OCTOBER 2022 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit © 2022 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank 1818 H Street NW Washington, DC 20433 Telephone: 202-473-1000 Internet: www.worldbank.org This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Rights and Permissions The material in this work is subject to copyright. Because The World Bank encourages dissemination of its knowledge, this work may be reproduced, in whole or in part, for noncommercial purposes as long as full attribution to this work is given. Attribution Please cite the work as follows: World Bank. 2022. “Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit.” Washington, DC: World Bank. Any queries on rights and licenses, including subsidiary rights, should be addressed to World Bank Publications, The World Bank Group, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA; fax: 202-522- 2625; e-mail: pubrights@worldbank.org. Cover Photo: Jeremy Green Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit Acknowledgements This toolkit was prepared by Victoria Stanley and Jennifer Abrahamson. The toolkit builds on earlier work done by Tony Lamb, Malcolm Childress and Susan Lastarria-Cornhiel. Comments were provided by Ivonne Moreno-Horta, Shankar Narayanan, Hiska Reyes, Tazeen Hasan, Mercedes Stickler, Linus Pott, Caleb Johnson, Aanchal Anand, Paul Prettitore, Arjola Limani and Gabriela Nunez. Formatting and layout were provided by Michelle Morandotti. Funding was provided by the Land 2030 program (LAND 2030), a World Bank Umbrella Multi- Donor Trust Fund financed by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the Government of Canada. Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................. 1 Background.................................................................................................... 1 1. Laying the Foundation: Project Scoping ............................................... 2 2. Building Blocks: Gender-Responsive Project Design ........................... 7 3. Implementation ..................................................................................... 15 4. Measuring Success: End of Project Evaluation ................................ 18 Annex I: Project Scoping Questions ...................................................... 19 Annex II: Activity Design ........................................................................... 24 Annex III: Performance Indicators ......................................................... 31 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit Introduction This Toolkit is aimed at practitioners, bi-lateral and multi-lateral organizations, and community and non-governmental organizations involved in land projects, programs and activities. It draws from secondary research and applied experience to provide a pathway to the successful integration of gender into the design and implementation of land projects, programs and activities to ensure women’s rights to housing, land and property are recognized and protected. The Toolkit provides users with a blueprint for building strategies and good practices to overcome the legal, social, and structural barriers preventing women from exercising their land rights. It aims to ensure significant and meaningful participation of women in land projects in all spaces - rural, peri-urban, and urban. The Toolkit will often refer to women’s land rights (WLR) and this term is broadly addressing women’s rights to housing, land, and real property (HLP). The Toolkit is organized around four broad project stages: (1) Scoping, (2) Design, (3) Implementation, and (4) Evaluation; but with an emphasis on Scoping and Design. Background Women1 are often the primary users of housing and land for livelihoods and agricultural purposes across settings and tenure systems, cultures, and continents. They till the soil, protect vital natural resources, and earn income from goods produced on community-held, privately-owned, and leased land. They raise future generations and run businesses from their homes and property. In recent years, governments and the international development community have begun to recognize just how instrumental secure and equitable housing, land, and property (HLP) rights for women are for making progress in combatting a range of development challenges. This growing recognition is reflected at the national level in many countries and at the highest levels of global cooperation with new legislation and policies strengthening women’s rights to HLP. Targets and indicators related to women’s rights to HLP are woven deep into the fabric of several UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other international commitments and efforts, such as the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGTs) and Generation Equality. Despite these advances, women are often denied their rights to HLP and other natural resources because of entrenched gender norms and practices. While gender disaggregated data is hard to come by, across 10 countries in Africa, only 12 percent of women, compared 1 Herein, the term ‘women’ encompasses all of those who identify as a woman or a girl, regardless of their sex assigned at birth. |1 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit to 31 percent of men, report owning land individually. Even when laws are gender informed, national land institutions often do not have the staff, knowledge, or resources to ensure that women benefit from land titling and registration processes. Titles and other formal documentation are often only in the name of the male head of household and inheritance norms and practices in many countries proceed through male lineage. Women may be ejected from their marital homes upon the death of a spouse or face societal pressure to marry another male family member to retain secure housing. In urban areas, women face additional hurdles in securing housing due to lower economic status, informality, lack of documentation (e.g., identification, marriage documents), and lack of knowledge about housing and property rights and systems. Women are also often excluded from effective participation in the provision of land administration services, left out of decision-making and land governance systems, and frequently fall through the cracks during systematic HLP processes (i.e., registration, regularization, formalization, and titling). 1. Laying the Foundation: Project Scoping For a land administration, tenure, or rights project to succeed, a targeted, gender-responsive approach to scoping is essential. Women and men interact with and experience the world in distinct ways, largely due to deeply rooted social norms and practices. Their ability to own, use, control, lease, transfer, and inherit land is also distinct. Multiple forms of socioeconomic inequities exist around the world, leaving whole communities and cultures behind. However, women often face additional discriminatory structural and social inequities within these contexts. As a result, women’s ability to access secure land rights is often hindered by gendered barriers that are invisible to men yet impenetrable for women, such as inheritance rights or lack of legal documentation. Deliberate and meaningful strategies for addressing these barriers from the outset will ensure better outcomes for women and for any given project overall. It is important to note that the barriers that women face are not homogenous; they vary substantially in different contexts. The challenges for an indigenous farmer living on remote community land will likely differ from those facing an urban-dwelling market seller living in an informal settlement and or those faced by a women entrepreneur. While there will be commonalities due to legal framework and country context, there will be variation based on socio-economic status, social norms, location, and other factors. It is important to recognize these commonalties and differences based on the country context and proposed project objective and design interventions accordingly. During the initial scoping mission and process, project teams should seek, at a minimum, high-level answers to the following five questions.2 This initial scoping can be enhanced and detailed during the design/preparation stage. 2 Consult Annex I for more detailed guidance on scoping questions |2 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit Question 1: What formal, customary, and communal laws or rules are in place that protect or prevent women’s secure and equitable rights to HLP? It is critical that teams have a solid understanding of the legal landscape as related to women’s HLP rights, marital property regimes, inheritance, and broader social, cultural, and economic rights before designing a gender-equitable land project. This should also include an understanding of eviction and tenancy laws and regulations. Additionally, teams should examine customary and traditional or indigenous policies, rules, and practices in conjunction with the formal legal landscape and identify whether any tension exists between statutory and non-statutory law – particularly at the intersection of land laws and family law and martial property regimes. Finally, teams should understand differences in indigenous, traditional and/or customary tenure regimes, such as, for example, the different impacts Source: Scalise and Giovarelli, Resource Equity, What Works associated with patrilineal, matrilineal, for Women’s Land and Property Rights? January 2020 and communal systems. Question 2: What are the broader social and gendered constructs that negatively impact women’s ability to exercise secure, equitable rights to HLP? As many of the barriers that stand between women and their land rights are tied to strict social norms and gender roles, it is important to examine the broader social context in which women live in the project area or areas.3 Teams should examine the broader social setting, including family structures, representation of women in local affairs, women’s roles in families and society, women’s decision-making power, aged-care systems, effective means of communication, and marriage, inheritance, and divorce patterns and norms. 