Research Study: Land Ownership
Consulting Services: In-Depth Assessment of Palestinian Women's Rights to access to and ownership over Land and other Productive Resources
Background:
Established in 1981, The Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development (PWWSD) is a non-governmental women’s, mass, developmental, and learning human rights organization that contributes to developing feminist struggle within national, social, and developmental dimensions. The organization believes that liberating women is connected directly with ending the occupation and establishing a full Palestinian democratic sovereign civil state. PWWSD is active all over West Bank including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip and is an active member in several local, regional, and global networks and coalitions.
The Palestinian Working Women’s Society for Development (PWWSD) aims for a free and democratic Palestinian society based on gender equality, respect for human rights and social justice. The organization promotes women empowerment, women’s participation in the national struggle against the Occupation, women’s contribution to the development processes, the entitlement of woman to political, economic and civic rights, women’s access to justice and their right to a life free of violence.
Under project “Strengthening a Gender-Responsive Environment in Rural Development and Cooperative Sector”, in partnership with WE Effect Palestine Country Office, a number of interventions are designed to contribute to strengthening an enabling environment for women’s access to land and reproductive resources and gender equality leading to improving their livelihood conditions and possibilities to take part in development processes, on the basis of International Human Rights Laws, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The project will lead to the overall national development objective in Palestine: Promote Gender Equality in the Economic Sector.
One of the major areas that represent gender disparities in terms of access to opportunity in Palestine is employment and economic dependency. There are very limited work opportunities, restricted participation in the labour force, high unemployment rates and increasing poverty among the Palestinian society. These have a disproportionate impact on women and strongly affect the power dynamics and equilibrium inside the family and in the society. Moreover, the imbedded barriers of the Israeli occupation prevent rural women from accessing productive resources, including restriction of mobility and stagnation of economic growth.
Against the background of declining support provided in the areas of women’s economic empowerment, including women’s control over land and other productive resources, the demand for diversifying interventions and market opportunities for women and young women through access to land and areas of work in cooperatives, including agricultural sector, becomes a priority. The provision of these services will become increasingly relevant for Palestinian’s steadfastness. Moreover, the capacity of government and civil society to improve the economic status of men and women, but particularly women is circumscribed by the political situation but also by a lack of knowledge, capacity and awareness to mainstream gender equality in forming policies, planning and programmes development.
Moreover, gender relations remain a concern where customs, norms and legal settings provide men with the power to control women. In typical gender-relations, communities continue to believe that the society expects men to participate in the public sphere, such as working and earning wages, while women are confined to the private sphere and expected to be responsible for child-rearing and household affairs.
Palestinian women face discrimination and deprivation of their inheritance rights that are enshrined in international human rights laws and conventions, including CEDAW. The Personal Status Laws that apply in Palestine discriminate against women in inheritance and underscores the societal perception of women’s inferiority to their male relatives. In practice, many families deprive their female members of inheritance, by referring to the prevalent perception and belief that “strangers” are not entitled to benefit from this inheritance. Even if women have the right to recourse to legal judiciary proceedings to demand their right to inheritance, this rarely happens in light of the associated social stigma that this would incur.
Under the framework of the project, PWWSD in close coordination with WE Effect and Civil Society partners, are seeking the services of an experienced consultant to conduct the in-depth assessment in the West Bank including Area C. In general, the in-depth assessment aims to assess the status of rural women and women in cooperative, and explore gender disparities in the area of women’s use of and control over land and other productive resources, that are essential to ensuring fulfillment of their right to equality and to an adequate standard of living. The study aims to provide detailed guidance for policy, civil society and other key actors to promote adoption and enforcement of laws, policies and programmes to protect and fulfill women’s economic rights, with a specific focus on women’s access to land and productive resources, including in the cooperatives sector. The research will also provide the base for advocacy interventions implemented by PWWSD and WE EFFECT partner organizations.
Interested firms are required to prepare and submit the following:
-A Technical proposal including context (brief), approach, methodology, and work plan including the proposed timeframe.
-CVs of the research team.
-Financial offer: budget breakdown of the proposed costs in ILS including VAT.
Interested consulting firms are requested to send the above package to [email protected], with the subject line: “Research Study: Land Ownership”.
