foodtank.com - Celine Salcedo-La Viña is an Associate with the Land and Resource Rights (LRR) project at the World Resources Institute (WRI). Her legal and policy analysis help LRR support rural African communities’ rights to land and natural resources. Food Tank had the opportunity to talk with Celine about her recent publication,“Making Women’s Voices Count in Community Decision-Making On Land Investments,” and her work with WRI. Food Tank (FT): How did you become interested in promoting gender-equitable community decision-making on land investments?

Celine Salcedo-La Viña (CS): Women constitute half of the population in the world. In some countries, for example, in Tanzania and Mozambique, there are even more women than men. It is, therefore, important to have women’s views and concerns included in policy and decisionmaking overall. In fact, one of the targets for Goal No. 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals, Gender Equality, is to ensure women’s full and effective participation at all levels of decisionmaking in political, economic, and public life. With increasing commercial pressures on land in developing countries, there is a need to ensure that women at the community level have a say in decisions that will have profound impacts on their lives, especially in terms of food security for them and their children.