3The social contexts might differ in each project area, and even within the same project area, e.g., the experiences and challenges might differ between married women and widows. Be sure to take into account the heterogeneity of women’s lives. |3 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit Question 3: What are the institutional and structural barriers to gender-equitable land administration and how are they best addressed? In most contexts, a combination of factors prevents women from securely exercising their equitable rights to HLP. Access to information, legal literacy, and resources, for example, tend to be more limited for women than for men. In addition, land administration institutions and their procedures are often complex, expensive, and lengthy, and it is important to understand how that complexity impacts women. Furthermore, offices may be located far from the community and women’s time may be constrained by care work and household responsibilities, so understanding limits on women’s mobility and access to public life are also important. Finally, local level land management and governance structures may exclude women outright or limit their access. It is important to understand what local mechanisms exist to manage, administer, or govern land (including dispute resolution) and how women are or are not included in these mechanisms – both as decision makers and as users. Question 4: What are the most effective messages and means of communication to build knowledge and change attitudes and behaviors? A high-level understanding of the media and communication consumption practices of women and other key stakeholders at national and local levels will help inform the project concept design. Consulting nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), United Nations agencies, development partners, and, where possible, civil society organizations (CSOs) that have conducted communications campaigns aimed at shifting gender norms is advised. Equally, seeking information on messaging that will effectively resonate with and persuade key audiences and stakeholders will aid and inform project design. Question 5: Which relevant global or regional agreements and agendas can be leveraged to promote women’s land rights in the country? Mapping germane global and regional government commitments––such as those related to development, climate change, and gender equality, among others––will provide teams with a greater understanding of the relevance of the project to broader government priorities and leveraging opportunities. Doing so will help teams identify overlapping priorities and the ways in which strengthening women’s land rights can accelerate compliance with commitments. |4 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit Global Agreements and Agendas • SDG 1: No Poverty, indicator 1.4.2 • SDG 5: Gender Equality, indicators 5.a.1 and 5.a.2 • SDG 11: Sustainable Cities & Communities, target 11.1 • UN Framework Convention on Climate Change • Gender Equality Forum • Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women • New Urban Agenda • UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples • International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights • UN Convention to Combat Desertification • UN FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure In addition, some regions also have specific agendas, such as in Africa: • African Union Agenda 2063 • African Union Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa • Kilimanjaro Initiative on women’s land rights In addition, it is highly recommended that teams follow five key steps during the scoping stage, which should be further developed as needed in the design stage: 1. Build inclusive tools and teams. It is important to engage the local community during both the scoping and design processes. A rapid, community-driven, low-cost diagnostic tool is strongly advised where possible. When applicable and appropriate, teams should engage grassroots women’s groups or associations at the community level. For best results, it is also important to include a gender expert specializing in land tenure and WLR as part of the scoping and design teams. 2. Identify key partners, relevant groups, and valuable informants. Key partners and informants might include relevant government ministries, agencies, and offices related to land and women’s affairs, as well as local land administrators, surveyors, and adjudicators. When and where possible, other valuable informants and/or partners might include civil society organizations (CSOs), coalitions working on gender and land such as Stand For Her Land, grassroots women’s associations, research institutions, UN agencies, development groups, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) with related expertise. Importantly, it is important to consult informants who are familiar with the different cultural, socioeconomic, or religious backgrounds that are present in the project area 3. Begin consultations and initial sensitization with key stakeholders. If there are time or resource constraints, teams should prioritize securing buy-in from key government stakeholders and cultural leaders at multiple levels during the scoping stage and continue further consultations and interviews during the design process. |5 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit 4. Assess data sources and identify gaps. It is critical to identify reliable gender- disaggregated data sources and gaps on land tenure and rights. Consulting government statistics offices, research institutions, and open data sources and tools– –such as those available through Women, Business and the Law, Prindex, International Land Coalition, Land Portal, and FAO––will sharpen teams’ understanding of the gendered gaps in land rights in the project area and inform the scope and scale of a project’s baseline study. 5. Develop a consultative project design plan. When developing a project design plan, it is critical to include deliberate steps for a more thorough consultation to sensitize key stakeholders and target groups on WLR and to gather information directly from women essential to ensuring women’s HLP rights in project design. Consultation Checklist During the scoping stage, teams should consult and discuss the women’s land rights activities of the project with the government and land agencies at the outset for transparency and to secure buy-in. Time permitting, and where appropriate, it is also strongly recommended that scoping teams begin to:4 • Consult and interview any government gender equality or women’s rights agencies • Sensitize, interview, and seek buy-in from local stakeholders, including local authorities, cultural leaders, elders, religious figures, and land administration duty- bearers such as land registration and surveying authorities • Consult CSOs, especially those with expertise on land rights and gender equity • Consult grassroots women’s groups and other CBOs5 working on WLR or gender equality • Collaborate with local stakeholders to arrange separate interviews with community women and men • Consult CSOs, NGOs, development partners, and UN and other multilateral agencies that have worked on behavior and/or social change communications in project areas • Consult national and local adjudicators, including alternative dispute resolution mechanisms • Seek out advocacy or other civil society coalitions dedicated to women’s land rights to learn about broader efforts already underway on women’s land rights 4 Due to time limitations, scoping teams may not be able to consult all stakeholders at this stage. More thorough and complete consultations should be continued during the design stage. 5 Community-based organizations |6 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit 2. Building Blocks: Gender-Responsive Project Design During this stage, teams will build on the scoping exercise, conducting a thorough institutional, social, structural, and gender analysis. Teams should integrate strategies that effectively promote equitable, secure land rights for women into the different activities and components of the project. Following these recommendations will ensure that the project design is gender responsive and, as a result, produces optimal outcomes. 1. Identify and collect reliable data on WLR. If reliable, recent, and relevant data on women’s ability to securely an equitably exercise their HLP rights in the project area is not available, a baseline study should be conducted, and the data collected should be gender disaggregated. Consider also if data on formal vs. informal marriages (or if relevant customary marriage) is available as this will also impact women’s ability to enforce their HLP rights. As applicable to the project, data should be collected in relation to: • Gender-disaggregated data on registration, formalization, or certification of tenure rights, including first registration and transactions (i.e., sales, mortgages, and transfers). • Gender-disaggregated data on formal recognition of rights on community or customary land. • If available, gender-disaggregated data on informality of land rights. • Women’s ability to securely exercise inheritance rights. • Women’s access to credit and use of inputs in agricultural development projects; and • Women’s use of inputs for production in economic development projects. 6 6A model assessment questionnaire that can be easily adapted for different geographic and cultural areas can be found at: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/8355 |7 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit When collecting primary baseline data: Data Collection • Ensure that at least one female family member, preferably the female head of Collecting gender-disaggregated data is key to understanding impediments household, is surveyed and consider to women’s HLP rights and to whether that interview should be measuring improvement. Some conducted separately from the male sources of guidance on how best to head of household. collect gender-disaggregated data for • Engage local women’s groups or CBOs to land are: conduct focus groups in safe spaces. https://unstats.un.org/edge/publicatio • Engage and train women as data ns/docs/Guidelines_final.pdf collectors; and • Consult a gender specialist in designing https://documents1.worldbank.org/cu your baseline study. rated/en/539311620191657449/pdf/L SMS-Program-Overview-and- Recommendations-for-Improving- When identifying available sources of data: Individual-Disaggregated-Data-on- Asset-Ownership-and-Labor- • Make sure that data are reliably sourced Outcomes.pdf and validated by national statistical agencies (data may also be available from academic or research or groups or organizations with expertise in women’s HLP tenure rights). • Verify the data are disaggregated by gender and that women directly participated. • Confirm that data sources (including open data sources listed in the scoping section) are considered valid by the government; and • Ensure the data are current (within the past few years). 