 Welcome to this webinar, to this conference on the theme of gender and land rights in Afghanistan, as I'm sure many of you will be familiar with unequal access to land is a major cause of gender inequality in Afghanistan. This event has been organised by the Housing Land and Property Task Force in Afghanistan, which is part of the subcluster of the protection cluster, which is part of the humanitarian country team in Afghanistan. And it's been organised to examine the different ways that women can access land and to see how these can be converted into tangible impacts to strengthen women's rights. My name is Jim Robinson, I'm the coordinator of the Global Housing Land and Property Area of Responsibility within the Global Protection Cluster. And we at the HLP AOR are really pleased to be supporting this event, it's great to be here. So today we will hear from four fantastic speakers looking at the context in Afghanistan and some of the innovative responses to these challenges and finishing with a global perspective. And then we want to open up for questions, comments and discussion from you, our esteemed participants, so really hope that you will be able to comment and contribute and look forward to hearing from that about that. Just before we proceed, a short practical comment on housekeeping, so please unless you're speaking, would you kindly keep your microphone on mute and your video off just to prevent some disturbances and also any strain on the bandwidth and our streaming capacity. But please do, as you already are, please do use the chat function to introduce yourselves but also for comments and for questions and we'll keep an eye on those as we go through and yeah please please do raise questions there. When it comes to the discussion after we've heard from our speakers, you can either raise your hand, use the raise your hand function, if I'm not seeing you please do sort of nudge me and also use the chat function to put your questions forward as well. So myself and my colleagues will be keeping an eye on that. So let's begin. I'm going to ask each of the participants to introduce themselves and then they will speak for around 10 minutes. What I'll do is I'll turn my camera off while they're speaking and then I'll put my camera back on when you have around a minute left speakers so just to let you know that we're coming to the end of the 10 minutes and I'll also send you a message when you reach 10 minutes just to keep things flowing. We have an hour allocated for this but we can, I'm available to stay on for an extra 10-15 minutes afterwards if the discussion is continuing and of course there's also lots of opportunities to follow up so yeah so I'm going to begin with inviting Azima Roya from UN Habitat to speak to us. Now I understand Azima's internet connection might be a little bit troublesome so if that's the case, colleague David Dominic Maliro, who's Chief Technical Advisor on the Shored Programme from UN Habitat is going to step in. So firstly Azima, I'll open the floor up for you but if you need to hand over to David then please do that. Azima are you there? Okay, very well Jim. In order to manage the time, the moment Azima John pops in, we should be good. I'll be able to hand over the floor to her. I will do my level best to represent the women of Afghanistan. Azima Roya, she's my colleague, she's a sister. We do work together in Afghanistan and firstly is to say thank you. I'm delighted to be among the community of practitioners who very much work around the clock and keep thinking about HLP issues. And what we are doing with Azima, myself with a background in human settlements and urban planning and previously with a strong background in civil engineering. So I tried to bring that together and Azima John to another level, she brings in a lot of institutional memory, institutional understanding and of course the context understanding of Afghanistan. What we intended to share was pretty very much around the question of the overview of how we deal with the question of gender, the issue of the challenges that come with obtaining rights for land. And looking at how do we persuade government to be able to look at a municipal empowerment of women in Afghanistan to be able to own assets, to be able to belong, to be able to participate in the entirety of the integration and integration processes in Afghanistan. It has not been easy. It involves a lot of head scratching. Some of us went in with black hair. Some white began to pop in. There are quite a number of challenges in terms of securing rights for women in Afghanistan. Some of those challenges are very much cultural and some of those challenges are very much institutional. Now, we are working in a context where less than 30% of the land in Afghanistan is legally registered. And much as within the context of the Sharia law, women would then have an entitlement to a particular portion of the asset holding of the husbands. When land is not registered, that increases the complexity. And that complexity is more accentuated, especially so for women who have had to depart from the safety of their homes, from the safety of their social coping networks. And I've had to be refugees in other countries where that sort of a domain of survival is not there. And where culture becomes quite a little bit of a problem, because then they have to relearn a different new culture, they have to relearn how to be independent. And when they return, often they cannot be able to access the original places of residence and many times the property restitution are not possible because someone else takes over the property that they used to own or the husband used to own or the family used to own. So this is the context within which we have tried to see how best do we help the women who suffer the greatest of hardship, of insecurity, of natural disasters, how best do we support them in terms of them being able to get this right. So what we did under the SHURA programme, SHURA programme being the sustainable human settlements for