Location: Global

Grantee Website:  https://www.landesa.org/

Areas of Impact:  Land rights, economic opportunity

Mission of Landesa

Founded in 1967, Landesa champions and works to secure land rights for millions of the world’s poorest, mostly rural women and men, to provide opportunity and promote social justice.

Summary

Landesa’s initiatives include:

1. Movement Building: The Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights (the Center) prioritizes deep collaboration with the broader gender equality and climate action movements, with the recognition that land is key as a foundation for both. The Center elevates and catalyzes the voices and leadership of grassroots women and women-led organizations on land rights at local and national levels, in order to accelerate effective action by governments on gender equality and climate action through the realization of women’s rights to land in practice. At the global level, the Center advocates for gender justice in human rights and climate change frameworks.
   • Stand for Her Land is a global advocacy campaign focused on securing women’s rights to land in practice at the grassroots level. The Center leads this campaign for Landesa, in coordination with global, national, and grassroots organizations.
   • Landesa partners with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to support governments around the world on linking gender justice, social inclusion, action on land restoration, and land rights.
2. Storytelling: Women’s rights to land contribute powerfully to healing relationships with each other and with our planet. When women, men, communities, nations, and the world — hear and can act on this understanding, we all have a brighter future. The Center for Women’s Land Rights is helping to amplify the hopeful, transformative story of the power of land rights to achieve gender justice.
   • “Women and Dirt”: This 3-page brief encompasses this “story” – how investing in rural and indigenous women’s land rights is key to transforming discriminatory social norms and the climate crisis into gender justice and a sustainable future for us all.
   • Dignity in Women’s Land Rights: This powerful video showcases the links between land, gender, identity, and livelihood – land is everything for rural women, and land is foundational to gender justice and sustainability.
   • Stand for Her Land: This video presents the story of a global movement for gender and climate justice, starting with those who already care most closely for Mother Earth.

Landesa’s Partners and Collaborators

Global Partners:

• UN Women
• UN Convention to Combat Desertification
• Global Initiative on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GIESCR)
• Women, Environment and Development Organization (WEDO)
• Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law, and Development (APWLD)
• African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET)

Stand for Her Land Campaign: Coalition Coordinators:

• Bangladesh, Association for Land Reform and Development
• Colombia, Center for Research and Popular Education
• Senegal, Pan-African Institute for Citizenship, Consumers and Development
• Tanzania Women Lawyers Association
• Uganda Community Based Association for Women and Children’s Welfare
• Ethiopia, Habitat for Humanity

Stand for Her Land Campaign: Global Steering Committee Members

• Global Land Tool Network
• Habitat for Humanity International
• Huairou Commission
• International Land Coalition
• Rights and Resources Initiative
• The World Bank

Why We Love This Partner

Together Women Rise’s long-term partnership with Landesa provides the opportunity to make investments that support meaningful systems change in the arena of economic equality and access to decision-making power. Around the world, land is a critical asset and bequeaths to its owner, wealth, power status and livelihood. Rural women and indigenous women have historically been stewards of forests and agricultural land producing food, accessing forest products of commercial and medicinal value, and are critical actors and allies in the fight against climate change.

Women often lack formal recognition and rights as stewards of land and forests, but are uniquely positioned to act because of their role as natural resource managers and caretakers. Land rights for women challenges prevailing patriarchal social norms, alters their economic, political and social status and as research indicates, is known to more effectively address climate change.