2. Identify high-level project objectives that include gender/women. An important entry point for a gender equitable land project or component is to identify gender- specific objectives early in the design process. Setting such a high-level target at the outset of the design process will ensure that WLR activities and outputs are integrated into the project’s design. Sample gender-responsive project objectives:7 • Establish a sustainable, inclusive, and gender-equitable land administration system. • Increase tenure security in selected areas for both men and women. • Establish a gender-equitable land and property rights formalization process in urban settlements. 7 For World Bank teams, the Project Development Objective (PDO) |8 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit 3. Consider gender gaps and issues for project activity design. There is no one size- fits-all design blueprint for any project. Project design is tailored to effectively achieve outcomes in the cultures, contexts, and communities where any given project operates. In addition, women are not a monolith and there may be different groups of women that face different barriers, such as those facing women in rural and urban settings, for example. As applicable to the project, it is strongly recommended to prioritize integrating the following activities into gender-responsive design. Law and Policy Reform. Where a law, policy change, or strengthening component is central to achieving better outcomes on WLR, teams should plan for awareness-raising and technical guidance and support for relevant policymakers and land agencies. As applicable and appropriate, teams are strongly encouraged to: • Prioritize technical support in developing language and legislation that explicitly strengthens WLR. This includes not only laws, but also regulations, by-laws, manuals, and other implementing mechanisms. • Focus on specific procedures for enforcement of marital property codes, inheritance, and family legislation, including introducing or enforcing marital community of property regimes, and reforms that prevent women from giving up their inheritance rights due to family and social pressure. • Consider how best to secure government support of gender-equitable legal reform, whether through national level education and awareness campaigns or more targeted sensitization activities for key national constituencies (traditional leaders, for example). Training and Capacity Building • Ensure women participate in and benefit from field work. Training and sensitization for field teams should include how to protect WLR when doing boundary demarcation and collecting individual property data. It is also important to provide for hiring of local women as facilitators (paralegals, para-surveyors, etc.) and to make sure that there are clear requirements outlined in field manuals on how to support and protect WLR, including space on forms (including digital forms) for more than one rights holder and the ability to denote different rights. • Provide capacity-building and trainings to ensure gender-equitable land formalization, adjudication, and/or registration for local administrators, surveyors, adjudicators, and other duty-bearers responsible for implementing WLR in the context of land registration, formalization, or other processes to secure gender- equitable land rights for women on community land. This includes ensuring women participate in boundary demarcation processes and provide their data during data collection exercises. In many cases, women may not have the necessary identity documents needed to claim their land rights and alternative strategies should be prepared and adopted. |9 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit • Legal literacy trainings for women. In addition to community dialogues, sessions aimed specifically at building women’s knowledge and confidence to exercise their own land tenure rights are highly recommended. Also, in many project areas, traditional and rigid social and gender norms mean that women may not participate in public life, so women-only sessions might be even more critical. Consider also if women need digital literacy training or support. Public Awareness and Sensitization • Sensitization trainings on WLR for local duty-bearers, including elected officials, land administrators, religious figures, and other cultural leaders are vital in the context of land registration, formalization, or other processes securing gender- equitable land rights for women in customary tenure arrangements. • Include integrated strategies for building broad public-awareness of gender- equitable land tenure and inheritance rights, which might include the development of knowledge-building materials, community dialogues, community theater, and media campaigns that include radio, television, or social media as relevant to the context. Effective Communication in Colombia In December 2016, the Colombian Congress ratified an historic peace agreement with country's largest rebel group, calling for improved access to and better use of land. The World-Bank supported Multipurpose Cadaster Project was announced in 2019 and aims to support land tenure formalization for some 67,000 people in selected municipalities, with at least 40% of the titles being issued to women. The project takes an integrated approach to reaching this target, including a comprehensive communications plan with guidance to ensure effective implementation, including involving women in the design of the local communications plan and incorporating their requirements and ideas, understanding how women receive messaging and making use of those channels, and using gender inclusive language, visuals, and methods to reach women of all ages, ethnicities (including indigenous and Afro- Colombians), and socio-economic backgrounds. For more information: https://projects.worldbank.org/en/projects-operations/project-detail/P162594 | 10 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit Participation and Changing Norms • Transformative messaging that shifts attitudes on gender roles and norms is critical for all activities and interventions related to any gender-responsive land project. Plans should be made to develop messaging tailored for different key target audiences and stakeholders. Teams should consider that behavior change interventions require good data collection at the beginning as well as targeted and consistent messaging for positive outcomes. Engaging Men in Uganda The Uganda Community Based Association for Women and Children’s Welfare (UCOBAC) with support from the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) led a pilot project that launched in 2017 in the northern region of Pader. To ensure that women were included in the roll-out of a customary land certification process, UCOBAC invested in shifting men’s attitudes about women’s equal right to inherit and own land and property. Community men were trained to lead sensitization and knowledge-building sessions. Peer-learning is especially critical in building trust when introducing new concepts that counter long-held traditional beliefs. Sessions included messaging about the legal rights of women to land and, importantly, messaging as to why land for women benefit the family as a whole. • Strengthen women’s ability to exercise inheritance rights, which are often ignored at the local level due to rigid gender norms and beliefs related to land and property that often leave women and girls behind. This can include waiting periods and other measures that allow women to resist social and family pressure to give up inheritance rights. • Build on positive cultural practices. While some cultural practices can frustrate efforts to foster secure, gender equitable land tenure and rights for women, others present opportunities. Integrating activities into these practices is effective, efficient, and likely to produce desired outcomes. An example is building the capacity of community elders to resolve women’s land, property, and/or inheritance disputes or integrating trainings on WLR into women’s table banking or other cooperative groups. • Consider the role of financial incentives such as waiving fees or reducing stamp duty to encourage couples/families to title/register HLP in women’s names. Evidence from Uganda8 suggests that a conditional subsidy and educational video can be used together to increase women’s land rights in systematic processes. 8 https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/31513 | 11 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit • Implement interventions that strengthen women’s role in land governance. Catalyzing women’s ability to act as meaningful participants in land Engaging Women in Land governance9 beyond meeting legally required quotas can enhance a Governance in Senegal project’s gender outcomes. In Senegal, the vast majority of rural Empowering women in these land is administered by the state capacities also encourages through local municipal councils. sustainability of WLR in the project While Senegal’s legal framework area beyond its lifespan. This enshrines gender parity, this has includes not only women’s failed to translate into effective participation in such land governance participation in land decision making. structures, but also ensures sufficient To respond to such inequality, a pilot participation to be meaningful (at in Darou Khoudoss sought to increase least 30 percent) and includes women’s participation in the local training for women on how to land commissions, helping to lead to effectively participate as well as the following outcomes: women’s sensitization for both women and interest in and understanding of land men on women’s right to participate management has increased in decision making. Engaging with significantly, land-allocation requests women’s organizations and gender by women have increased, and champions within the community can women are feeling more confident. help. However, the adoption of the land charter has been challenging. Further information: https://pubs.iied.org/fr/12597fiied Land Administration Services • Work with land administration stakeholders to ensure that digital tools and infrastructure are designed to be gender responsive. This can include digital tools that are designed