integration in urban areas in Afghanistan, was to then use a blanket presidential decree 305, which is subsequent to many presidential decrees that are different political connotations, but without a specificity to return to urban areas, a specificity that brings in both gender. So within that frame and within the 33 articles that are in place, and with specific regard to article 14, we did manage to sneak in something that will be able to tie together the husband and wife, or the husband and wives together, and something that will be able to support the women whose husbands have died. Or otherwise the women who were mothers and the below 18, and that becomes quite a little bit of a problem because then in Afghanistan in terms of the cultural aspect that I mentioned, for a lady to be able to even get access to rent of a property, they would need to have someone called a maharam with a male family member to be able to stand in as a guarantor, or otherwise a security for them to, even in the list, rent property, even when they can be able to do that. So leave alone being able to own land and to be able to own housing. So the experience we have working with the government, we have a government that is forward looking, a government that is doing everything possible to be gender inclusive. And what you have done is through the presidential decree, I stood then put in a scheme that provides full rights to land. And because we know that if you provide only land without being able to provide incentives to develop the land, then the absorption capacity of most of these women could not be able to sustain them to retain and hold on to that land. So we combine that land with the housing, and this is permanent housing to ensure that the asset holding comes to bear in terms of empowering the female-ended households, empowering the women that have been widowed. The women-ended households have died fighting the war, and the women that then return to their country without the possibility of being able to go back to their villages and be compelled to become part of the urban sort of dynamics, the kind of urban requirement to urban asset holding that allows you to be then to be able to borrow and to be able to build on to that particular asset holding. Either using the contribution that comes from diaspora. So this is the broad aspect of the PDT05, and this program basically is being piloted in two provinces, and at the moment we are happy that the is about 30% of women that have had the strength to be able to apply it because traditionally women will not be able to come and apply. And what we did was to select land that is least contested within the urban setting so that they would not feel obliged to need to have a man with them to be able to get the land. And for the 70%, we have sort of a yoked together, both the husband and the wife, where the two of them are still alive to own the property co-jointly. And the aspiration of this is that then when the women are participating, this parcel of property has to become collaborative and has to become a participatory and the development or redevelopment of the people when they return becomes a collective family effort. And what we have done again is to work with different UN agencies to ensure that the vulnerability criteria that is put in place in terms of scoring does bring to the fore the women that have the ability to absorb the particular assistance. But however, they also have the ability to be able to put in place the Afghan helps the Afghan kind of dynamic where Afghans do support additional families. And this is especially so with regard to the child mothers that then would not necessarily qualify for this land. To date, we have 20,000 households that have applied for both Kabul and Erat. And the full intention is to be able to scale up the program to cover not only the two provinces to scale it up to the total of 29 out of 34 provinces where we have access. And there's a willingness on the part of the governor's on the part of the municipal authorities to agree to the requirements and the articles of the presidential decree 305. So with those few remarks, I want to give the floor back to Jim and to say thank you and I'm more than happy to take as many questions as possible. Over to you. Thank you, David. Thank you. That was really excellent introduction to the topic and also to the work that you are involved in as well. And I imagine it will raise all sorts of questions. What we're going to do is we're going to hear from each of the speakers first and then we'll come back at the end. So if you do have questions or comments, please note them down and yeah, we will come to those shortly. So thank you, David. I really appreciate you stepping in there. And if, if, if Azima comes online, we can involve her in the discussion as well. So, okay, we're going to turn now to our next presenter, Mr Ezadullah Raji, who's a technical advisor with the ICLA programme part of NRC's programme in Afghanistan. So Raji over to you. Thank you, Jim. And good afternoon to everybody. I'm happy to have this opportunity to join you in this conference. I would like to address a couple of issues in regard to the gender and land whites in Afghanistan and then would like to hear from you, your comments and questions. The first thing that I would like to talk about is the legal frameworks that assert housing, land and property or the rights of women in Afghanistan. As you all know, the legal system of Afghanistan is based on Sharia and, you know, the article three of the current constitution of Afghanistan says that no laws in Afghanistan can be against Sharia. So Sharia makes the basis of the legal system of Afghanistan. So when we look at Quran and Hadith, I mean the sayings of Prophet Muhammad as the two main sources of Sharia, we see that, you know, the Ichilpe rights of women are recognised. I mean both Quran and Hadith recognise the right of women to the housing, land and property. So this, I mean, the fact that the legal system of Afghanistan is based on