Women’s Land Rights and Economic Empowerment: Policy and Practice


Land is a limited, and typically the most important asset for people living in the developing
countries, the majority of whom depend on agriculture and related work for their livelihood.
Women have a constant and deep interface with land, and their contribution in terms of
agriculture and other related work is high, yet women are unable to own land, are uninvolved
and not seen as important stakeholders, when it comes to conversations and decisions
related to land ownership.
Women contribute substantially in developing and nurturing land, and many studies across
the world indicate that land ownership by women leads to reduction of domestic violence,
increased mobility, increased access to credit and loan, improved decision-making and
bargaining power, more dignity and sense of self-worth leading to the welfare of themselves
and their families – the results that help to enhance social and economic empowerment of
women.
In India, less than 13% women own land, whereas more than 75% women are engaged in
agricultural work producing about 60-80% of our food and 90% of dairy products.
Women’s land rights in India are mediated through various personal laws and customary
practices. While the personal laws and tenurial land laws make unequal provisions for
women’s land share, the societal practices irrespective of these laws, deny women their land
share even when it is permitted under law. Over the last few years, both national and state
governments have made some progressive reforms to realize the goal of secure and equitable
land tenure for all, with efforts to secure land for women especially, but the implementation
of these laws remains inadequate on ground.
The Hindu Succession Amendment Act 2005, the main legislation relating to property
inheritance right which was enacted to enable women to equally inherit parental land,
remains far from being effectively implemented. Efforts have been made in a few states to
introduce land laws and programmes that enable women to own land, but these are a handful
of sporadic examples from Kerala, Odisha, West Bengal, UP and some other states, that have
not transformed into designing of full-fledged state or national programmes or policies for
women. Societal practices, lack of implementation of laws, absence of gender disaggregated
data on land ownership along with huge definitional issues as laid in the policies result in
abysmally poor land ownership of women.
Since last few decades, women’s land rights are increasingly becoming an important and live
agenda within the social development discourse globally, and in India. This has been further
emphasised since the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 capture women’ s land
rights under targets that are connected to three goals of; ending poverty and hunger (Goal
1), ensuring food security (Goal 2) and of achieving greater gender equality (Goal 5).
A Roundtable Discussion on Women’s Land Rights
The World Bank Projects in the country and globally have strong bearing on this issue and
there are number of compelling stories in the Bank projects supporting land rights to women.
Under Lighthouse program, World Bank intends to engage with other key stakeholders,
including central government, states, development partners and CSOs to brainstorm on policy
and practice on land rights of women and learn more about these models and best practices
in the country to integrate it into the broader development work to achieve gender equality
and empowerment goals.
Broad Objectives of the roundtable:

   •   Understanding the stakeholders and best practices; and bringing the stakeholders
       (land and non-land organisations) on a common platform to brainstorm, discuss and
       learn from each other’s efforts.
   •   Mapping the Gaps in policies and programmes to identify opportunities and spaces
       that impact Women’s Land Rights.
   •   Understanding existing norms, practices and policy ecosystem that impacts Women’s
       Land Rights in India.