Event Information

For most rural households, land is the most valuable asset and the foundation for agricultural production. While a large literature exists on the relationships between land tenure security, livelihoods, and poverty, most of this literature is based on household-level data, and we know little about women’s land rights. As a growing body of research demonstrates the importance of women’s ownership and control over assets, this webinar will discuss definitions of women’s land rights (WLR) and tenure security, and review the evidence on why this matters for development outcomes.

Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Agnes Quisumbing, Cheryl Doss, and Sophie Theis will present findings from their recently published systematic review on how WLR can reduce poverty through a range of pathways, including bargaining power, human capital investment, intergenerational transfers, natural resource management, agricultural productivity, credit, technology adoption, empowerment, health, and food security. The webinar will discuss the strength and agreement of the available evidence along these pathways and opportunities for designing, implementing, and evaluating approaches that build on this knowledge base to strengthen WLR for women’s empowerment and other development outcomes.

Meinzen-Dick, R., Quisumbing, A.R., Doss, C., S. Theis. 2017. Women’s land rights as a pathway to poverty reduction: A framework and review of available evidence. Agricultural Systems. doi: 10.1016/j.agsy.2017.10.009