How Can the Adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines Improve Public Policy and Women’s Access to Agricultural Land in Mexico, Guatemala, and Bolivia?

Abstract

Rural women in Latin America continue to face serious obstacles in land tenure, especially in areas such as México, Guatemala, and Bolivia. Gender inequality in land access is related to male preference in inheritance legislation, male privilege in marriage and state programs of land distribution. Consequently, the activities implemented by governments have failed to take women into account. For this reason, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and several partner organizations developed a set of “Voluntary Guidelines” (VGs) on responsible governance of land tenure to reduce inequality. Therefore, the main objective is to determine the degree of governments’ commitment to the fight against inequality in access to land and the role of women regarding these rural areas of Latin America. For this, this research tests the compliance with the “Voluntary Guidelines” of the FAO in Mexico, Guatemala, and Bolivia.