Gender Equality & Women’s Empowerment

Strengthening Women’s Rights

A wealth of global research demonstrates that women’s land rights are critical to the success of a host of development goals, including poverty alleviation, education, and conservation—not to mention women’s economic empowerment.

Partners using Cadasta’s suite of tools have an unparalleled opportunity to document and strengthen women’s land rights, further many key development goals, and reinforce the idea that women are equal partners in building their family’s and community’s future.

Cadasta works to strengthen women’s land and resource rights in all of our projects and partnerships. When women are named on land documents, either informal or formal, it is a critical step toward increased decision-making and improved income, health, and educational outcomes.

For Women’s Empowerment, with Cadasta’s Technology, Tools, and Services

Women can map, document, and manage their own claims to land, property, and housing and can use these data to advocate for strengthened rights.

Communities & NGOs can leverage Cadasta’s tools to ensure that community leaders, tribal elders, chiefs, and local government officials include women in the process of land rights documentation.

Governments can use Cadasta’s tools to ensure that women are informed of their rights and have equally documented rights to their homes and property

Our Women’s Empowerment Work 

Espaço Feminista

Bonito, Brazil

Cadasta partnered with local NGO Espaço Feminista in Bonito, Brazil to document and title women’s land rights. Armed with Cadasta’s tools and training, Espaço Feminista led a community process that informed women of their rights and engaged them in advocating for these rights with the municipal government. With Cadasta’s tools, local data collectors could speed up household data collection and make it more cost and time-efficient. The municipality responded by proposing and passing a law that paved the way for legalizing land rights for 15 informal settlements. 

Aso Manos Negra

COLOMBIA

In Colombia, Cadasta partnered with Aso Manos Negra (The Association for the Defense of the Environment and Black Culture), a female-run nonprofit organization founded in 1996 to promote the economic and environmental sustainability of Afro-Colombians across Colombia, with a particular focus on the Pacific region. Cadasta created a customized data-collection solution for Aso Manos Negra and provided in-person training for collecting data on women’s economic activities and land use. The group is using Cadasta’s tools to geolocate community boundaries, track land titling, survey women’s community associations, and document women’s economic activities that are environmentally sustainable. To date, Aso Manos Negra has been able to successfully document over 5,200 households in 17 communities across the Pacific region.

Badaban Sangho

BANGLADESH

In Bangladesh, Cadasta partnered with Badabon Sangho (a women-led nonprofit organization) to document, secure, and protect women’s land rights in southern Bangladesh. Badaban’s mission is to build the capacity of disadvantaged, vulnerable, and socially excluded people, especially women and girls, to improve their livelihoods and address other socio-economic issues using participatory approaches. By partnering with Cadasta, Badabon staff were trained to collect and map property rights data. Equipped with Cadasta’s tools and training, Badabon staff can now survey households to determine and document land held by women in the region.