Despite progress women still face discrimination in land reforms

Gender equality as well as land governance is back on the development agenda. Most land governance reforms seek to enhance tenure security, encourage investments and thereby promote economic growth. Increasingly, land reforms attempt to secure women's and other vulnerable groups' access to land.

This article, published in Journal of International Development, reviews the extent to which gender equality in land tenure has been pursued in these reforms and examines the role played by donor cooperation. Despite significant progress in developing land legislation that upholds gender equality, implementation often does not follow suit, and women still face discrimination. Based on country case studies, the article identifies six challenges, which should be addressed to achieve gender equality in land tenure.

The article builds on research undertaken as part of the Research and Communication Programme (ReCom) on international development cooperation, funded by Danida and Sida, and undertaken by a number of institutions including UNI-WIDER and DIIS.