Browsing by Author "Meinzen-Dick, Ruth"

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    Land Tenure Reform and Beyond: Ensuring Women’s Access to Assets
    (United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 2007) Doss, Cheryl; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth; Carter, Jeanette; Nabanoga, Gorettie
    Recent land reforms in Africa demonstrate that legislation alone does not create property rights. While substantive and procedural reforms of the law are necessary, they are not sufficient to guarantee secure tenure. The formal legal system of a country interacts with customary systems and social norms in ways that can impact the security of property rights. Even where women have legal access to land and are aware of their legal rights, for example, they may choose not to claim that asset, preferring instead to conform to social norms that suggest that women are not property owners. In many cases too, it has been shown that conventional titling programs do not recognize the rights to land women had under customary systems, thus decreasing women’s tenure security.
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    Who Owns the Land: Perspectives from Uganda
    (United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 2012) Bomuhangi, Allan; Doss, Cheryl; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth
    Rapid growth of demand for agricultural land is putting pressure on property rights systems, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa where customary tenure systems have provided secure land access. Patterns of gradual, endogenous change toward formalization are being challenged by rapid and large-scale demands from outsiders. The sudden rise in global food prices in 2007-2008 precipitated increased demand for agricultural land from the Gulf countries, China and India, all of which are dependent on food imports. As these countries began seeking to secure their food supplies, European demands for biofuels and speculative demand from other investors also grew, thus increasing pressure on agricultural land in Africa.