The Land for Women initiative is a long-term ecosystem-building and women’s empowerment programme led by Womanity in partnership with Landstack and a network of grassroots organisations, practitioners, researchers and institutional actors working on women’s land rights in India. The initiative seeks to strengthen women’s ownership, access, control and decision-making over land while addressing the broader social, institutional, legal, ecological and behavioural systems that shape women’s relationship with land.

The programme emerged from the recognition that women’s land rights are not merely about formal ownership or names on land records, but about enabling women to exercise agency, improve livelihoods, access entitlements, participate in governance, and build climate resilience. Despite legal reforms and policy advances, women continue to face structural barriers, including patriarchal norms, weak implementation of laws, unequal inheritance practices, lack of institutional sensitivity, and exclusion from governance and market systems.

To address these challenges, Womanity and Landstack developed a Theory of Change (ToC) framework to guide strategic engagement across multiple actors and scales. The initiative works through three interconnected pillars: grassroots engagement with NGOs/CBOs and communities; engagement with academia, think tanks and government systems; and ecosystem strengthening through media, funders, and knowledge platforms.

The initiative combines evidence building, capacity strengthening, leadership development, legal awareness, institutional engagement, digital innovation, climate-linked approaches and ecosystem partnerships to build a more inclusive and gender-just land governance ecosystem in India.