A week has gone by and more and more contributions have been providing perspectives from activists, academics and practitioners, both on the GEC and other tools used to promote women’s rights. We heard more detail from Brazil and Togo on experiences from civil society organisations using the GEC in their advocacy work, as well as from the University of Twente on using the GEC as part of their curriculum.

Patricia Chaves from Brazil reminded us of gender as the power relations between men and women, stressing that beyond the use of the matrix goes beyond the assessment of a law or policy but also helped in the process of building a collective and nuanced understanding about gender inequality, as well as gender equality as a result of women’s empowerment. The process was collective and participatory, involving government agencies, lawyers, researchers and academics as well as grassroots women from informal settlements, who had the opportunity to be heard in each phase of the process and ultimately had their land ownership recognized.

Patricia is also the first to raise a challenge of using the GEC, stressing that both institutional bias and power relations in communities need to be addressed, including through capacity-building,

in order to contribute to women’s empowerment – which ultimately benefits the whole community.

Related to this, Frédéric Djinadja from Togo stressed the importance of involving a range of different partners and to engage them in adapting the matrix to the country context and needs by jointly

selecting criteria and planning the data collection. This means starting with capacity-building of all actors involved, the data gathered then becomes the basis for developing recommendations together.

We’d like to hear more from:

Susan Spedding of CASLE (Commonwealth Association of Surveying and Land Economy), who were involved in the setting up of the Commonwealth Land Administration Group (CLAG) in 2008, on whether and how they have used the GEC in the formation of associations of land registrars on a regional basis, and to what extent the recommendations of the Expert Group meeting on gender-disaggregated data as well as gender equity policy and legislation has been responded to.

Professor Holden about the collaboration between GLTN and the Norwegian Center for Land Tenure Studies (CLTS), including on Youth and Land in Ethiopia and Land Renting as a Pro-poor Land Tool which would be interesting to assess in terms of their gendered implications in the area of the intra-household control over land. Professor Holden also mentioned a joint capacity building program,

CLISNARP – Climate Smart Natural Resource Management and Policy looks also very interesting, as well as the development of a Land Tenure Module for the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS).

We are also intrigued by the contribution from Leslie Downie,a young scholar finishing research on premarital and cohabitation agreements as a pro-poor land tool – please let us now more about the

outcomes of your research and the pilot projects; as well as by Professor John Kiema of the Eastern Africa Land Administration Network (EALAN) on what specific challenges you are facing to internalize gender in your network’s curricula, training and research.

Here’s a short summary of key issues raised during week 1:

Contributors appreciate the flexibility of the tool to asses land laws and policies, but other laws (not land-related), its usefulness to not just evaluate laws, but also the gender-sensitivity of organisations (and individuals); but also the way GEC can facilitate collaboration between diverse actors as well as contribute to women’s empowerment. Another important point made was on the equal importance of the process of gender analysis and the outcomes of the evaluation in itself as a key advantage of the GEC tool . Last but not least, it emerges clearly that an appropriate selection of criteria, taking into account country specificities, the characteristics of the tool assessed and the needs of actors involved is key to a succesul use of the GEC.

Thanks to all for your interesting contributions!

Sabine and Elisabetta

While the SIGI is an important tool to highlight the underlying drivers of gender gaps in landownership, it would be interesting to learn of promising practices at the national and local level to address these issues, especially when legal access is guaranteed but women’s access is practice is still vulnerable.

Wikigender

This flagship tool developed by key partners and the Secretariat of the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN), has been widely used and adapted by many grassroots organizations around the globe. To date, more than 40 countries have been exposed to the GEC, with varying degrees of success in terms of impacting lives of men and women as they continue to secure their tenure rights.

It has been a great honour to shepherd this tool to where it is now, particularly in the roll-out stage to country and community partners in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean. The wealth of the tool is now in the hands of the community of practitioners and experts around the world, supported by a strong cluster of global organizations that have partnered collaboratively among themselves to carry out the work to completion.

Land tools should not just benefit the poor; the must also improve the situation of women. To make sure that land tools do not suffer from gender-blindness, GLTN has developed a set of gender evaluation criteria that can be used to check whether land tools incorporate gender issues, and to point to actions on how they could be improved. The GEC has proven that it can be adapted to a wide range of different situations, could be easily scaled, and produce results in securing tenure rights for women and men. Stories on how the GEC was used in Brazil, Ghana, Uganda, Nepal, Togo and the Philippines are just a few, which demonstrate the transformative power of the tool.

This e-debate on the GEC is a platform to engage ; not only to share experiences and lessons among gender and land practitioners, scholars and the public but to continue deliberating on the gaps, issues and challenges that we still need to address collectively to ensure a more gender equitable land sector.

The story is not done, the struggle continues.

Lowie Rosales-Kawasaki
Gender Focal Point
Global Land Tool Network Secretariat

The Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) has moved into a deeper and expanded space when it comes to tool development and implementation. We are now focusing actions at county level, where our tools will have to be tested, implemented and improved on the ground, contributing to positive changes in the lives of men and women in regard to securing land tenure. This emphasis on change also fits very well with the evolution of the Gender Evaluation Criteria (GEC). This is a flagship tool of the GLTN, one that has fully matured and known in more than 40 countries around the world. The GEC is a practical instrument to objectively assess whether land interventions known as land tools, such as land legislation, and the institutional and regulatory framework associated with national land laws, but also customary laws and practices, address gender concerns.

GLTN Phase II seeks to increase the level of responsibility held by partners. Recognising that there may need to be capacity built to do this a capacity development strategy is now in place.

What does this means for tools such as the GEC? The potential for it to evolve both in content as well as process needs to be explored. Accordingly a GEC program of work that seeks to identify this potential and is predicated upon working with partners.

Merely focusing on training events is rarely adequate and that capacity development response requires a shift toward more effective learning methods. This means collaborating with partners including raising their awareness of the new thinking and encouraging them to take on new responsibilities.

It is important to make all partners aware of where and how they have been involved in the past development of the GEC, and what can be done differently in the future to enhance, capture and extend the value and impact of that work. The cycle of the GEC development and implementation is now complete, and it is time to harvest the fruits of the collective labour done by many GLTN partners at all levels.

I would like to thank the Land Portal for hosting this e-learning platform, and for the pioneering work of the Huairou Commission, University of East London, Federation of International Surveyors, International Land Coalition and many others who have developed and used the GEC in their work.

May we continue our learning together!

Sincerely,

Oumar Sylla, GLTN Secretariat Head