Land and Gender Conference Held in Albania

The Land and Gender Conference, a joint project of FAO and the World Bank, was held on 12 – 14 May 2014 in Durres, Albania.

The conference was a follow-up to a workshop held in Budva in 2013 under the title „Greater than Leadership – Inclusive and Informed Land Administration in the Western Balkans“. The objective of the program is improvement of gender equality in land administration. Although there is clear legal protection for female land owners, customs often continue to work against women's land rights, because men do not want to register their wives to a share of the property. The traditions work against the interests of a younger generation of women, with fathers favoring sons, rather than daughters, when it comes to property inheritance.

Various stakeholders – GTL teams from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia – convened during the conference in Albania to discuss concerns about low levels of female land ownership.

The results of the work of GTL teams so far were presented. The first phase of the project involved generating gender-disaggregated data on ownership. It was found based on the reports that the percentage of female property ownership is low throughout the Western Balkans and therefore throughout the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH). The second phase of the project included raising public awareness of both citizens and key institutions, including senior government officials, land agency staff, notaries and municipalities, to improve gender equality in land administration and boost overall number of female property owners. To that effect, the work was done on improvement of communication to raise public awareness and mobilize citizens and institutions.

Different experiences were exchanged among the teams from the countries in the region and the ideas for continuation of the reforms were shared, as well as the guidelines on how to ensure the support of the key institutions for the next steps. Continuation of cooperation on regional level is also planned. On behalf of GTL team of FBiH, the conference was attended by representatives of Federal Administration for Geodetic and Real Property Affairs of FBiH and Gender Center of FBiH.