Parliamentarians Action #3 | Protecting and Promoting Women’s Land Rights in the Face of COVID-19 and Beyond

Land is a critical resource from which people derive their livelihoods. However, women around the world remain significantly disadvantaged regarding their right to land. Even when they are recognized as the primary users, they often lack ownership or control of the land or its economic outputs. The COVID-19 pandemic threatens to exacerbate this inequality.

This dialogue's theme, Protecting and Promoting Women’s Land Rights in the Face of COVID-19 and Beyond, covers the importance of women’s land rights for the achievement of the  Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda in terms of the eradication of food insecurity, poverty, and gender inequality, as well as the measures to foster gender-equitable land tenure rights during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

The dialogue’s objectives include: 

• Raising awareness and strengthening knowledge on gender inequalities, land property rights, and the interlinkages with rural poverty and food insecurity. How can the SDG agenda and tools—such as the voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries, and forestry—offer opportunities to strengthen women’s land rights?
• Enhancing parliamentarians’ commitment to achieving SDG 2 on zero hunger and SDG 5 (particularly indicator 5.a.2) on gender equality through the promotion and adoption of gender-sensitive policy and legal frameworks
• Promoting an exchange of knowledge and experiences among parliamentarians, women’s rights organizations, and other relevant stakeholders on specific measures and approaches to enhancing rural women’s land and property rights during and after the pandemic.

This virtual meeting was the third in a series of dialogues organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), IISD, and Oxfam as part of their policy support to the ECOWAS Network of Parliamentarians on Gender Equality and Investments in Agriculture and Food Security. The objective of the series was to enhance the role of African parliamentarians in mitigating the gender-differentiated impacts of COVID-19 on food systems.

Interpretation: Simultaneous translation into French and English will be available. 

Date: September, 17, 2020

Time: 10:30 a.m. (CEST) to 1:00 p.m. (CEST) (duration: 2:30 hours)

Rome time:10.30 a.m.

Abidjan: 8.30 a.m.

Kinshasa/N'Djamena: 10.30 a.m.

Addis Ababa/Nairobi: 11.30 a.m.

Washington DC: 4.30 a.m.

Event hashtag: #ParliamentAction2020