Rural Women's Access to Land and Property in Selected Countries Analysis based on initial and periodic reports to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (19972003) FAO/IFAD/International Land Coalition, Maria Hartl, Consulta

Bringing human rights and development together has been a major concern of the United Nations over the past 50 years. The rights based approach to development has gained particular importance in the last years, although in reality the human rights and the development community often work in parallel but use different strategies. The need to address human rights and development is most obvious in gender mainstreaming, where the full enjoyment by women of their human rights and the removal of all forms of discrimination is the core issue and sine qua non. The gap between de jure and de facto equality is nowhere as blatant as with regard to women. The promotion of gender equality implies a social transformation in society for which human rights instruments are a formidable tool since they address and ideally eliminate the underlying inequalities and discrimination.