Ensuring effective implementation

Drafters should pay careful attention to terminology in land laws and how the general public may interpret them. For example, language in land and housing laws should avoid reference to the “head of household” but rather reference “women and men,” or “both spouses.” (UN-HABITAT, Shared Tenure Options for Women, 2005)

Legislation should provide for procedural guidelines to facilitate effective implementation, such as developing a model title certificate with space for both spouses’ signatures.
- Example: Drafters must ensure effective implementation of land laws through all stages. Vietnam’s 2003 legal reforms requires Land Use Right Certificates list both the husband and wife’s names, but the actual certificate provided insufficient space to list both names. Consequently, only 3 percent of land certificates bear both names. (See: UN-Habitat, Policy Makers Guide to Women’s Land, Property and Housing Rights across the World, 2007) Effective consultation in the planning process and monitoring of implementation will help facilitate gender equality in land and tenure reform.

Ensuring Female Participation and Representation

Legislation should provide for continuous participation from women and widows in the planning, implementation and evaluation of land and legal reforms.

Promising Practice: The Justice for Widows and Orphans Project in Zambia uses informal tribunals for advocacy, public awareness and accountability. Ten community stakeholders and experts hear cases on various topics from individual claimants, render a decision and a recommendation. It provides widows and orphans with a venue for challenging discriminatory traditions and practices. (See: Christine Varga, The Case of the Justice for Widows and Orphans Project in Zambia, ICRW, 2006; Profile of Partners, Democratisation, State and Civil Society – Good Governance Programme: Zambia, GTZ)

Laws should require local and national land administration bodies have proportionate female representation. Legislation should provide for the development of guidelines and regulations for these bodies and ensure they address equality for women and widows.

Promising Practice: The Tanzania Village Land Act provides for female representation on the village adjudication committee (at least four of the nine members) and village land councils (at least three of the seven members). The village adjudication committee or office is to treat women’s rights “to occupy or use or have interest.. .in land not less favourably than the rights of men or agriculturalists to occupy or use or have interests in land.” Article 57(2). Regarding an application for customary right of occupancy, the village council is to respect equality and “treat an application from a woman, or a group of women no less favorably than an equivalent application from a man, a group of men or a mixed group of men and women; and (ii) adopt or apply no adverse discriminatory practices or attitudes towards any woman who has applied for a customary right of occupancy (Article 23(4)(1)).

Public Awareness
Reforms should also be conducted with legal literacy training for the public, particularly for women, widows and traditional leaders. Legislation should provide and support gender-sensitive education for land authorities, officials, community leaders, women and widows. Public awareness activities should educate women and men about women’s rights to co-own and manage land on an equal basis as men and the necessary legal procedures. Such educational initiatives should be carried out in consultation with women’s advocates and organizations.

Decentralization and Accessibility

Legislation should ensure that land reform and registration mechanisms are accessible. Such mechanisms should be gender-sensitive, as well as economically, geographically, and linguistically accessible to women and widows. Laws should simplify and decentralize registration and other land administration procedures and ensure that procedures and public information activities are available on a local level.

Drafters should evaluate policies for their financial impact on vulnerable populations. Drafters should assess fees for land procedures, such as registration taxes, for their impact on prevent disadvantaged populations from access. Drafters should develop waiver policies for indigent and vulnerable populations, such as widows, for these fees.

CASE STUDY: Uganda’s 1998 Land Act created District Land Boards to administer land as well as 4,500 local land committees to support the Boards. The act sought to develop a land tenure system through decentralized administration. Uganda’s 1998 Land Act states that customary laws are null and void if they prevent women and children from inheriting land. Land committees are specifically charged with protecting “the interests of women, children and persons with disabilities.” To ensure this duty is carried out, women are allotted at least 25% of the positions on the land committees and tribunals. Furthermore, in order to transfer land on which a family lives or farms its own food, both the husband and wife must provide written consent. See: Aili Mari Tripp, Women’s Movements, Customary Law and Land Rights in Africa: the Case of Uganda, 7 Afr. Studies Quarterly 2 (Spring 2004).

Monitoring
Legislation should for ongoing monitoring to review land and law reform and its impact on women and widows. Laws should provide for a monitoring body on the local and national levels to evaluate implementation and effects on women’s land rights. Legislation should provide for the collection of data that is disaggregated by indicators, such as sex, marital status and household status. (See: Monitoring of Laws on Violence against Women)

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