|
 |
Grant Title: "Women Receive Land Titles from
Government"
|
Grant
Objectives:
-
To develop
and maintain a database of information on
direct women beneficiaries, as well as
indirect stakeholders
-
To form and
mobilize advocacy networks of local
stakeholders that will protect and promote
land rights for women in general and women
heads of households in particular
-
To impart
knowledge and skills to these advocacy
networks to enhance their effectiveness
-
To create
linkages between these advocacy networks and
relevant government offices, enabling them
to solicit information, articulate
grievances, and play a meaningful role in
the post-floods land redistribution process,
and land grants allocation for women
|
|
Grant
Rationale:
Land ownership holds great economic and
social significance for victims of the
nationwide floods that have swept across
Pakistan this year. In cases, forewarned
communities did not evacuate for fear of losing
their claims to land and property. Many choose
now to reside on their plots of land with
limited access to aid, rather than in relief
camps, for this very reason. Clearly defined and
enforced property rights are the cornerstone of
economic uplift and recovery. Land rights become
even more important in the backdrop of an
agrarian economy, given that agriculture employs
43% of the labor force in Pakistan. Women
affectees single out land reclamation as the
most important step toward re-establishing their
livelihood. The majority of them (60%) have
identified “farming/landowning” as their chief
economic activity. Analysts also predict tribal
conflicts over land in the absence of
traditional markers, which traditionally involve
violation of women’s rights in practices such as
swara and honor killings.
Pakistan has traditionally grappled with glaring
gender disparities in economic participation and
opportunity. According to the Global Gender Gap
report, it ranks 133 out of a 134 nations
against this indicator. There is a very real
possibility that these floods could further
sharpen these contrasts, pushing women deeper
into economic deprivation and social
disempowerment.
A Charter of Rights for Women in Disaster
Situations, endorsed by 1500 rural women from
across Pakistan demands land reforms and
distribution of land among flood victims.
However, women’s land rights remain outside of
mainstream issues in the face of the vast
humanitarian challenge of recovery and
rehabilitation for flood victims, which
pre-occupies the attention of government and
donors. Where government policy reflects these
concerns, civil society efforts are needed to
buttress their impacts. For instance, the
state-owned land distribution project in Sindh
has purportedly benefited 4200 poor landless
peasants, 70% of them women. However, according
to an independent study 50% of these women
beneficiaries did not receive corresponding
legal documents. This underscores the need for
civil society involvement to lend credibility
and transparency to government initiatives and
enhance voice and empowerment among women
citizens.
|
|
Expected
Impacts:
-
Enhanced
information disclosure of public records and
increased transparency of land and revenue
administration functions of the local
government.
-
Legal
empowerment of women through institutional
ownership of land assets.
-
Enhanced
economic participation and opportunities for
entrepreneurship, gaining access to credit,
entering into contracts, increase savings
and investments, etc.
-
Social
empowerment of women as members of families,
tribes, communities, and villages, derived
from increased wealth and opportunities for
upward mobility.
-
Political
empowerment of women through increased
bargaining power to secure the delivery of
rights and services from the state, as
citizens equal to men.
-
Raised
awareness levels of women’s rights in
general and women’s land rights in
particular, among local stakeholders
including the government, media, legal
community, and the general citizenry.
-
Enhanced
skills of local citizen groups to conduct
advocacy focusing on women’s rights.
|
|
|
Methodology:
1.
Reconnaissance:
In each province, GINI will liaise with provincial
and local government officials (from flood affected
districts), and BISP representatives to gain
information on: a) male landowners who lost their
lives in the floods, survived by widows responsible
for dependents, from the death certificates; b)
Unions that have been particularly affected by
floods to identify homes/crops/properties destroyed
on land owned by women; c) land disputes involving
women claimants to ownership, which may be informal
or undergoing litigation; d) eligibility criteria,
application and screening process for awarding land
grants, and any potential awardees identified by
BISP and other government programmes (such as the
one mentioned earlier in Sindh); e) relevant CCBs,
CBOs and NGOs as described above. This process will
serve to isolate geographical scope and identify
direct and indirect beneficiaries of project
activities. It will also help secure the cooperation
of local land revenue administration in flood
affected areas.
2.
Baseline Surveys: In
each province, GINI will conduct baseline surveys
that target the population of direct beneficiaries
in target flood affected areas, to assess the
pre-intervention conditions of intended impacts
against pre-defined indicators.
3.
Development of database
and GIS interface: GINI will enter the data
collected through reconnaissance visits and baseline
surveys into a database, featuring a Geographical
Information System component for representation of
spatial data. This will allow monitoring and
evaluation of project impacts against established
baselines, through updates provided by Provincial
Coordinators.
4.
Network Building:
In each province, GINI will conduct a Mobilization
Workshop that will bring together direct women
beneficiaries, local Bar Associations, Press Clubs,
CCBs, CBOs, and NGOs, and government officials from
flood affected areas. At these events, the GINI team
will inform participants on their mandate, gain
inputs for refining project implementation, and sign
Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with civil society
and government partners securing their commitment
toward project interests, and defining their roles
in project activities.
5.
Training:
In each province, GINI will contract out local CSOs
to conduct 1-day Advocacy Workshops inviting
advocacy network members from flood affected areas.
Trainees will primarily include representatives of
CCBs, CBOs and/or NGOs active in gender rights
advocacy in flood affected areas. Training will be
based on modules developed in-house by GINI, that
impart knowledge and skills required for building
teams, setting goals, defining target audience and
mapping stakeholders, analyzing policy environment,
developing messages and choosing communication
channels, making plans and budgets, and raising
funds.
6.
Advocacy: In each province, GINI will administer honorariums to advocacy network
members tied to performance against deliverables
specified in their MoUs. For instance, for Bar
Associations, a possible deliverables would be the
establishment of a Legal Help Desk, which would
provide free legal assistance to women land
owners/claimants. For Press Clubs, the deliverable
would be news stories covering project activities,
highlighting the plight of women flood victims and
their struggle for land rights, etc. For CCBs, the
deliverable would be meetings held with local land
revenue administration to advocate on behalf of
women landowners or claimants, or assisting women
applicants to land grants from BISP or other
government programmes. These activities would be
managed by a Provincial Field Coordinators, who
would
also provide administrative support in interviewing
women who have been successful in advocacy efforts
to gain land grants from the government, and/or
reclaiming ownership of their land.
9. Implementation Plan and Schedule
Implementation will
take place in parallel across all Sub-grants or
provinces.
|
Programme Component |
Date of Completion |
|
Reconnaissance |
15th
of February, 2011 |
|
Baseline Survey |
1st
of May, 2011 |
|
Development of Database and GIS
component |
15th
of June, 2011 |
|
Network Building |
15th
of June, 2011 |
|
Training |
1st
of August, 2011 |
|
Advocacy |
28th
of October, 2011 |
|
1st Report -