Women’s Rights to Land in the Post-2015 Development Agenda: A Campaign on Gender and Land Tenure

Description What is done in the programme or project and why, what results are pursued, who benefits from the activities and who are involved in the implementation.

Women’s equal access to, use of and control over land and other productive resources are essential to ensuring gender equality and an adequate standard of living. Throughout the world, gender inequality when it comes to land and other productive resources is related to women’s poverty and exclusion. Removing inequalities requires changes in policies and more effective implementation. This project aims to contribute to these changes. During 2015-2016 the project will organise a campaign on women's land rights and tenure. UN Women will be coordinating the project, which will bring together different organisations and actors to combine the information and evidence for the purpose of informing and influencing decision and policy makers. The aim is that when focusing at achieving sustainable development goals, there would be attention to and understanding of the impact of women's and men's equal land ownership and tenure to development. Also the project aims at promoting the systematic inclusion of equal land ownership and tenure in the activities of different organisations and actors. For Finland women's economic empowerment is one of the main methods for advancing gender equality. It is also considered one the main issues in UN Women's mandate. Furthermore, the rights of women and girls are one of the Ministry's Human Rights Strategy's main focus areas. In September 2014 Finland organised together with Ethiopia and UN Women a high level event on women's land rights and tenure in conjunction with UNGA69. This was organised to highlight the importance linking gender equality, women's economic empowerment and sustainable development and reduction of poverty.