Secure Land Rights
for Women and Men
in the Post-2015 Agenda
D. Hien Tran
December 10, 2013
ODI Roundtable –
The Possible Shape of a Land Transparency Initiative
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A Look Back: Millennium Development
Goals and Rights to Land and Property
Land and property rights effectively not included in
the Millennium Development Goals
A “missing dimension” of the MDGs – lack of secure
rights to land, particular for women, is an obstacle
to achieving several MDGs, including:
• Eradicating hunger and poverty
• Achieving gender equality
• Ensuring environmental sustainability
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Landesa’s Post-2015 Advocacy
Inclusion in the post-2015 framework creates an environment of
urgency, incentive, and pressure for governments to address land
rights for women and men
Unique window of opportunity to make the case
Post-2015 Advocacy Goal
The inclusion of targets and indicators on secure land rights for
women and men in the post-2015 framework
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Post-2015 Recent Developments
Outcome Document
• Adopted September 25, 2013
• UN member states agree to a roadmap for developing
and adopting a post-2015 framework
Key Points of Agreement
• A single framework and set of goals applicable to all
countries, taking into account national circumstances
• Process of intergovernmental negotiations to launch at
69th UNGA session in September 2014
• High-level Summit to adopt a new set of goals in
September 2015
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Growing Momentum
Post-2015 Report Proposed Goals
Proposed Secure Land
Rights-Related Targets
High-Level Panel
End Poverty
Increase by x% the share of women and
men, communities, and businesses with
secure rights to land, property, and other
assets
Empower girls and women
and achieve gender equality
Ensure equal right of women to own and
inherit property, sign a contract, register a
business and open a bank account
Sustainable Development Improve agricultural systems Ensure universal access in rural areas to
Solutions Network
and raise rural prosperity
basic resources and infrastructure
services (land, water, sanitation, modern
energy, transport, mobile and broadband
communication, agricultural inputs, and
advisory services)
UN Global Compact
Achieve women and girls’
empowerment
Full and equal access of women to
ownership, property rights and land titles
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Growing Momentum
Post-2015 Report
Secure land and property rights
Participate Study
“Priority should be given to ensuring basic needs relating
to food, sanitation and land rights as without these the
poorest cannot access services such as education.”
Review of 84 participatory studies
based on views of those living in
extreme poverty
UN Secretary General’s
Report
Transformative actions needed include:
Empower women and girls. Among other things, women
and girls must have “the right to own land and other
assets.”
Open Working Group
Interim Report
“[A] lasting solution to the scourges of poverty and
hunger must include raising smallholder productivity and
rural incomes on a sustainable basis. This will require
greater investments in agricultural research and rural
infrastructure, as well as measures to provide more
secure access to land, credit, crop insurance and other
productive inputs to smallholder farmers, especially
women farmers.
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Land and Governance in Post-2015
• Governance discussion has been broader and not focused on land
governance or any other area specifically.
• Discussion has focused on broader issues and concepts of :
•
rule of law
accountability
transparency
freedom of speech and media
access to justice
open political choice
High-Level Panel Report Goal 10: Ensure good governance and
effective institutions
– Provide free and universal legal identity, such as birth registrations
– Ensure that people enjoy freedom of speech, association, peaceful protest and
access to independent media and information
– Increase public participation in political processes and civic engagement at all
levels
– Guarantee the public’s right to information and access to government data
– Reduce bribery and corruption and ensure officials can be held accountable
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Land and Governance in Post-2015
• There has been some discussion of land rights in the context of the
rule of law, access to justice, and legal empowerment.
• UN Technical Support Team Issues Brief: Conflict Prevention, Postconflict Peacebuilding and the Promotion of Durable Peace, Rule of
Law and Governance:
“It is now widely recognized that improved security of
tenure for land and property is critical to ensure social and
economic progress across rural and urban settings and that
the rule of law facilitates the protection of land, property and
other resource rights.”
• But the discussion on land rights focuses more on their role in
helping to achieve goals related to poverty reduction, gender
equality, food security, and environmental sustainability.
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Key Takeaways on “Why” Land/Property
Rights in Post-2015 Framework
Broad array of
actors recognize
that . . .
Secure rights to
land and property
for women and
men should be
explicitly included
in the post-2015
agenda
Targets are
included under
several goals
The cross-cutting nature of land and property rights for
women and men represents a substantial opportunity:
Efforts to strengthen and enforce them can help achieve
multiple goals in a post-2015 agenda.
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Now – What should this look like?
Governments are still engaged in consultation process and seeking
proposals for what targets and indicators could be used to show
progress toward particular goals
Meaningful
Measurable
Simple
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Targets: Accuracy, Inclusiveness, Clarity
Range of rights
• E.g., to sell, use, inherit, rather than ownership
alone. Need to reflect different contexts.
Secure rights
• Clearly defined, long-term, enforceable, appropriately
transferable, and legally and socially legitimate. For
women, should not require consultation or approval
beyond that required of men.
Access to secure
rights
• i.e., access to the system that confers,
administers, supports, and enforces secure rights
to land and property.
Women and men
• Critical to call out women explicitly, otherwise
potential exclusion when refer to households
alone.
Land rights
• Rather than “tenure security” for accessibility.
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Indicators: Guiding Principles
Reflect outcomes rather than inputs
Address several factors needed to achieve target
Measure what is critical, even if greater data collection required
Sex-disaggregated – women should be called out specifically
Limited in number
Relatively simple
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Possible Outcome-Focused Indicators
in Post-2015 Context
Documentation: Percentage of women and men
with documented rights to land
• Reflects several elements: policy environment, institutional support
and effectiveness, ability to obtain documents
• Document can reflect local context; should not be limited to ownership
documents
• Can include documentation to community lands
• Do not need exhaustive list of documents but have criteria for what
constitutes valid document
Perception: Percentage of women and men who
do not fear arbitrary dispossession of land
• Proxy for people’s perception of tenure security
• Investment in land decisions shaped by perception
• Can reflect security experienced as individual, household, and
community
• Can capture range of forced tenure changes
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Thank you.
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