specifically to engage women or respond to women’s needs. But also make sure that data systems and tools collect data that can be gender disaggregated. • Review land administration procedures, manuals, and forms to identify gaps in the protection of women’s HLP rights and propose adjustments to address such barriers. This includes procedures, manuals, and forms for both systematic registration processes and ongoing transactions (i.e., sales, mortgages, and 9 This would include adjudication committees, dispute resolution mechanisms, land allocation committees/structures and land use management committees/structures among others. These may be short terms structures for project activities or permanent entities for the management and governance of HLP resources. | 12 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit inheritance). For example, simplification of procedures and forms will support both men and women to access services, having two spaces on registration forms will facilitate joint-ownership, and ensuring women participate in field activities will help them understand the process. • Addressing gendered structural barriers to accessing land administration services. For cultural, economic, domestic, and safety reasons, women may not be able to access land administration services with the same ease as men. It is recommended that design teams take a close look at these hurdles and plan activities that close the access gap to land administration agencies, including: o Training women land officers to provide services. o Creating a welcoming office environment with good lighting, seating and even childcare. o Providing clear and simple messaging in offices directing women to services, providing support for forms that need to be completed, etc. o Providing women’s information sessions, hotline, or advice services. o Offering extended services one night per week so that working women can get to the land agency office in time. o Shortening the distance women must travel to access services; and o Having outreach or mobile offices for women (and men) who cannot travel long distances to the land agency office. o Also consider how women may lack access to digital services either due to lack of digital technology, internet access or lack of digital literacy. • Ensure that dispute resolution services are gender equitable. The surveying and investigation of rights of land and housing will inevitably result in disputes over boundaries and rights between neighbors and among family members. Resolution of disputes may involve judicial or alternative dispute resolution methods. In either case, personnel involved in dispute resolution should be aware of, and sensitive to, women’s land rights and their susceptibility to property loss. Land conflicts that involve a claim by a woman are often considered private, household disputes and are generally limited to intra-household discussion/negotiation––rarely do they transcend beyond the household to the community level/authorities. Activities/actions that can support women in dispute resolution include: o Supporting alternative dispute resolution mechanisms that are equally staffed with women. o Supporting legal assistance programs for women that are available at local levels, in local languages and with female staff; and o Supporting training and sensitization on WLR for judges, advocates, mediators, and others involved in dispute resolution. This also includes customary authorities and structures that mediate land disputes within communities. 4. Performance Indicators. It is critical to set results indicators to measure the efficacy of the activities and outputs to deliver gender-responsive results as applicable to the project’s objective(s). The design of monitoring methodology and selecting indicators | 13 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit should involve female staff and participants. Both qualitative and quantitative indicators can be used. In addition to monitoring project implementation status, the impact of these activities on women and men and their housing, land, and property rights should be monitored. Below is a sample of outcome indicators that can be used. For more detail on indicators please see Annex 2. PDO Outcome Indicators Establish a sustainable and - Target population with use or ownership rights inclusive land administration recorded as a result of the Project, of which women system. (%) - Transactions registered to women (Number) - Increased use of registration services by women (Number/%) - Customers satisfied with land services, of which women (%) - Number of land tribunals/conflict resolution structures with 50 percent female membership Increase tenure security in - Target population with use or ownership rights selected areas for both men recorded as a result of the Project, of which women and women. (%) - Increased perception of tenure security, of which women (%) Increase the number of land - Target population with use or ownership rights and property rights formalized as a result of the Project, of which women formalized for both men and (%) women. - Degree of satisfaction of beneficiaries with the process, of which women (%) PRINDEX A global survey of perceptions on tenure security, PRINDEX provides data at global and national levels as well as monitoring and evaluation and learning services. PRINDEX data is always gender disaggregated. For more information: https://www.prindex.net/ | 14 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit For World Bank Group Project Appraisal Document (PAD): The PAD should include a specific section on gender and explain in clear language the results chain identified for the gender tag. This should include an explanation of the gender gap with data to substantiate it, the actions that will be taken to close the gap, and the indicators to measure closing the gap. The sections of this toolkit provide guidance on how to identify gaps in women’s land rights, actions that can be taken to respond to them and indicators to measure progress toward closing them. These gaps include disparities between women and men in land rights registered or titled, women’s knowledge of their rights, or any other gap related to a woman’s ability to safely, reliably, and equitably. exercise her rights to land. 3. Implementation Even the best-laid plans and project designs can fail if implementation is not carefully considered, monitored, and adjusted as needed. Ensuring that a land project equally serves women and men can be especially challenging if a gendered, inclusive, and agile approach to implementation is not pursued. In many contexts, women’s land and inheritance rights will be a new concept that runs counter to tradition. In some project areas, teams and implementing partners might even encounter moderate––and at times fierce––resistance to efforts to advance these rights. Outlined below are recommendations that will help ensure that your gender-responsive project design is efficiently and effectively implemented across countries, cultures, and communities. Empower local and grassroots women as change agents Training local women to be hands-on change agents in their communities is an effective, efficient, and empowering approach to implementation. This can include activities such as HLP literacy and awareness-raising sessions with other local women regarding their land rights and how to exercise them; training women as paralegals and para-surveyors to support field processes; engaging with women’s organizations to support project implementation; collecting gender-disaggregated data all aspects of implementation; and facilitating participatory mapping processes that are gender equitable. Pursue multi-stakeholder partnerships and collaboration Well-coordinated collective action and collaboration can greatly optimize implementation. Different actors bring different and complementary strengths and skills to any project. In particular, local, or national civil society partners that specialize in gender equality, social change communications related to women’s rights and empowerment, and other intersectional areas of expertise can play an instrumental role in helping further the objectives of your project. Where appropriate, collaborating with relevant CSOs, CBOs, and grassroots women’s associations is recommended. | 15 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit Take extra steps to ensure the project actively and effectively engages women It is especially important to target households headed by women and actively encourage or facilitate their participation in the relevant land-formalization process. Their cases can then be promoted as examples for other women to follow in the public awareness raising component of your project. Field teams should be trained on WLR and should ensure women’s participation in parcel demarcation, adjudication, and all steps of the process. If land offices are being designed and built, ensure that women’s needs are included. Combine land formalization, registration, or other tenure security activities with other economic benefits. Consider additional activities such as those centered in agricultural extension, food security, landscape management, water/irrigation management, disaster risk reduction, livelihoods support, small business development, or microcredit. Identify synergies with other projects and promote the benefits of secure rights to land for both women and men as related to the intersectional areas of focus. Consider women’s safety and security at every step VAWG and Land note Because women’s land rights can be Understanding the impacts that land perceived by men as an encroachment on tenure rights can have on violence their own gender roles and a threat to their against women and girls is critical to land rights, it is critical to take extra measures preventing and/or responding to gender- to ensure women’s safety, especially in based violence. When designing and contexts with rigid and discriminatory gender implementing land projects and norms. It is also important to build activities, it is important to understand safeguards into your implementation plan to the potential for shifting power balances ensure women’s safety is not put at risk within families and relationships. The during interventions. This can include: Land Sector Brief provides guidance on • Ensuring that public-awareness how to integrate prevention and raising efforts like community response to VAWG in land programs, dialogues and communications