Announcing the Global Center for Women's Land Rights

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, women grow 60 to 80 percent of the food in developing countries and over half of the world's food.

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in her remarks at the closing session of this year's Clinton Global Initiative, "consider the daily life of the world’s typical small farmer ... she lives in a rural village in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, or Latin America."

Despite women's ubiquity in our world's farming systems, their contribution is rarely recognized, and they only own 2 percent of the world's land, says UN WomenWatch.

That is why Rural Development Institute (RDI) is launching a new Global Center for Women's Land Rights, according to a press release. The center will do research, advocate for policy changes and initiative collective action aimed at gaining women better rights to land.

“Women feed the world. Providing women with secure land and property rights is essential to addressing poverty, food security and violence against women," said Renée Giovarelli, founding director of the Center.

In part to help get the Center up and running, the Omidyar Network has donated $9 million to RDI, which will support a three-year program to secure the land rights of 9 million families in India, China and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Photo courtesy of Praziquantel via flickr.