Research Archives

Using Innovative Research Methodologies to Uncover Nuance and Diversity: The results of household diaries in Odisha, India

Homestead land allocation and regularization programs are expected to yield a wide range of short, medium and long term outcomes. However examination of outcomes is often difficult and can be hindered by 1) the limitations of standard data collection methods and 2) our understanding of the complex relationships households have with not just their homestead plots, but with all the other land that they own and access, as well their reliance on activities not related to land.

In this paper we discuss a methodology called ‘household diaries’ and present our findings on the data collected using this tool. The method brings together quantitative and qualitative research collected in nine visits to households between November 2015 and November 2016.

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Synthesis Report – Gender & Collectively Held Land

Where collective tenure arrangements are either being formalized or supported for the sake of securing the community’s rights to land, what steps are required to strengthen women’s land rights in the process?

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Women’s Land Tenure Framework: Inheritance

The Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights developed the Women’s Land Tenure Framework to assist anyone who is interested in understanding the complex issues associated with women’s land rights. In this brief, we discuss the issue of inheritance.

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Women’s Land Tenure Framework: Land Rights

The Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights developed the Women’s Land Tenure Framework to assist anyone who is interested in understanding the complex issues associated with women’s land rights. In this brief, we discuss the issue of land rights.

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Women’s Land Rights Guides for Development Practitioners

The Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights has created four new practice guides, which are practical resources for development practitioners, researchers, lawyers, advocates, and scholars to assess the situation for women’s land rights in three countries: Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. A fourth guide, International Agreements and How to Build a Legal Case for Women’s Land Rights, provides insights and guidance on using international conventions (e.g. CEDAW) and regional agreements (e.g. The Banjul Charter) to build a case for women’s land rights at the national level.

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Recommendation for Implementation of Pro-Poor Land Policy and Land Law in Myanmar: National Data and Regional Practices

With the common aim of supporting the development of a protective, pro-poor legal framework, that will empower farmers to use the law, make informed decisions about their land, and maintain secure land tenure – ultimately leading to poverty alleviation for poor, rural women and men – Namati and Landesa have teamed up to prepare this report.

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Kenya Justice Project | Implementation Guide

In 2010, Kenya adopted a new Constitution that guarantees equal rights for women and men and recognizes the role of traditional justice actors in resolving disputes, to the extent those actors comply with the principles enshrined in the Constitution. The following year Landesa designed and piloted the USAID-supported project, Enhancing Customary Justice Systems in the Mau Forest, Kenya, also known as the Kenya Justice Project (KJP).

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Kenya Justice Project | Impact Evaluation Report

The primary objective of the Justice Project was to pilot an approach for improving women’s access to justice related to land rights by building the capacity of customary justice actors, particularly traditional elders, to support and enforce women’s land rights, consistent with the Constitution.

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Can Government-Allocated Land Contribute to Food Security? Intrahousehold Analysis of West Bengal’s Microplot Allocation Program

Landesa supports a micro-land ownership program for India’s landless agricultural laborers that strives to reduce poverty through improved homestead development in the state of West Bengal, India.

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Large-Scale Land Acquisition for APP Forest Plantations: Field Finding and Recommendations

The Chinese central government has consistently taken decisive legal and policy measures over the past 35 years to secure, enhance, and expand farmers’ rights to farmland and forest land in order to reduce the gap in income and consumption between urban citizens and their counterparts in mountainous forest areas. While encouraging development of a forest land rights market to facilitate market allocation of resources, these legal rules and policy directives have particularly emphasized protecting farmers’ forest land rights and their property interests when such land rights are subject to acquisition by powerful enterprises.

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