projects, activities. Further information campaigns are saturated with can be found here: messaging intentionally crafted to https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs assuage the fears of men who might /violence-against-women-and- feel threatened. girls/sector-briefs • Ensuring that respected community leaders are trained and have the tools they need to sensitize local men on women’s land rights. This serves to raise awareness and, importantly, to foster buy-in and trust. • Ensuring safe spaces and times for women to attend literacy trainings and access land registration and adjudication services. Engage men and boys on women’s HLP rights discussions and activities Land and property rights are often considered the right of men alone despite any laws, policies, by-laws, or regulations to the contrary. Perceived challenges to these beliefs can | 16 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit trigger deep resistance to a project. It is therefore vital to ensure the right approaches to effectively engage men and boys in gender-equitable HLP rights for women and girls. This engagement should be thread through all project activities, from awareness and sensitization activities to field work and final issuing of certificates. Shifting Social Norms in Mozambique In Mozambique, the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab is working with the Mozambique Land Administration Project to understand if it is possible to shift social norms that run counter to women’s land rights. In a poll conducted in 100 rural communities, the team found that both men and women substantially underestimate the level of support for women owing land. About 80% of men privately support women owing land yet think that only around 45% of other men are supportive. This finding provides space for reorienting people’s understanding of norms around women’s land ownership. For more information: https://olc.worldbank.org/system/files/Mozambique.pdf Monitor and adjust gender-responsiveness at regular intervals throughout the project lifecycle Implementation teams and partners will likely encounter unforeseen challenges caused by the many gendered structural and social barriers to secure land rights for women in the project areas. It is therefore especially important to monitor gender-responsiveness regularly throughout the implementation process. This should include regular monitoring of the indicators set during the design stage to assess whether the objectives are being met satisfactorily. Tracking gender objectives through indicators gives project staff the opportunity to modify procedures and activities when necessary. Allocate sufficient resources for gender-responsive project monitoring and evaluation Ensure the project budget provides the necessary resources to monitor gender- responsiveness at different points in its lifecycle and that an M&E officer with expertise and/or experience measuring gender-responsiveness is involved in the implementation team. This should include collecting gender-disaggregated data at baseline, mid-term, and end of the project, as well as regular reporting on results indicators with gender- disaggregated data. Ensure dispute resolution, appeal, and grievance redress mechanisms are in place and are responsive to women’s concerns All HLP projects should include dispute resolution, appeal, and grievance redress mechanisms. Dispute resolution and appeal committees should include equal representation of women and may require additional sensitization and training to achieve women’s active participation and men’s understanding. Grievance redress mechanisms should include confidential reporting options and gender sensitive response mechanisms. | 17 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit 4. Measuring Success: End of Project Evaluation Evaluation of project outcomes should be undertaken at project completion to determine whether the identified objectives, including gender objectives, have been achieved. Many guidance notes already exist on proper end of project evaluation and this Toolkit does not seek to replicate them. However certain important measures should be taken for projects that seek to support WLR: • Collect gender-disaggregated data, permitting data analysis that measures if any gender gaps have been closed. Follow the guidance in Section 2.1 regarding gender disaggregated data collection. • Ask women about their experiences of the project, program or activity. This can be done through satisfaction surveys, and if time and resources allow, include qualitative data collection (focus groups and key informant interviews). It is important to listen to women’s voices throughout the project cycle from scoping to design to implementation and, finally, evaluation. • Project teams should take care to capture and report on the project’s performance in promoting, protecting, and implementing women’s HLP rights, based on the project objective and outcome indicators. • Finally, land project teams are encouraged to share case studies and lessons learned on strategies that worked with global women’s land rights efforts like Stand for Her Land. Doing so will benefit other efforts underway to advance secure and equitable land rights for women around the world. | 18 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit Annex I: Project Scoping Questions This set of questions can be part of a larger project level legal assessment or a separate gender assessment, but the assessment should consult with local lawyers and legal specialists, NGOs, and local civil society organizations. It is also important to include women – both women’s organizations and local women themselves through qualitative research. Various databases and indexes can also provide useful baseline information such as: Women, Business and the Law and the FAO Gender and Land Rights Database. Question 1: What formal and customary and community laws and policies are in place that protect or prevent women’s secure and equitable rights to land and property? Formal laws and policies To determine any gender disparity regarding the statutory legal status of women’s land rights as citizens irrespective of their civil status it is important to examine and assess, as relevant: • The formal recognition of women’s civil rights as individuals. • All legislation that affects women’s land rights, including civil codes and family laws considering gender negative, neutral and positive statements in the law. • An understanding of the marital property regimes and inheritance laws and practices and how these intersect with HLP laws. • The types of HLP tenure rights practiced in the project area – this should include an understanding of tenancy laws/regulations/rules. • The participation of women in HLP governance at various all levels from local to national and whether their participation is substantive or symbolic, e.g., whether they can meaningfully participate in decision-making or whether they are only meeting gender quotas. • How land is allocated and transferred in the project area, either from the government, through collective land tenure systems of law and/or the open land market? • What are the laws/regulations/rules related to eviction? What are the enforcement mechanisms and what data exists on evictions? • Availability of reliable data on the number of women in the project area who are titled, hold customary certificates, leases, other documentation, or sources including household and living standard measurement surveys. • Whether a baseline study must be conducted to inform project design and metrics If there are no or little reliable data available. • Are there explicit biases that treat women differently than men in land valuation or taxation procedures? Are there implicit biases that occur when the law is supposed to treat equally but creates more gaps in practice? | 19 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit Customary, religious, or other traditional rules It is also critical to examine, as relevant, the ecosystem of customary, religious, and other traditional rules and practices that impact women’s land rights irrespective of statutory law, including: • The types of HLP rights that exist and how they are allocated, held, transferred, recognized, and recorded – including if they are matrilineal/matrilocal or patrilineal/patrilocal; and what types of communal rights exist and how managed/organized. • The broad spectrum of social, economic, and cultural rights held by women, and the customary rules that encourage or exclude them from taking up those rights. • The institutions and individuals that govern, influence, and enforce land rights and women and girls’ rights more broadly. • How women are disadvantaged as property owners, tenants, or renters, and how these disadvantages can be ameliorated? • Informal practices related to eviction. • Any aspects of WLR that work well and how they may be built upon to promote gender equity in land titling or certification. • The laws and gender norms dictating whether women are considered community members with community rights, and how that impacts their HLP rights. • Customary/religious laws and norms affecting women and girls’ inheritance rights. • Customary/religious laws and norms affecting the rights of widowed, single, and divorced women. • Marital practices such as polygamy and informal/customary marriage, and how they advantage or disadvantage women’s secure and equitable rights to land. • The way in which statutory and customary laws interact and whether national law overrides customary law when in conflict and how that is enforced, if at all. Question 2: What are the broader social and gendered constructs that negatively impact women’s ability to exercise secure, equitable rights to land and property? Gender differences in obtaining and securing land and property rights are often a reflection of women’s status in any given culture or society, whether in urban or rural settings or under collective or individual land tenure systems. Though invisible, gender and social norms shape all aspects of life and all members of community and how its members engage with each other, and with the world at large. A solid understanding of the social and gendered barriers will help teams determine how to best provide and deliver services to women in the design stage. To answer the question, it is vital to examine and assess, as relevant: • Family structures, including polygamy. • Representation of women in local governance