Women's Access to Land and Natural Resources:
Beijing +10 and CEDAW

Secure access to land by women is not only critical for achieving gender equality, but is also a basic factor in food security. Often, though, laws and customs prevent rural women from gaining or sharing rights to land, putting whole families and communities at risk. The ILC is addressing this challenge through advocacy work at the international level, as well as supporting local and national activities to organize for women's land rights.

As this year marks the 10th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action (PfA), the 49th session of the UN's Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will examine the progress made toward women's rights and gender equality. The CSW session will take place in New York from 28 February to 11 March 2005, and will include a high-level meeting on the Beijing-generated Platform for Action, open to all UN Member States and Observers.

The ILC, together with NGO partners, IFAD and FAO, will organize parallel side events at the CSW to highlight the importance of women's rights to land and water. ILC is collaborating with NGOs from Bangladesh, India , Nepal, Pakistan and the Philippines in their final preparations and meetings leading to joint positions for the Beijing +10 meetings. In partnership with The Platform on Women's Land and Water Rights in Southern Africa, ILC is also planning to present the linkage of land and water from women's perspectives.

The ILC and UN agency partners have also published a report on progress toward ensuring women's land rights through the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). CEDAW is the only international human rights treaty that specifically identifies rural women's property and resource rights.

At the 32nd session of CEDAW, in January 2005, the ILC along with FAO and IFAD, presented a joint statement to the CEDAW Committee's panel of experts on the importance of women's secure access to land and natural resources. This presentation highlighted findings from the study Rural Women's Access to Land and Property in Selected Countries, which was jointly published in 2004 by ILC, FAO and IFAD.

The study is now being used by ILC partners to advocate women's land and resource rights at the national level, and has been translated into local languages by several partner NGOs for use in national advocacy cam pa igns and pre pa ration for Beijing +10. The ILC, together with IFAD, FAO and NGO partners will continue to promote the use of CEDAW, specifically Articles 14-16 referring to women's access to land and property, inheritance rights and legal capacity.

For more information on contributing to Beijing +10, or additional information on ILC's work on women's access to land, please contact Rosalud Jing de la Rosa at j.delarosa@ifad.org