Taking action: achieving gender equality and empowering women

Guarantee women’s property and inheritance rights
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UN Human Settlements Program (UN-HABITAT), the Women’s Environmental
and Development Organization, and the Women’s Caucus of the UN
Commission on Sustainable Development has held discussions with women’s
groups worldwide to examine regional progress in enhancing women’s access
to land and property (Agarwal 2002). The Huairou Commission, the UN
Center for Human Settlements, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions,
and the Food and Agriculture Organization have begun a joint initiative in
Sub-Saharan Africa to strengthen advocacy for law and policy reform and
implementation and for dissemination of tools and strategies used by women’s
organizations in the region. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate
Housing has given content to specific human rights such as the right to
adequate housing. And the United Nations has passed several increasingly specific
resolutions over the past decade concerning women’s right to ownership
of, access to, and control over land, housing, and other property (OHCHR
2003; CESCR 1991). All these efforts deserve greater support.