Reconsidering approaches to women’s land rights in sub-Saharan Africa
September 2015
IIED Briefing (Catriona Knapman & Philippine Sutz)
Emphasises the need for donors, NGOs and governments to take a more comprehensive approach to women’s land rights that addresses underlying gender dynamics to bring about transformative gender change rather than token gains for women. To be effective, work to secure women’s rights to land must focus on tackling social relations to transform gender dynamics and needs to start at household level. Efforts to secure women’s land rights also need to move beyond generalisations about customary practices to document diverse and evolving local systems and the opportunities they provide to promote women’s voices and decision-making power.