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Women's right to land and livelihoods
Action Aid International
June 30, 2008

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In the twenty first century it is unacceptable that hundreds of millions of women struggle daily to achieve fulfillment of the most basic human needs: the need to feed themselves, the need to secure a reliable resource base, and the need to stay healthy.

As the HIV and AIDS pandemic has spread across the globe, it has become clear that the social groups most at risk and suffering a disproportionately bigger impact are the poorest and most marginalised. Women and girls are consistently at a greater disadvantage compared to men: they are more vulnerable to HIV infection and bear the greatest burden when HIV and AIDS affect families through illness or death. Across the world, new HIV infections are higher amongst women and girls than amongst men and boys. In sub-Saharan Africa, women now account for 61 per cent of people living with HIV, up from 57 per cent in 2003 and young women aged 15 to 24 are more than three times as likely to be infected than young men. Globally up to 90 per cent of care due to illness is provided in homes by women and girls. Hunger has increased worldwide, from affecting 800 million people ten years ago to 850 million today. It is in the regions where most needs to be done and where hunger is most prevalent that the least progress has been achieved towards the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving hunger by 2015. Today, hunger is not only more severe, but is also gendered: worldwide, women make up 60 per cent of the chronically hungry.

HIV prevalence is highest in the most food insecure countries, with HIV and AIDS being both a cause and a result of hunger.

Rural populations are the worst affected by hunger, and their livelihoods have come under increasing stress. Rural women's ability to feed their families is severely limited by the lack of viable employment opportunities and the lack of access to markets combined with women's inferior access to productive resources, assets, credit and land. Women's access to and control over land is crucial for improving their status and reducing gender inequalities, which in turn are critical factors in reducing the prevalence of poverty, malnutrition and AIDS.

Women's farming activities, which prioritize providing food for the family, have been largely overlooked in agricultural policy. And women's rights to land and livelihoods have barely been included in HIV strategies and programmes. Although many governments have legislated for women's equitable access to land, too often this has not been accompanied by the necessary implementation or assistance to support women's farming and food production. Governments have either neglected or refused to ensure that women are able to get the necessary access to and control over land and natural resources to support food production and other livelihood needs.

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