Land and other natural resources in many developing countries remain a fundamental part of people’s cultural identity, social relations, livelihood strategies and economic well-being. However, great setbacks are still experienced in terms of tenure security, natural resources governance and territorial/landscape development because of existing inequality between men and women in access to land and other natural resources required for territorial development.

Across regions, rural women face even greater constraints than their male counterparts in accessing productive resources and services, technologies, market information and financial assets. They are also under-represented in local institutions and governance mechanisms and tend to have less decision-making power.

This new FAO Land and Water Working Paper promotes adapting a convergent and people-centred gender approach towards increasing and improving the provision of goods and services from agriculture, forestry and fisheries in a sustainable manner while reducing rural poverty in different priority areas of FAO’s work. This includes gender equality, territorial development, legal aspects and natural resources management (i.e. pastoralist, forestry, watershed management, climate change and fisheries). The approach of “putting people first” entails accepting their diversity of interests, values and positions, and understanding who they are and the reason for their actions. The objective is to find an entry point to promote this approach based on dialogue and negotiations in order to reach a shared vision for a given territory.

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