structures including land allocation/governance/management structures. • Women’s roles in families and society. | 20 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit • Women’s decision-making power in the household and community. • Marriage, inheritance, and divorce patterns. For example, where polygamy is practiced, do all wives have equal rights? Do single and widowed women inherit land in practice? • Women’s economic activity: access to equipment, technology, credit, and other means of production. • Women’s sustainability of income generated by control over assets. • Women’s mobility constraints due to childcare, household duties and in some areas, seclusion practices. • Women’s ability and confidence to engage in the public sphere. • Girls access to education and women’s literacy and numeracy levels. • Women’s awareness of and access to information about their land rights. • Whether women speak the official language. • Whether and to what extent women possess official identification papers and documents. Question 3: What are the institutional and structural barriers to gender equitable land administration and how are they best addressed? Land administration procedures are often complex, expensive, and lengthy. Accessing land administration agencies and justice institutions can be especially challenging for women. They are often less mobile, less informed, have fewer economic resources, and have lower social status. In addition, land management, governance and dispute resolution mechanisms may not recognize women or include them. Design teams should apply a gender lens to: • What are the institutions involved in HLP rights, management, taxation, etc. at national, regional, and local levels? Are these responsibilities decentralized to local governments? Do national level institutions have deconcentrated functions or offices? • How is the administration and implementation of the legal frameworks related to HLP registration, certification, and cadastral services at national, regional, and local levels? • How is communal or customary land managed, what are the structures for on-going land governance and how are women included/excluded? • The administration and implementation of relevant legal frameworks impacting HLP rights, including inheritance laws and policies and marital property regimes. Also consider if women are likely to have legal marriage documents and how to incorporate informal/customary marriages. • The incidence of living wills, with attention to the inclusion of women and girls as benefactors of inherited land and property. • The ease of access to land registration services – including digital services- examining structural obstacles such as associated fees, travel time and distance to location, the cost safe travel. • Social norm barriers on the interaction between women and men and how that might impede women’s engagement with land and justice services. | 21 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit • Social norms affecting women’s mobility, literacy, and access to information about WLR. • How household data is collected, and whether it is disaggregated by gender. • The land agencies’ technical capacity, biases, financial health, and gender ratio. • The presence of or potential for effective alternative dispute resolution structures. • The presence and capacity of community-based organizations, grassroots women’s groups, and other civil society resources for potential collaboration. • Land titling, customary certification or other regularization activity that has been undertaken to date and the percentage of women with documentation or whose names are included in household or other relevant surveys. • Land administration and adjudicators’ attitudes toward, and u nderstanding of WLR, determined through interviews with employees and women. • The divide between urban and rural areas and formal and informal areas. • Is the country experiencing external shocks that may have negative consequences on women's HLP rights? For example, wars, violence, forced displacement, economic disruptions, etc. Are the institutions in place to deal with these shocks also recognizing the potential differential impacts on women’s HLP rights? Question 4: What are the most effective messages and means of communication to build knowledge and change attitudes and behaviors? Effective communication is always at the core of any effective project that relies on changing attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to achieve expected outcomes. Each audience must be considered separately and therefore a gendered responsive approach is critical. Teams must determine: • How women communicate with each other and other community members • How women consume news and other information, including social media • Gendered modes and tools of communication such as radio, SMS, or WhatsApp • If mobile phones are used, which family members have access • Any cost, logistical or technical barriers to accessing mobile phones • Women’s literacy levels • Whether there are local radio stations and times women are free to listen • Whether women congregate on a regular basis in their daily lives or in a structured manner such as women’s support, savings, or self-help groups • Whether dramatizations are culturally effective or appropriate • Which cultural figures are influential and socially effective messengers such as village elders, religious figures, or local female paralegals. • Which general message frames resonate best with women, men, cultural and religious figures and local authorities and land administration officials | 22 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit Question 5: Which relevant global or regional agreements and agendas can be leveraged to promote women’s land rights in the country? In recent years, multiple regional and global agreements and agendas have emerged that provide opportunities for advancing women’s land rights. Governments have committed to implementing these agreements and furthering agendas. Secure, equitable land rights for women are integral to many of them, including those related to poverty alleviation, food security and production, economic empowerment, gender equality, climate action and conservation and indigenous right. In determining which recent and longstanding agreements and agendas can be leveraged to strengthen any land project, it is important to: • Review project country’s commitments to recent agreements, conventions and any regional or global agendas. • Assess governments’ will and capacity to deliver on commitments. • Conduct a scan of civil society efforts already underway to address these commitments. • Consult relevant CSOs, NGOs, UN agencies and other relevant non-state actors to better understand the landscape and to assess potential for collaboration. • Consult the Stand for Her Land Campaign Secretariat or the Global Land Tool Network for further guidance and information on leveraging regional and global commitments. | 23 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit Annex II: Activity Design Activity design should be tailored to effectively achieve outcomes in the cultures, contexts, and communities where any given project operates. The same approach is essential to ensuring both women and men are effectively engaged. As applicable to the project, it is strongly recommended to prioritize integrating the following high-level activities into your gender-responsive design: Gender-equal law and policy reform Laws or regulations can also be drafted or revised to be explicit about women’s HLP rights and include specific procedures for ensuring that women are included in land titling activities and that their rights are not ignored or violated. Legislation should include: • specific procedures for including women and for protection of women’s land and property rights in land titling activities. • specific procedures for enforcement of marital property codes, inheritance, and family legislation, including introducing or enforcing marital community of property regimes, and reforms that prevent women from giving up their inheritance rights due to family and social pressure. • gender equality in the allocation of state land. • the significant representation of women in land administration institutions (at national, regional, and local levels). • where the legal framework permits grassroots or bottom-up approaches for land titling, there should be significant representation of women in local titling or adjudication and community mapping processes (for example, women paralegals and para-surveyors). • the significant representation of women in decision-making processes concerning land administration and land management at the local level. Where legislative reform is not (immediately) possible, the project can incorporate positive and specific gender statements in the land titling and registration institution’s internal guidelines and the project design and activity guidelines. In addition, teams should plan for awareness-raising and technical guidance and support for relevant policymakers and land agencies to implement such legal reforms. This should be done in close coordination with other donors engaged in the sector. • Advocacy meetings and roundtables with donors, government, and other key stakeholders to further build a case for strengthening laws, policies, and land administration systems, and to raise awareness and build a case for, the importance of WLR, and the participation of women in land governance, administration, and adjudication. • National level media campaigns to enhance other advocacy efforts, both to raise awareness and to secure government support of gender-equitable legal reform. | 24 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit • Engaging land administration stakeholders to ensure that digital and other systems are designed to implement gender-equitable land rights, and that they can produce gender-disaggregated data and reports. • Collective advocacy efforts with civil society coalitions like Stand for Her Land. Closing the Gap Between Policy and Practice Even when laws are gender-neutral or gender-equal, there will almost certainly be a need for closing the implementation gap between policy and practice, especially as it relates to secure, gender equitable land tenure and rights for women. As applicable, activities should prioritize: Transformative messaging that shifts attitudes on gender roles and norms Messaging must resonate with target audiences and stakeholders to drive