Asia Land Forum 2020 Session 4

Securing tenure rights for women and girls in Asia: How the Beijing+25 Action plans shall promote inclusive food systems for women and girls

8 Oct 2020, 5:15 PM Jakarta/Bangkok via Zoom

Secure tenure rights for women are a fundamental and non-negotiable aspiration to achieve gender equality and protect women’s human rights. The Generation Equality process, set in motion by UN Women, is hinged on two important deliverables.

Firstly, it intends to commemorate, reflect, and fast track the 4th UN Women Conference Commitments made in 1995 in Beijing, China. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action contains various references related to women's land rights: paragraph 35, 51, 55, 58 (m) and (n), 60 (f), 61 (b), 165 (e), 166 (c), 256 (a) and (f). The states committed to ‘undertake legislative and administrative reforms to give women full and equal access to economic resources, including the right to inheritance and to ownership of land and other property' (Paragraph 61b).

Additionally, the blueprint puts into attention the role that social norms play in the protection of women's land rights, with targets specifically addressing discriminatory norms such as unequal inheritance and the lack of land rights.

Secondly, at the heart of the Generation Equality is the interest to accelerate the realisation of gender equality as indicated in the 2030 Agenda. Women's movement including land rights advocates contributed immensely to the 2030 Agenda. Five out of the 17 Goals have made clear references to women’s land rights. In the meantime, nine out of the 169 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets are on land, and 12 out of the 240 indicators have direct relevance to gender equality in securing land tenure. Therefore, it is paramount that secure tenure rights for women are pivotal to the work of the generation equality process.

In this context, ILC Asia is supporting its members and beyond to build a broader coalition on the advancement of women's land rights in the region by developing a 5-year action plan that aligns with UN Women Generation Equality campaign.

Objectives

• To present a draft of Beijing+25 on women's land rights and engage with a wider network of civil society organisations and international non-governmental organisations
• To identify a common strategy to ensure that women's land rights are included in the Beijing+25 action plans

Expected Results

• The draft recommendation on the five-year action plan on women's land rights is consolidated more broadly
• Possible next steps to enhance coalition-building and identify the advocacy strategy for the inclusion of women's land rights

Date and Time

Thursday, 8 October 2020
5:15 PM Jakarta/Bangkok
6:15 PM Manila/Ulaanbaatar
4:15 PM Bishkek/Dhaka
4 PM Kathmandu
3:45 PM New Delhi