A woman's land rights are foundational to

The Stand for Her Land Campaign is closing the implementation gap for women’s land rights: the gulf between the strong standards in place to protect women’s rights to land, and the realization of those rights in practice, so that millions of women can realize the transformational power of rights to land.

Stand for Her Land drives lasting change on the ground through collective action and advocacy at grassroots, national, and global levels.

When a woman holds secure rights to her land, power dynamics shift. Her dignity, household decision-making, and economic freedom increase. As a global community, we move closer to gender equality.

Strong land rights help women break the cycle of poverty and improve not only their own lives, but those of their families and whole communities. The benefits of women’s land rights multiply in crucial ways both at home — when women have secure rights to land, spending on children's education and household nutrition goes up — and worldwide — women’s land rights are key to addressing the deeply gendered issues of climate change, food security, and global health.

Recognizing their cross-cutting importance, leaders across the globe have made formal commitments to ensure women have secure land rights. Yet in many countries, these commitments lack incorporation into legal and policy frameworks – and even when laws are equitable, deeply entrenched patriarchal social norms often result in weak implementation.

The Stand for Her Land campaign aims to close this gap between global commitments and local practice, to build a future where all women and men have a secure place to call home.

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Women are jointly saving a handful of rice for capital generation in Bangladesh. Photo credit: ALRD.

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Woman looking out from her house in Comuna 13, Medellín. Photo credit: doleesi / Shutterstock.

Stand for Her Land is built on collective action.

Our community of diverse allies works via a coalition model, linking global and local actors and empowering grassroots women leaders and men who are champions for gender justice to advocate for stronger women’s land rights.

Country Coalitions comprise local grassroots organizations, national civil society organizations, and other non-state actors working towards the shared goal of stronger women’s land rights. Led by a coordinating organization, these Coalitions partner with and catalyze other key stakeholders, including government agencies and civil society, to realize women’s land rights.

A Global Steering Committee of international non-governmental organizations with deep women’s land rights expertise facilitates the campaign. The Steering Committee provides resources, tools, and support for national and local advocacy in focal countries, and leads advocacy at regional and global levels, amplifying the voices of grassroots women. Stand for Her Land is the first advocacy campaign of its kind to merge global and local efforts to radically accelerate land rights for women from the ground up.

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COUNTRY COALITIONS

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Bangladesh

Members: 9 Organizations
Coordinator: Association for Land Reform and Development (ALRD)

S4HL Bangladesh strengthens and sustains the capacity of networked, women-driven CSOs to create the enabling environment needed to recognize and promote women’s land rights for women’s economic empowerment.

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Colombia

Coordinator: Center for Research and Popular Education (CINEP)

S4HL Colombia deepens local CSOs’ experience to increase social recognition and legal literacy around the legitimacy and importance of women’s land rights, ultimately reducing social and cultural barriers.

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Ethiopia

Coordinator: Habitat for Humanity Ethiopia

Page coming soon!
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Senegal

Coordinator: Pan-African Institute for Citizenship, Consumers and Development (CICODEV)

S4HL Senegal is catalyzing a sustained movement for women’s land rights by building government and other stakeholder capacity and engaging communities via legal literacy and social norms and behavior change programming.

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Tanzania

Members: 25 Organizations
Coordinator: Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (TAWLA)

S4HL Tanzania works to create local and national awareness of women’s legal rights, promote access to justice, and allow for inclusive and equal participation in decision-making so all Tanzanian women can access, own, control, inherit, use, make decisions, and benefit from land.

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Uganda

Coordinator: Uganda Community Based Association for Women and Children’s Welfare (UCOBAC)

S4HL Uganda is creating an enabling environment to realize women’s land rights through increasing knowledge and resources for a diverse group of stakeholders to bridge the implementation gap between standards and practice.

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GLOBAL STEERING COMMITTEE

Global Land Tool Network Partners

  • Member
The Global Land Tool Network is an alliance of international partners contributing to poverty alleviation through increased access to land and tenure security for all.

Habitat for Humanity

  • Member
Habitat for Humanity International helps people around the world build or improve a place they can call home.

Huairou Commission

  • Member
The Huairou Commission is a women-led social movement of grassroots women’s groups from poor urban, rural, and Indigenous communities in 45+ countries who collectively work for transformative change that improves the living conditions, status, and quality of life of women, their families, and municipalities.

International Land Coalition

  • Member
The International Land Coalition is a global alliance of civil society and intergovernmental organizations working together to put people at the center of land governance.

Landesa

  • Campaign Secretariat
Landesa is an international organization working to secure legal rights to land for the 2.5 billion people who depend on forest and farmland for their livelihoods. As the S4HL Secretariat and lead implementing partner, Landesa provides management, administration, and technical assistance.

Rights and Resources Initiative

  • Member
Rights and Resources Initiative is a global coalition of 21 partners and more than 150 rightsholders organizations and their allies dedicated to advancing the forestland and resource rights of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, local communities, and the women within these communities.

World Bank

  • Member
The World Bank Group is a unique global partnership: five institutions working for sustainable solutions that reduce poverty and build shared prosperity in developing countries.

Supporters

Stand for Her Land is grateful for the generous support of actors committed to advancing women’s rights worldwide.
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Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is dedicated to helping create a world in which all have freedom and security in life.
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The United States Secretary of State’s Office of Global Women’s Issues promotes the rights and empowerment of women and girls through U.S. foreign policy.

Other Partners

Stand for Her Land collaborates with other organizations on shared goals that further women’s land rights worldwide.
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The International Federation of Surveyors provides an international forum for discussion and development aiming to promote professional practice and standards within the global surveying, geomatics, geodesy, and geo-information community.

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