(Photo credit: Espaço Feminista)

This spring, look out for these three new Gender Evaluation Criteria publications on Women's Security of Tenure for Urban Women by Espaço Feminista, in collaboration with Huairou Commission and UN-Habitat Global Land Tools Network (GLTN):

• Step-by-step guide on how the regularization process translated the fundiary regularization policy (law) into practice: Describes and analyzes the specific steps and procedures developed through a participatory process in implementing the land regularization policy at the local level based on the principles of gender equality.  This publication is technical in nature, yet uses a language for both technical and non-technical audiences.   It will in its analysis highlight how a gender-sensitive approach has been utilized throughout the process. 
• The central role of women's community engagement and organizing for the success of the regularization process.  A publication on how the process of land regularization empowers women (from their perspective) and why the empowerment of women is critical for the implementation of the regularization process. For instance, formation of conflict mediation groups has been a women's idea. The learning and capacity building during the process can lead to changing power relations in the community (and at home). Therefore, women's involvement not only makes the process more efficient, but also leads to deeper changes in the community that make the outcomes more sustainable.
• How the Gender Evaluation Criteria was applied and gender sensitive indicators were indicated and applied during the regularization process in Ponte do Maduro. Demonstrates how the Gender Evaluation Criteria was applied throughout the process, along with how indicators were built and how each criteria was applied.

Throughout the world, women have struggled to gain access to and control over land due to inadequate existing policies, processes and methodologies on security of tenure. This year, the critical issues surrounding women's land tenure will receive the prominence they deserve at the World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, thanks to a push to engender the conference through a women and land planning committee comprised of the Huairou Commission, ILC, the World Bank, Habitat for Humanity, the Global Land Tools Network (GLTN) and Landesa, and through three years of advocacy from the Huairou Commission, including the ongoing vision of HC Chair Jan Peterson.

Every year, the World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty brings together representatives from governments, the development community, civil society, academia, and the private sector to discuss issues of concern to communities, land practitioners and policymakers worldwide. The conference aims to foster dialogue and sharing of good practices around the diversity of reforms, approaches and experiences that are being implemented in the land sector around the world. 

At the 2014 conference, gender has been elevated to one of six thematic tracks at the conference. Collectively, the women and land planning committee is also hosting a Women and Land reception, a women's caucus, and an exhibition booth. 

The Huairou Commission was also invited by the World Bank to coordinate one of the conference Policy Dialogue sessions, "Women's Land Rights in Customary Settings," which will feature Ndinini Kimesera and Frances Birungi as speakers on a multilateral panel alongside representatives from GLTN, the Land Policy Initiative, Habitat for Humanity and IFAD. Regina Pritchett will act as a respondent on the panel, which will be chaired by Dr. Joan Kagwanja of Land Policy Initiative (LPI). 

Huairou Commission Delegation:

• Katia Araujo, Deputy Director of Programs, Community Resilience, Land & Housing, Huairou Commission
• Becca Asaki, AIDS Campaign Coordinator, Huairou Commission
• Frances Birungi, UCOBAC, Uganda
• Patricia Chaves, Espaço Feminista, Brazil
• Sadie-Evelyn Gillis, Intern, Community Resilience, Land & Housing, Huairou Commission
• Ndinini Kimesera Sikar, Maasai Women Development Organization, Tanzania 
• Jacqueline Leavitt, Professor of Urban Planning at UCLA in the Luskin School of Public Welfare
• Joyce Rosemary Nangobi, Slum Women's Initiative for Development (SWID), Uganda
• Jan Peterson, Chair, Huairou Commission
• Regina Pritchett, Global Organizer, Community Resilience, Land & Housing, Huairou Commission
• Pam Ransom, Associate Professor in the Masters of Public Administration program in the School of Management, Metropolitan College of New York
• Katherine Shelley, Program Associate, Community Resilience, Land & Housing, Huairou Commission
• Ayse Yonder, professor of city planning and former chair of the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment at the School of Architecture at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

 Papers to be Presented:

• Improving Land Governance and women's capacity to manage natural resources in reformed areas in Pernambuco (Patricia Chaves)

• Building effective and inclusive land governance: Practical lessons from Recife (Patricia Chaves)

• Women's security of tenure in the context of customary land rights: The case of Maasai women in Tanzania (Ndinini Kimesera)

• Climate change, gender and the new global commons (Jackie Leavitt & Ayse Yonder)

• Improving transparent service delivery in land offices (Joyce Nangobi & Pam Ransom)