Advising PepsiCo on best practices for respecting land rights; Land & COVID-19 discussion series continues; Supporting rural communities in India

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Peace of Land: A woman’s right to safety may depend on her right to own property

Blog by Shipra Deo

Two woman walking in front of a colorful mural in India. Photo credit PRRC India

INDIA — The more I listen to women – as they talk about their past experiences, their present needs and their hopes for the future – the more confident I become that a piece of land has the power to break this cycle of oppression and lift women up, empowering them to live a life of dignity, autonomy and self-worth.

The power that women derive from land ownership is not just about having their names on a piece of paper. The real power of a woman’s land ownership is that it creates a strong foundation for her to be more resilient, to have better choices and to have increased ability to decide her future.

Respecting land rights with PepsiCo

Woman helping another lift a basket of fruit on to her head.

GLOBAL — Land is essential to the food and beverage industry, and the world’s consumers increasingly want to know that the products they buy are sourced and manufactured sustainably and with due respect for the communities at the origin of the supply chain. To help strengthen land rights for rural women and men and help mitigate risk to businesses, Landesa frequently advises companies on best practices for respecting land rights in their operations and supply chains.

Recently, Landesa worked with PepsiCo to create the ACRE Framework, which enables PepsiCo to monitor its progress on adopting and implementing responsible land practices in its supply chain, across crops and borders.

'Land and COVID-19' discussions aim to generate policy recommendations

Screenshots of Zoom panelists during the Land & Covid-19 webinars

This May, Landesa and partners hosted a 3-part webinar series on Land and COVID-19. Hundreds listened in to learn about the land rights implications of the pandemic for women's land rights, evictions, and migration. Links to a recording of each webinar:

Women's Housing and Land Rights	Eviction Response	Migration, Displacement, and De-urbanization

The discussion has continued on Land Portal, with experts seeking to develop a set of actionable, practical recommendations for policy makers based on what is happening on the ground. In the last week, over 100 comments have been posted to discuss the first topic examining impacts that women (and their families) may be seeing today as a result of the spread of the disease.

Follow the discussion, open now through June 24, on Land Portal here.

Landesa in the news

	Women use mobile phones to maintain land records A women’s land literacy program, initially piloted by Landesa, has now trained more than half a million women in India on how to use their mobile phones to access and maintain their land records. (Village Square)
	From Brazil to Kenya, coronavirus widows lose their husbands and then their land Landesa’s Karol Boudreaux is quoted alongside other experts about how women’s land rights, particularly for widows, are being violated during the global pandemic crisis. (Reuters)
	Covid’s gender skew: We must not allow the pandemic to erase the gains in women’s empowerment Rudroneel Ghosh writes about the Land and COVID-19 webinars that Landesa helped organize in May. He emphasizes that gains made in women’s empowerment, including gender-equal land rights, need to be maintained and built upon further. (Times of India)

Technology: How to map India’s 662,000 rural villages equitably

The Government of India has announced an ambitious effort to map residential areas in villages using drone technology and provide “property cards” to these rural owners. In its first phase, the Svamitva (“Ownership”) scheme will map 100,000 villages in six states, with the scheme ultimately expanding to all of India’s 662,000 villages.

Drawing from our years of experience working on the ground, Landesa's Shipra Deo and Pinaki Halder evaluate the plan and offer several recommendations to ensure the scheme provides full benefits for rural communities.

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