When investors come knocking: ensuring African women have a say

This briefing, published in June 2016, summarizes the common challenges that women face in situations of large-scale land deals for agribusiness. As explained in the paper, while such projects can potentially benefit local communities, research suggests that investments can often have negative consequences on vulnerable groups, in particular women. Although the impacts on men and women are varied and context-specific, women are those who suffer mostly the negative effects of large-scale investments and they are confronted with the following common problems: losing access to land they have traditionally used; working longer hours, including to provide food and water for the household; and losing out to men in terms of new employment opportunities.

Highlighting two key strategic priorities for the European Union, namely land and gender, this briefing is a publication in the framework of the IIED project Gender, land and accountability in the context of agricultural and other natural resource investments. Other IIED publications on land and gender, can be found here.