the transformation of hearts, minds and behaviors that is necessary for your project to succeed. Implementation teams should consider the following: • Inclusive messaging regarding the equal rights of women of all social and civil statuses – widowed, single, divorced, married and those in polygamous and/or informal marriage – to be applied to all activities. • Message development tailored for target audiences such as local leaders, cultural and religious figures, gender champions, and change leaders in the community. • Drawing on local values and interests to craft persuasive messaging, e.g., such as the link between WLR and food security, or the wellbeing of children. • Engaging, training, and pairing culturally and socially appropriate messengers with different target groups. • Training messengers to frame WLR within the context of religious and cultural beliefs or traditions, especially for the broader community. WLR trainings for local officials, land administrators and cultural leaders Make sure that WLR sensitization trainings tailor messaging for each target audience – or integrate WLR into broader land rights trainings – on national or regional WLR land laws and policies for, as relevant: • Local elected leaders • Cultural leaders such as village chiefs • Cultural influencers such as community elders • Influential religious figures • Local land administrators and other duty-bearers such as judges and land surveyors Integrated approaches to gender-equitable systematic land registration When a project is focused on systematic land formalization, regularization, registration, the implementation teams should prioritize: • Land surveying is an important part of systematic processes. Property possessors, owners or tenants are usually required, or at least encouraged, to indicate or verify | 25 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit parcel boundaries. Encouraging women to participate in this exercise gives them another opportunity to forward their claims. • In designing the procedures and activities for determining the ownership and other rights in systematic processes, procedures should include guidelines and steps to assist the adjudicator (whether a technical team or community committee) to determine who are all the rightful property holders (especially wives and daughters) to a particular land parcel or housing unit. The team should be specifically request participation of wives, co-wives, or traditional spouse or partner (marriages may not be official). • Technical support for land administration entities to ensure that women’s names are included in titling, land surveying and other documentation and formalization processes. This may focus more on by-laws, regulations, manuals, and forms. • Educating and training land administrators, surveyors, community leaders and all members of adjudication teams/committees on the rights of all women – widowed, single, divorced and those in polygamous or informal marriages – in the relevant systematic process. • Developing clear messaging across all communications, awareness-raising and sensitization activities on women and men’s equal rights to relevant systematic processes. Build land agencies’ capacity to implement women’s land rights at the local level Building the capacity of land agencies to enhance the delivery of secure land rights for women at the local level is central to closing the gap between policy and practice. Implementation teams should take steps to ensure that land agencies: • Develop comprehensive guidelines/manuals that address women’s HLP rights and then train staff to use the guidelines. • Work to achieve greater gender balance in land agency staffing. • Make publicly available information on rights, obligations, resources, and other materials promoting and protecting women’s HLP rights. • Establish a hotline or gender desks at office level that women can contact to express concerns and obtain advice. • Provide extended hours so that working women can access land services. • Provide outreach or mobile offices for women (and men) who cannot travel long distances and provide administrative help in completing the forms. • Create links between the land agency and NGOs and CBOs or other groups or professionals who can assist women in securing their HLP rights, including through pro bono work. Strategies aimed at strengthening women’s inheritance rights in practice In many cultural contexts, land and property is only inherited by men despite formal laws that grant women this equal right. Therefore, it is critical to implement activities aimed at empowering women to exercise their rights to inherit land and property in practice. Implementation teams should ensure: | 26 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit • The integration of inheritance rights messaging across all activities, including duty- bearer trainings, public awareness campaigns and community sensitizations. • The integration of messaging across activities on the rights of widows, single women, girls, divorced women, and women engaged in informal and/or polygamous marriages to inherit. • Consider requirements for women to register inherited property in their names before any renunciation and waiting periods. • Paralegal trainings on promoting the HLP rights of widows, single women, girls, divorced women, and women who are engaged in informal and/or polygamous marriages. • The promotion of community alternative dispute resolution processes to incorporate the inheritance rights of the different women groups. And trainings for these ADR mechanisms on the inheritance rights of the different sub-groups of women. • Capacity building and support for local land offices to ensure women’s rights are protected in the transfer of land and property through inheritance. Broad public-awareness of gender-equitable HLP rights Robust and effective public awareness-raising and behavior change communications activities are powerful tools for overcoming gender norms and inequities that prevent women from exercising their rights to HLP. Implementation teams should consider: • Developing comprehensive materials that clearly outline both women and men’s HLP rights and how to exercise them. • Disseminating and distributing materials in socially strategic spaces frequented by both men and women such as religious centers, schools, and health clinics. • Ensuring materials are visual as well as text-based due to possible low literacy rates. • Using media tools and technologies commonly and securely used and accessed by women and other target audiences – e.g., local radio and television that is tailored for local audiences. • Broadcasting content during peak listening/viewing hours for women. • Building SMS and social media-based campaigns on WLR if those technologies are an accessible, reliable, and secure mode of communication for women. • Scripting radio or televised dramatizations, as well as public theater where socially effective, that present persuasive scenarios on the benefits of WLR. • Consulting CBOs and NGOs with previous experience using communications tools and technologies to address WLR. • Hosting a series of community conversations on the different topics related to the relevant land tenure and rights issues, or broader gender equity issues, integrating WLR messaging into each and/or dedicating individual sessions to the subject – this could be done in person or through local radio/television. • Engaging and training respected community influencers to facilitate the conversations. | 27 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit Legal literacy trainings for women In addition to community conversations, sessions aimed specifically at building women’s knowledge and confidence to exercise their HLP rights are highly recommended. Also, in many project areas, traditional and rigid social and gender norms mean that women may not participate in public life. For both reasons, effective implementation includes: • Synchronizing sessions with women’s daily schedules. • Planning sessions at locations where women naturally convene or frequent during their daily lives, e.g., at water collection points, health facilities, village schools, food markets, women’s table banking groups, etc. • Training and engaging trusted community leaders/members to lead sessions. • Lesson modules on their rights to HLP, inheritance and other relevant legal issues – and specific guidance on how to exercise those rights. • Ensuring women have the time and encouraging them to ask clarifying questions. • Ensuring a safe space for women to voice concerns and seek guidance on resistant husbands, other male relatives, land administrators or legal enforcers. • Ensuring lessons are delivered in local language. • Ensuring that distributed materials are in both written and visual forms to address illiteracy. • Consider if digital literacy training, support or tools are needed and how to engage women. Interventions that strengthen women’s role in land governance Catalyzing women’s ability to act as meaningful participants in land governance beyond meeting legally required quotas can enhance a project’s gender outcomes. Empowering women in these capacities also encourages sustainability of WLR in the project area beyond its lifespan. Implementation strategies should prioritize: • Building incentives to engage women in governance such as quotas – but only if supplemented by trainings, outreach, and capacity development for both men and women. • Quotas ideally should provide for a critical mass of women’s participation – at least 40 percent and should provide for women in leadership positions. • Providing capacity, knowledge, and skill-building trainings for women in land governance and decision-making bodies, including modules focused on confidence building and public speaking. • Sensitizing men on the importance of women’s active participation in these bodies; and providing information into community conversations and trainings that foster a shared understanding of the importance of women’s involvement in decision-making bodies. • Planning for repeat trainings due to frequent high turnover of representatives. Ideally the training and capacity building should be done with a local NGO/CSO which can engage over a long term. • Ensuring that all members of community land governance bodies are provided with trainings that foster safe spaces where women’s voices can be heard and respected. | 28 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit • Developing accountability