This paper will discuss emerging trends in gender dimensions of land degradation, making an argument for the importance of taking gender roles into account when making policies and laws to promote land degradation neutrality. Women comprise 43% of the world’s agricultural labor force, rising to 70% in some countries. In Africa, for instance, 80% of agricultural production comes from smallholder farmers, who are mostly rural women.Despite their majority in the small-holder agricultural sector, women typically don’t have secure control over their farmland or over its productive resources, especially commercially marketable product. This lack of control is linked to land ownership rights in rural areas, which habitually favor men; women’s access to the land, meanwhile, is mediated by their relationship to the male owner. Such arrangements are rooted in the traditional patriarchal norms of granting ownership over society’s productive resources.
