The Women's Land Rights Initiative of the International Land Coalition (ILC) and Procasur in Rwanda and Burundi organized a Learning Route on 'Innovative Tools and Approaches to Secure Women's Land Rights' in February 2014.
The ILC has released a report outlining the results of the Learning Route in 'Securing Women's Land Rights: Learning from Successful Experiences in Rwanda and Burundi.'
June 2014: The Women’s Land Rights Initiative of the International Land Coalition (ILC) and Procasur in Rwanda and Burundi organized a Learning Route on ‘Innovative Tools and Approaches to Secure Women’s Land Rights.’ The event took place in February 2014. The ILC has released a report outlining the results of the Learning Route in ‘Securing Women’s Land Rights: Learning from Successful Experiences in Rwanda and Burundi.’ A Learning Route is an educational tool built around the experiences of local organizations that aims to systematize and share knowledge. This Route focused on the experiences of diverse organizations working to promote women’s land rights.
ILC partnered with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) to identify and share tools and approaches to secure women’s land rights, identify gaps/tools that need to be developed, and build a community of practice among stakeholders.
During a week-long programme, participants visited with local organizations, including: the Rwanda Women’s Network, which is dedicated to promoting and improving the socioeconomic welfare of women; the Association pour la Paix et les Droits de l’Homme, a community-based organization in Burundi that promotes peace and human rights through education and capacity-building; and the Programme transitoire de reconstruction post-conflit (PTRPC), a government programme in Burundi that focuses on legal aid and awareness raising.
The report features emerging lessons from the Route that show that: awareness of rights contributes to legal empowerment; recognition and integration of customary norms into approaches to secure women’s land rights is critical where access to formal justice systems is limited; and the involvement of women in community life, as well as in projects and programmes that promote secure land rights, can create a “virtuous circle of empowerment.”
The report highlights the significant amount of knowledge and expertise that civil society organizations have to share, but notes capacity and resource constraints, and stresses the importance of ensuring this knowledge reaches a wider audience.
ILC works to promote secure and equitable access to and control over land for poor women and men. Procasur works as a knowledge broker in developing countries, linking international institutions and regional organizations with local governments and rural communities to identify and share ideas. [Publication: Securing Women’s Land Rights: Learning from Successful Experiences in Rwanda and Burundi] [Learning Route Webpage]