mechanisms at the local level that go beyond meeting quotas – this can include such things are gender informed by-laws and manuals for these decision-making bodies. • Ensuring transparency of meetings and decisions made for the whole community to understand. Engaging men on WLR Many project areas are implemented in patriarchal societies where men hold most social, economic, and political power. HLP rights are often considered the right of men alone despite any laws, policies, by-laws, or regulations to the contrary. Perceived challenges to these beliefs can trigger deep resistance to the project. It is therefore vital to ensure the right approaches to effectively engage men on HLP rights for women, weaving them across project activities. When implementing interventions to engage men, it is recommended that teams: • Understand the local cultural context or contexts and consult with local leaders, academics and NGOs/CSOs. • Prioritize the development of message frames which emphasize that more secure tenure rights for women is their right by law but also focus on the benefits WLR brings to the family’s general and economic wellbeing. • Prioritize the development of messaging emphasizing the link between WLR and their children’s security of tenure through inheritance. • Plan for the integration and introduction of WLR information and sensitization sessions into practical, relevant trainings of interest to men such as farming techniques. • Plan for trainings of respected male cultural figures and leaders to participate and act as endorsers and/or facilitators of sessions. Building on Positive Customary Practices While some customary practices can frustrate efforts to foster secure HLP rights for women, others present opportunities. Integrating activities into these practices is effective, efficient, and likely to produce desired outcomes. Implementers should consider the following activities and steps: • Training relevant cultural leaders to integrate WLR into any existing alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms and practices prevalent in the community. • Integrating information sessions on WLR into any existing women’s savings or support groups, such as the women’s self-help groups, women’s savings groups, etc. • Building on other opportunities, such as training religious leaders to integrate WLR into regular sermons, aligning gender equitable land rights into lessons from the Quran, Bible or other religious text or set of beliefs. Addressing gendered structural barriers to accessing secure land tenure Exercising HLP rights can be very challenging for women, due to the different gendered impediments to access. For cultural, economic, domestic and safety reasons, women may | 29 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit not be able to access their HLP rights with the same ease as men. When implementing interventions aimed at toppling these hurdles, it is recommended that teams: • Prioritize activities aimed at shortening the distance and time that women must travel to access the formal justice and land administration systems. • Design activities aimed at reducing the cost of accessing any land and property documentation and mapping services. • Consider women’s safety and security at all levels in accessing their land rights. • Prioritize the development of community-based ADR mechanisms that women can safely and cheaply access. • Prioritize the development of activities encouraging land administration and related services and processes to be available at times that do not conflict with women’s childcare, income-generating or other significant daily responsibilities. | 30 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit Annex III: Performance Indicators Quantitative outcome indicators might include: • Percentage/number of women holding titles jointly or in their name • Percentage/number of women with HLP registered jointly or in their name • Percentage/number of women holding land and property leases in their names in both urban and rural leasehold systems • Percentage/number of women holding customary tenure certificates jointly or in their name • Percentage/number increase in women’s perception of tenure security • Percentage increase in public awareness of women’s HLP rights • Percentage/number increase in women using land agency services • Percentage increase in satisfaction of women with land agency services • Increase in number of women accessing legal advice regarding land claims • Percentage of land disputes resolved in favor of women’s land rights Qualitative outcome indicators on broader impact might include: Social Outcomes • Increase in women’s participation in community organizations and decision - making • Women’s enhanced bargaining power within the household • Women’s inheritance rights are better respected and implemented • Proportion of women who demonstrate knowledge of available VAWG support services10 Economic Outcomes11 • Increase in women’s access to credit (number, percentage, amount) • Increase of female-owned household enterprises Output indicators might include: Legislative and Institutional Outputs • Number of legislative, regulatory or policy changes strengthening women’s land and/or inheritance rights • Gender equity included in land agency charter • Land agency gender action plan adopted (can also include percentage implemented) • Increased number of female land agency staff in management positions 10 For more information on potential indicators focused on land and VAWG, please see https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/537121611123764095/pdf/Violence-Against-Women-and-Girls- Resource-Guide-Land-Sector-Brief.pdf 11 As relevant, other intersectional outcomes might be considered. These might include outcomes related to mitigating the climate crisis, improving food security, or boosting gender equality and equity more broadly, among others. | 31 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit • Percentage of women actively participating in land governance structures (land allocation committees, land management committees, etc.) • Percentage of women members of land dispute resolution institutions and mechanisms. • Percentage of women receiving legal support in land cases in the formal justice system. Public Awareness Outputs • Number of awareness activities focused on women’s HLP rights • Number of participants in community awareness activities on WLR • Brochures and pamphlets produced on women’s HLP rights Training Outputs • Number of women attending legal literacy trainings • Number of community elders trained to promote WLR in ADR processes • Number of grassroots women trained as WLR paralegals • Number of land agency staff trained on WLR (gender-disaggregated) • Percentage/number of women and men receiving training in access to land justice. Other Indicators • ICT systems provide for gender-disaggregated data collection and reporting • Improved property ownership data collection for better gender analysis Housing indictors might include12 • Percentage of women with access to housing finance. • Percentage of women with increased access to credit. • Percentage of mortgages provided to female-headed households. • Number of housing subsidies allocated to female-headed households. • Number of female saving groups/housing cooperatives set-up and running. • Number of women trained on financing options and bureaucratic procedures. • Number of housing subsidies provided to female-headed households for the acquisition of new housing (primary home). • Percentage of women representatives in housing development committees. 12For more details on housing finance and construction please see the Guidance Note on Addressing Gender Gaps in Housing Interventions - https://www.thegpsc.org/knowledge-products/gender-and-cities/addressing- gender-gaps-housing-interventions | 32 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit Global Data and Information Sources Land Portal - https://landportal.org/book/data - range of land data sources International Land Coalition LANDex - https://www.landexglobal.org/en/ - global land governance index Prindex - https://www.prindex.net/ - data on perceptions of tenure security UN FAO Gender and Land Rights Database - https://www.fao.org/gender-landrights- database/en/ Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) - https://www.genderindex.org/ Women, Business and the Law 2021. http://wbl.worldbank.org Global Financial Inclusion Database. http://datatopics.worldbank.org/financialinclusion/ The Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS). https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/lsms Global Land Tools Network: https://gltn.net/ International Food Policy Research Institute- https://www.ifpri.org/ Gender and Agriculture Sourcebook - https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/6603 Africa Gender Innovation Lab website - https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/africa- gender-innovation-lab WBG Gender website (external) - https://genderdata.worldbank.org/ Stand for Her Land: https://stand4herland.org/ Selected papers and reports Inclusion Matters: The Foundations for Shared Prosperity, The World Bank, 2013. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/16195 Expanding women’s access to land and housing in urban areas, Carole Rakodi. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/21030 Gender Issues and Best Practices in Land Administration Projects, A Synthesis Report, 2005. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/8355 Gender and asset ownership: a guide to collecting individual-level data. Policy Research working paper; no. WPS 4704, Doss, Cheryl; Grown, Caren; Deere, Carmen Diana. 2011, Washington, DC, World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/6779 | 33 Integrating Gender in Land Projects: A Toolkit On Equal Ground: Promising Practices for Realizing Women’s Rights in Collectively Held Lands, CELINE SALCEDO-LA VIÑA AND RENÉE GIOVARELLI, World Resources Institute and Resource Equity, 2021 Scalise and Giovarelli, Resource Equity, What Works for Women’s Land and Property Rights? January 2020 Sutz P, Seigneret A, Richard M, Blankson Akapko P, Alhassan F and Fall M (2019), A stronger voice for women in local land governance: effective approaches in Tanzania, Ghana and Senegal. IIED, London. Giovarelli, Renee, Amanda Richardson, Elisa Scalise, Gender & Collectively Held Land Good Practices & Lessons Learned From Six Global Case Studies, Resource Equity, 2016 | 34