Happy International Women’s Day 2023 from LEI

Instead it means that women enjoy secure access to, control over and ownership of land on an equal footing with men. Research shows that there are positive multiplier effects when women’s land rights are secure – benefits accrue not just for women’s economic empowerment, but also for food security at the household level, child malnutrition and investments in natural resource management.

LEI works with a gender lens in all our land projects. In our project in the Mekong, MRLG, for example, we engage with NGOs, academia, and the government to support inclusive law and policy reforms at the national level and are generating knowledge around the barriers women face in participating effectively in land governance. In South Asia, we are working with the World Bank and Bangladesh government to ensure that adequate gender and other social safeguards are in place in the pursuance of solar energy. Here are some pictures from our gender session at the most recent MRLG conference in Luang Prabang, Lao PDR, where more than 120 participants discussed the barriers to gender equitable land rights and what can be done in the next phase of the program to support meaningful change across Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam.

Both women in these pictures are gender champions in the Region from Cambodia and Vietnam respectively.