Championing Women’s Tenure Security

Abstract

Efforts around tenure security have largely followed a gender-blind approach, leaving behind millions of women who are consistently denied access and rights to land and ignoring experts' claims that strengthening women's tenure security can yield a host of socially desirable outcomes. This is bound to change dramatically with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) commitments made by governments around the world to ensure land rights for all women and men by 2030, as a foundational step to end poverty, ensure food security, and achieve gender equality. In this chapter, we explore why women's tenure security matters, what is known about the extent of women's tenure security, and what can be done as we collectively support governments' SDG commitments around women's land rights.