. Moreover, plots farmed by women often have lower agricultural productivity than those farmed by men. In addition, women may not have equal access to land and rental markets. Additional research found that Ethiopian men rented out four times as much land as women and thus were more likely to realize greater income benefits from land. Finally, social norms and gender-based preferences may constrain women’s ability to access and use needed agricultural inputs.

Women’s Land Rights, Empowerment, and Economic Gains

When women have secure rights to land, they make investments to improve land and acquire better quality inputs, participate in land rental markets, and receive more income.

• When women have secure land rights, they have higher economic gains. In Tanzania, women with strong land rights were 3 times more likely to work off-farm, earned up to 3.8 times more income, and were 1.35 times more likely to have individual savings. In India, gender-sensitive allocation of micro-gardens increased women’s use of credit. In Rwanda, women having land titles was correlated with a 12 percent increase in women taking out loans. In India, more secure land rights led to an 11 percent increase in women deciding whether to sell crops produced on such land.
• When women have secure land rights, women’s empowerment increases. Secure access to land acts as a source of empowerment by increasing women’s economic security and increasing their control over household decisions. For example, in Nepal, 37 percent of women who owned land had the final say on a household decision, compared to 20 percent of women who did not own land. In Ethiopia, a household land certification program led to a 44 percent increase in the likelihood of a wife deciding which crops to grow on lands under her control.

Women’s Land Rights and Agricultural Productivity

When women have secure land rights, land is used more efficiently, and agricultural investment and production increase. In Rwanda, women with formalized land rights were 19 percent more likely to engage in soil conservation, compared to 10 percent among men. In rural Benin, women were historically less likely than men to invest in soil fertility by leaving their land fallow, but this gender gap disappeared in communities where female-headed households mapped and documented their parcel boundaries. In these communities, female-headed households were just as likely as male-headed households to leave their land fallow.

Women’s Land Rights Improve Food Security and Benefit the Entire Household

Closing the gender gap in secure access to land is fundamental not only for women’s empowerment, but also for broader family food security, children’s health and economic gains.

• When women have secure access to land, productivity gains lead to broader household benefits. Research shows that if women had the same access to resources for agricultural production as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20 to 30 percent. This could raise total agricultural output in developing countries by 2.5 to 4 percent—a substantial increase at national scales—and in turn reduce the number of undernourished people in the world by 12 to 17 percent.
• When women have secure access to land, nutrition outcomes improve. In Ethiopia, an increase in land allocated to women decreased household food insecurity by 36 percent. Studies from Nicaragua and Honduras have found that increases in female landholdings are associated with increases in household food expenditure and child educational attainment. In Vietnam, children in households where women own land are up to 10 percent less likely to be sick. In Nepal, in households where women own land, children are 33 percent less likely to be severely underweight.

Strategies for Strengthening Women’s Land Rights

Successful practices and programming have been developed to facilitate gender-equitable property rights in many parts of the world. These methods provide valuable examples of how the complex issue of women’s rights to access and own land can be addressed in different contexts. Strategies include:

• Ensuring that women have legal rights to own, inherit and transfer land;
• Supporting efforts to help women exercise their legal rights, for example, through support to legal aid clinics;
• Educating local land administration officials on women’s land rights and how to promote and enforce these rights;
• Enhancing women’s decision-making capabilities on land they use, regardless of whether they are a named owner of the land or if their names appear on legal documents;
• Giving attention to individual rights within a household, not just household rights as a whole;
• Addressing norms and customs for how women acquire land (e.g., purchase, inheritance), the quality of land they receive, and how land is transferred at marriage or a spouse’s death;
• Addressing social norms that support violence against women in order to mitigate harmful behavior;
• Undertaking land governance reforms, including legal reforms in linked sectors to harmonize family, marriage, and inheritance laws and both the national and local levels;
• Expanding legal protections for women’s rights to land, and protection from gender-based discrimination in customary and statutory land systems;
• Working with customary leaders and systems to promote women’s access to and control over land; and,
• Educating both women and men on the benefits of recognizing women’s land rights.

USAID Women’s Land Rights Programming Past and Present

USAID considers strengthening women’s land rights central to its efforts to eliminate extreme poverty and promote resilient, democratic societies. Therefore, the U.S. Government and USAID have played a leading role in several high profile actions in support of women’s land rights:

• The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which the U.S. Government and USAID helped shape as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, contain targets where women’s land and property rights are important to ending poverty (target 1.4), achieving food security (target 2.3), and ensuring gender equality (target 5.a) by 2030.
• USAID’s Gender Equality and Female Empowerment Policy of 2012, places a centralized role on incorporating women’s empowerment in all of our programming in order to realize our collective international priorities.
• The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT)—a globally agreed international instrument for responsible land governance—prioritize strengthening women’s land rights. USAID chaired the negotiations in 2012 and is leading implementation of the Guidelines.

USAID also supports coordinated policies and programs that clarify and strengthen women’s land rights. USAID is working through multiple channels to address the complex set of issues around women’s land rights in 17 countries. For example:

• In Tanzania, women’s land certification jumped from 0 to 49.4 percent in the villages where USAID’s Mobile Application to Secure Tenure (MAST) was deployed.
• In Tajikistan, a Feed the Future project is supporting land policy reforms and legal aid clinics that focus on strengthening women’s property rights and restructuring farms to develop a robust market in land use rights.
• In Kosovo, USAID is supporting judicial and policy reforms that strengthen women’s property rights—including inheritance rights—and is supporting public information and awareness campaigns and legal aid programs to help women understand and exercise their rights.

As a result of these programs and others, since 2013, more than 140,000 households have received formal documentation of their land rights, more than 87,000 people have been trained on land tenure, and 18 laws or policies have been adopted that strengthen land rights – potentially benefiting 182 million people.

For more information, visit: www.land-links.org/issue/gender-equality/