Strong land tenure is key to eradicating poverty, increasing agricultural investment and ensuring food security, and is an essential element of climate action and climate resilience. But one of the barriers to strong land tenure is that women have far weaker rights to land than men; they hold less land, of lesser quality, and their access to and rights over their land are often secondary, contingent on their relationship to a male family member. 

These resources support integrating gender-equitable tenure approaches into agriculture and gender interventions:

1. What Works for Women’s Land and Property Rights?

This review of the available evidence on women’s land and property rights is aimed at identifying opportunities for additional research. It is based on a review of online literature, academic databases and discussions with global and national practitioners, researchers and activists.

2. Gender Evaluation Criteria for Large-Scale Land Tools.

The Global Land Tool Network’s work to date on criteria for designing new land tools or evaluating existing ones from a gender perspective is presented in this brochure. The gender evaluation criteria (GEC) framework explores how to judge whether a large-scale land tool is sufficiently gender responsive, to identify where more work needs to be done and to highlight possible entry points to make a tool equally beneficial to women and men. This download contains the GEC Matrix in English, French, Arabic and Spanish.

3. Designing and Evaluating Land Tools with a Gender Perspective.

This training course has been developed as a complementary package to the GEC in order to build capacity around how to apply the criteria in practice.

4. Women’s Land Rights as a Pathway to Poverty Reduction: A Framework and Review of Available Evidence.

This paper reviews the literature on women's land rights (WLR) and poverty reduction. It adapts the Gender, Agriculture and Assets Project (GAAP) conceptual framework to identify pathways by which WLR could reduce poverty and increase the well-being of women and their households in rural areas.

5. Gender Issues and Best Practices in Land Administration Projects: A Synthesis Report.

This report is a synthesis of information gleaned from four case studies of World Bank-financed land programs in Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Ghana and the Lao People's Democratic Republic. The case studies were designed to both broaden and deepen our understanding of how land policies affect women and men, with an aim to applying this knowledge in very practical ways to World Bank-supported land projects. The case studies are essentially program evaluations focusing on how each project approached gender issues, what the gender-differentiated issues are in terms of project participation and benefits and what lessons can be learned from these diverse experiences.

6. Governance of Tenure: Technical Guide on Governing Land for Women and Men.

This technical guide on governing land for women and men aims to assist implementation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' (FAO's) Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food. The guide focuses on equity and on how land tenure can be governed in ways that address the different needs and priorities of women and men. It moves away from long-standing debates about gender equality in access to land, towards the mainstreaming of gender issues to achieve more gender-equitable participation in the processes and institutions that underlie all decision-making about land.

7. FAO Gender and Land Rights Database.

This database provides data and information on gender and land rights issues from across the globe.

8. Global Land Tool Network Gendering Land Tools Mechanism.

This resource provides information about land tools and tool development, including work on the Gendering Land Tools Mechanism and on gender evaluation criteria for land tools.

9. Land Portal Foundation: Land & Gender.

This portal has a regularly updated Land & Gender topic page as well as links to many relevant papers, discussions and resources.

10. International Land Coalition: Women’s Land Rights.

The International Land Coalition’s website includes many sources of information and resources on women and land, news items and research produced through International Land Coalition programs.

11. Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights.

Landesa works to create more equitable access to land for women through gender-equal rule of law on land from grassroots to global levels and capacity development for governments and civil society partners. This website provides access to information about Landesa’s projects on women and land, a blog and links to research and resources.

12. Land Rights in Africa.

This website contains a library of resources on land rights in Africa, with a particular focus on women’s land rights and on the impact of land grabbing in Africa. 

13. International Agreements and How to Build a Legal Case for Women’s Land Rights.

The goal of this guide is to aid practitioners in researching and using international legal norms, regional conventions and regional treaties and protocols to engage state officials and institutions, including local and customary legal officials, to encourage domestic compliance with state obligations, and to challenge local laws and court decisions regarding women’s rights to land and property. The guide provides the underlying international norms and relevant treaty provisions addressing women’s land rights. It also includes a series of questions focusing on how to build a case challenging local laws or a court decision that violates international or regional commitments the state has made with regard to women’s land and property rights. An appendix provides relevant conventions, treaties and treaty bodies with key provisions pertinent to women’s rights to land and property.

14. Global Land Tool Network, UN Habitat.

The Global Land Tool Network is a multisectoral alliance of implementing partners working to increase access to land and tenure for all, with a particular focus on impoverished communities, women and youth. Under the "Land Tools" drop-down menu on their site, they have a section on crosscutting issues, one of which is gender.