Background

The Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) secretariat, hosted by UN-HABITAT and located in Land Tenure and Property Administration Section (LTPAS), Shelter Branch is focused on establishing a continuum of land rights and the creation of innovative, pro poor, scalable and gender-sensitive land management and land tenure tools. It achieves this by a range of activities including organising workshops and e-forums to facilitate a wide range of stakeholder inputs. The goals, values and priorities of the GLTN underscore the need for all land tools to be gender-sensitive, as does the process of tool development itself. One of the aspects of work of GLTN is a gender mechanism on developing land tools to ensure that this gender-responsiveness takes place (see www.gltn.net)

Despite progress on women’s rights on some fronts over the last few decades, it is recognized that women’s access to land and security of tenure remains very low. Although more gender disaggregated data is necessary in this field, it is estimated that only 2% of women in developing countries own land. Development approaches to implement women’s land rights are driven largely by a poverty-alleviation (pro-poor) agenda have largely been ineffective. Women are disproportionately affected by gender blind/neutral approaches and are unable to access ‘paper rights’.

Governments, civil society, land professionals and analysts generally point to the paucity of effective and scalable gendered land tools as hindering the realization of these rights. Tools, which have for long been devised on male interests and priorities, need to be developed recognizing women’s experiences, needs and participation, in order to be effective. This includes recognizing the fact that inadequate housing, poor location, scarce access to potable water as well as to electricity, public transportation, telecommunications, health and education services, all have a great impact on the daily lives of women. It also means recognizing, amongst other facts, that women-headed households typically represent a high proportion of the poorest living in informal settlements worldwide. Women who become single heads of household are particularly vulnerable, since women’s access to land is often through their husbands or fathers, they may lose such access after widowhood, divorce, desertion, or male migration.

Developing evaluation criteria for gender-responsive large scale tools

As part of broader efforts to develop gender-responsive large scale tools, a set of evaluation criteria is needed. They are necessary in order for any assessment to be made on how gender responsive existing tools are, and also in developing new gendered tools where gaps or blockages exist. Since limited work has been done on gendered evaluation criteria so far, a systematic, multi-stakeholder dialogue on how to determine whether or not a tool is sufficiently gender-responsive is needed. Such criteria will also help to identify what steps are required to ensure a gender-sensitive tool development process that can positively impact on women and men’s land, housing and property rights. Establishing evaluation criteria for gendered land tools is a vital part of the GLTN gender mechanism, and needs to be developed prior to the evaluation, at the inception stage, not at the latter stages (at the evaluation stage itself) so that all stakeholders are aware of the basis on which tools are designed and assessed.

In view of the need for such criteria, GLTN has since 2007 organised two workshops, in Lukenya, Kenya (2007) and Bagamoyo, Tanzania (2008), to build knowledge around the critical factors required for such evaluation criteria to be realistic and effective in practice. These workshops were attended by grassroots representatives and land professionals working on land issues from different perspectives, and across different geographic regions. The rich knowledge accumulated through these workshops form a starting point to establishing a set of evaluation criteria for wider distribution and use by GLTN partners and beyond in their work on making land more pro-poor and specifically more gender-responsive. The next step is to fine-tune these ideas and produce a document for distribution on these evaluation criteria. While the evaluation criteria will always be refined with time and experience, the goal is for a document to be produced and widely shared by the World Urban Forum IV in Nanjing, China in November 2008. To find a commonly agreed framework on these evaluation criteria, an e-forum will be run by the GLTN Secretariat, in collaboration with a number of GLTN partners, from 8 September – 15 October 2008.

The e-discussion forum on gender-responsive evaluation criteria

The e-discussion forum will run for between 8 September and 15 October 2008 and be open to the public. The e-forum has as a start the set of knowledge gained from the two abovementioned workshops, from which emerged the list of draft criteria as summarised in Appendix 1. These sets of criteria will be summarised, and merged—where possible— prior to the e-forum. The language of the e-forum will be English, though summaries in Spanish will be posted on the e-forum.

The core participants for this e-forum are likely to be participants from the Lukenya and Bagamoyo meeting who came from different regions, backgrounds and expertise (See www.gltn.net). This e-Forum is also intended to reach a wider range of stakeholders working on or interested in land, housing and property issues from gendered perspectives who will be part of the gendered evaluation process or interested in the same. These include land professionals, grassroots, and civil society including women’s advocacy groups, policymakers and researchers. The running of the e-forum has been advertised as widely during August through various networks to generate interest prior to the start. The e-forum is supported by various UN-HABITAT internal partners such as the Gender unit, and GLTN partners such as the Huairou Commission and FIG.

