Women and land awareness campaign in the Arab region

Cairo, 5 April 2023-- Housing, land and property rights contribute to ensuring women have an adequate standard of living, as well as increase women’s empowerment and participation in decision-making within the household or in the public life.

In 2021, UN-Habitat and the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) launched a regional Women and Land Campaign, aiming to shed the light on the importance of land rights for women, exploring challenges and solutions, as well as address women land rights in Islamic law.

The campaign, targeting a broad spectrum of stakeholders and the public in the Arab region, was promoted by UN-Habitat as part of its mandate to achieve a better urban future for all and by the partners of the Stand for Her Land Campaign, including the World Bank, the International Land Coalition, Landesa and Habitat for Humanity. The regional campaign reached over 80,000 people through the regional social media platforms of UN-Habitat and GLTN.

National Implementation of the Women and Land Campaign in Lebanon

Building on and narrowing further the scope of the regional campaign, the national implementation of the Women and Land Campaign in Lebanon was launched in partnership with the National Commission for Lebanese Women (NCLW). The campaign aimed to raise awareness and initiate a multilevel dialogue about women’s housing, land and property rights by raising awareness on the challenges faced by women in enjoying and accessing these rights, empowering them to claim their rights and drawing the public’s attention to the importance of protecting women’s housing, land and property rights as well as the vast impact this can have on the sustainable development and well-being of communities.

Through a roundtable event and 15 key messages, the campaign in Lebanon highlighted why women’s housing, land and property rights matter, how to increase women’s access to these rights and how to increase their participation in land-related processes. The campaign has already reached over one million people in Lebanon through social media.

National Implementation of the Women and Land Campaign in Tunisia and Libya

The Women and Land Campaign also took off in Tunisia and Libya simultaneously to raise awareness about how to overcome the barriers that women face in gaining access to their housing, land, and property rights.

"It’s not about what I want or what you want; it’s about having equal rights," Ms. Fatima, a Tunisian participant in the campaign introductory workshop, held by UN-Habitat , said.

In fact, protecting Tunisian and Libyan women's rights to housing, land, and property will require efforts to change social norms that govern various aspects of family life, such as inheritance practices. This is a difficult challenge because it requires holistic interventions that go beyond changes at the constitutional and policy levels alone and requires a combined set of short, medium and long-term interventions at all levels, starting with raising awareness and promoting dialogue about the socioeconomic benefits of promoting women's rights to housing, land, and property and the challenges they face in legitimately claiming these rights.

With the implementation of this campaign, UN-Habitat aims to pave the way for a more egalitarian and women-friendly future in both Tunisia and Libya through defending women's rights to housing, land and property and promoting dialogue on women's right to land at all levels. Through multiple communication tools, the campaign has reached a considerable number of people in Tunisia so far.