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the West, but that has made entire state institutionsmasculine preserves. 9 Even when womenhave de jure property rights, their de facto controlof land is tenuous, and men largely mediatedaccess. In Imo and Abia states in Nigeria, forexample, average household farms are 9.8 hectares,of which only 2.4 hectares are allocatedto women. However, this land is not a claim, butrather a lease, which women must organise fromtheir husbands. Further, widows cannot own land;their husband’s family keep it in trust for theirchildren. 10 As Robin Nielsen has pointed out:‘At various stages in women’s lives, their rightsto land are dependent on fathers, brothers, husbandsand sons. A more precarious foundation forland rights is difficult to imagine.’ 11 Ensuring thatwomen’s names appear on land records, that theirrights are enshrined in communal property systems,and that inheritance rights of widows anddaughters are established and protected, wouldgo a long way towards improving their condition.This is essential to empowerment and the promotionof entrepreneurial activity and should beplaced at the centre of property reform efforts.Equally, indigenous people around the world tendto suffer from weak or prescribed property rightsnot adequately recognised by law. These groupsoften hold land collectively, so ownership andaccess patterns do not always fit easily into imported,non-indigenous property systems of absoluteand individual nature. As they are largelydisenfranchised, the customary land rights of theindigenous tend to be overlooked. The AbayandaPygmies in Uganda, for example, have beenentirely dispossessed of their land; they haveendured persistent lack of recognition by thecentral government of legitimate claims to theirproperty. Indeed, the problem is far from solvedin developed countries. In 1902, Norway passedlegislation requiring full knowledge of the Norwegianlanguage for property ownership, effectivelymaking it impossible for the indigenous Sami toown land.In 2004 an International Labour Organisation(ILO) expert committee concluded that an Actpassed in 2003 to rectify centuries of exclusionarypractices still did not meet the minimumstandards for the ILO convention on the rights ofindigenous and tribal peoples. 12 Global reformof property rights regimes must allow for formalrecognition of customary land rights as the basisfor inclusive property systems that include indigenouspeoples. There are some good examplesin The Commonwealth Native Title Act of 1993in Australia, and the landmark Te Ture WhenuaMaori Act in New Zealand, both of which respectthe customary land rights of indigenous groups.Although time will tell if laws of this nature canchange deeply entrenched exclusionary practices,but legal empowerment for poor indigenousgroups will certainly remain key to tackling thischallenge in both OECD and developing countries.Urban slum dwellers are also excluded fromformal property systems. At least a third of theworld’s poor, or a billion people, are living inslums without legal protection of their assets. 13Ironically, it is often insecurity of land tenureand wrongful loss of land in rural areas that encouragethe poor to escape, while their propertyrights in urban areas are no less tenuous. Thereality of urban slum dwellers is sub-standardhousing conditions, forceful evictions, extortion,social exclusion, and environmental degradation,among other problems. The situation preventsdevelopment of adequate housing stock and theemergence of robust property and credit markets.Informal property systems are often perpetuatedin conflict-affected countries by flows of refugeesand Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from ru-65