Timing and dates

Each train ride is for 6 days, meaning that the participants have this time to comment on the theme at hand for each topic (‘ride’). They will not be able to enter discussion on past or further segments. After each stop, there will be a two day break for the focal point moderator, in consultation with the GLTN secretariat and the other three moderators, to put together the ideas, and for the next lead moderator to prepare for the next topic. The stops, and the timing allocated for each ride, are illustrated in Figure 1 below.

Expectations from each train segment

Train Station 1: DEPARTURE

The first segment or ride (8-13 September) will serve to introduce the moderators, the themes and the discussion. Registered participants will be encouraged to brainstorm on evaluation criteria, in the broader contexts of women’s experiences of land, housing and property rights, as well as obstacles faced. The public will have the following documents accessible on the Internet:

1. A merged set of draft evaluation criteria as well as those developed at the Lukenya and Bagamoyo workshops;
2. An introduction to the GLTN Secretariat and the lead moderators; and
3. The ground rules for the train ride (e-discussion).

The discussions during this ride are intended to consider the many different ways/angles through which the intersection between land and gender can be viewed depending on one’s profession, geographic context and experiences. The focal point moderator for this session will encourage a wide range of inputs, and share the conceptual framework and the rules for the rest of the e-discussion forum. This will be the only ride where general discussions regarding gender and land will be permitted, as the next segment moves on to more specific issues on establishing gendered evaluation criteria.

Train Station 2 - ISSUES FRAMED

By the time station 2 is reached, the conceptual framework and initial brainstorming is completed.

For the second component or ride (16-21 September) the focal point moderator, in consultation with the GLTN Secretariat and the other three moderators, will cluster or group the ideas/issues/themes on evaluation criteria that have come up into sub-themes. This will check duplication of ideas and propose the most effective formulation of the complex factors through an easily accessible checklist. By the end of this segment, and as the train reaches Station 3, the criteria would have been clustered and refined.

Train Station 3 – CRITERIA CLUSTERED

By the time station 3 is reached, the clustering into sub-themes is completed.

For the third component (24-29 September), the focal point moderator, in consultation with the GLTN Secretariat and other three moderators, will provide substantive support in grouping the list of evaluation criteria into whether they are:

• Input criteria for evaluation (what is needed prior to the gender-sensitive tool is developed
• Process criteria for evaluation (is the tool development and tool itself gender sensitive
• Output criteria (what is the impact of the tool on women and men, and how, and by whom is this evaluated?)

Train Station 4 – EVALUATION FRAMEWORK

By the time station 4 is reached, the evaluation criteria has been distinguished between input, output and process criteria, and indicators identified for each.

The fourth component (2-7 October) journey will look into how to use the evaluation criteria in practice, consider whether the list is realistic, and how it can be used, and by whom. Participants will also be invited to share land-related projects they know of, which they can consider whether they are sufficiently gender-responsive or not based on the draft evaluation criteria emerging.

Train Station 5 – PRACTICAL EVALUATIONS:

By this fifth station, the methodology for implementing criteria is in place.

The last component (10-15 October) will invite the public to comment on how the evaluation criteria compiled could be used to guide the creation of new land tools (in contrast to only evaluating already existing ones). It will also revisit any ‘’platform questions’’ (pending issues) that had not been responded to during the journey (as they had occurred after the relevant ride was completed, so as to not take the process backwards). After opening up the draft evaluation criteria for comments and incorporating relevant ideas, the e-discussion forum will come to a close.

Train Station 6 – ARRIVAL (DRAFT EVALUATION CRITERIA)

By this train station, the e-forum has ended, and the moderators are working on the final publication.

The moderators will work together with the GLTN Secretariat to finalise the document leading to a brochure being printed and distributed at WUF IV in Nanjing, China in November 2008, where this draft criteria will be discussed and developed.

There will be further journeys which will pilot test the criteria, which will lead to a fuller version of the evaluation criteria for gendering large scale land tools being published and disseminated. There will be further work on integrating these processes for gendering tools into land systems and land governance structures.

Output of the e-discussion forum and next steps

The output of the e-discussion forum will be a short brochure outlining a set of evaluation criteria for gender-responsiveness of land tools, drawing on as many points of view as possible. This will serve as a GLTN output and be presented and disseminated at a number of events of the World Urban Forum in Nanjing 3-6 November 2008 (a Roundtable and a side-event).

Following WUF, the evaluation criteria will be piloted to see how they can be used in practice. Drawing from the piloting, the plan for a more detailed guide to be produced on how to use the evaluation criteria to assess gender responsiveness.