Linking Women's Land Rights to Poverty Reduction and Economic Growth for UNDP

Although property rights are often linked to economic development, rarely have property rights, as they apply specifically to women, been linked to an overall reduction in poverty and an increase in economic growth.  The project final report sets forth the hypothesis that women’s land ownership and property rights lead to household poverty reduction and increased access to resources, and contributes to enhanced economic growth at the national level.

In periods of economic transition and in periods of economic crisis, it is women who are found to be more vulnerable to poverty; and a majority of the world’s poor are women.  Thus, experts agree on the need to target women to reduce poverty. In four outstanding substantive contexts a woman’s right to own and inherit property is tied to poverty reduction.  Those four contexts are:  countries experiencing urban migration, countries with a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS, countries heavily dependent upon land for food security, and areas of conflict.  This report uses those four areas as a contextual framework for evaluating the stated hypothesis.

Within this framework, country specific case studies, including Peru, South Africa, India and Rwanda, illustrate the relationship between women’s property rights and economic growth.  Each case study evaluates women’s property rights while broadly examining economic indicators and realities, legal frameworks, and other development considerations.