Sharia, you know, has some positives and some negative, you know, aspects, you know, from one handed is, you know, good. And, you know, in favour of women and from the other hand, it can sometimes, you know, you know, bring some causes, some challenge for the women to access to housing, land and property. So, you know, Quran recognises the rights of women to Ichilpe, whether it is through will, through inheritance, through sale, through different ways and methods that are recognised as the ways to, you know, to acquire ownership in Islam or in jurisprudence. But from the other hand, in terms of inheritance, there is some, you know, kind of inequality between men and women, as it is very, you know, I think clear for all of you that in terms of inheritance, there is some difference between men and women. So it is not the case that always women inherit the same share as, you know, get the same share of the inheritance as, you know, as a man does. So in terms of the legal system, there are a couple of, you know, laws in Afghanistan that, you know, support the women's right to Ichilpe, the constitution, civil code, land management law and some other regulations that I would not, you know, like to go in details. This PD presidential decree 305 is, you know, one of the, you know, decrees that is, you know, very good source or very good, you know, effort in terms of helping women to access to Ichilpe or right or to acquire ownership. One point that I wanted to say is that, you know, so in terms of the legal system, there are a lot of, you know, laws, provisions, articles that support, you know, women's right to Ichilpe. But at the same time, there are, you know, some issues, like if we look, for example, at the, you know, personal status law of Shia in Afghanistan, there is, you know, a clear, you know, kind of discrimination between men and women in terms of, you know, access to inheritance. Although in, generally, there is some discrimination between men and women in terms of, in terms of inheritance because one brother, you know, gets twice as much as a sister does. But in the personal status law in Afghanistan, unfortunately, a wife, not all women, only wife, does not, you know, get any part, any share of the property of her husband. While according, you know, to the jurisprudence, half of the, of the, you know, what do you call it, of the state or patrimony should go to wife and that certain circumstances. But this law says that wife does not get any, you know, part from the immovable property, not from movable property, whether it is money or anything, that is okay, there is no issue. But when it comes to the immovable property, there is an issue that, you know, wife cannot get any part of the immovable property. So it is, you know, one example of the challenge that women are facing in terms of, you know, access to, to each of the rights based on the legal system of Afghanistan. I will stop this part here and we'll go to the next issue that I wanted to address. And that is, you know, the ways that a woman or women in Afghanistan can, you know, through which they can acquire land or, you know, each of the rights in Afghanistan. So there are different ways based on the, based on Sharia and the legal system of Afghanistan is starting from inheritance to sale to, you know, will to donation called Hibbe or other other ways. I would like to emphasize on inheritance, you know, inheritance is one of the easiest way, one of the easiest ways that a woman can acquire land. And unfortunately this is somehow, you know, challenged by the customs and by, you know, the, you know, the habits or the norms that are dominating in Afghanistan. The fact is, unfortunately, that a lot of HLP disputes with that it is related to mean or women in Afghanistan are addressed through the informal justice system through Shuras and, and, and Jurges, local Shuras and Jurges. So they are not always, you know, referring to the status relance to the constitution to civil code or to other relevant, you know, thank you, James. So when, you know, a woman wants to obtain his, her, you know, inheritance share, she refers usually to the Shura and Jurge, and they are not always, you know, giving her, you know, her, her, her portion from, or her share from, from the inheritance. Usually, you know, women are denied from their, their inheritance, right, or sometimes there is a compromise while they do not get the land itself in a state they are paid some money, which is always, you know, less than the price that's or, you know, the price that, you know, the land would have. So that is, that is, you know, a problem, a big problem that the women are facing quickly in Afghanistan. The last point that I want to, you know, address and I will try to finish it in three minutes is, you know, the impacts of, of having access to lands for women. If women in Afghanistan have access to land, so it will help them a lot. Access to land mean that they would be, you know, prevented against a lot of protection issues, a lot of, against a lot of violation, especially this, you know, gender based violence and, you know, domestic violence and different. So, I mean, if a woman, you know, owns her home, her house on her land and has a source of income, so she would, you know, be able to defend her right and she would be able, you know, to get access to a lot of other rights that she has, you know. They are unfortunately has have been a lot of cases that women have been, you know, you know, kicked out from whom by their husband, you know, why, because they have not had any, you know, share of on the on the house, and they then would, you know, face a lot of, you know, protection issues. So, I would like to summarize it that, you know, the impact of having access to, to land rights in Afghanistan could be really crucial and, you know, you know, significant for for women in, you know, in terms of being in terms of enabling them, you know, to get access to other rights and, you know, to be saved against the protection risks and issues. I would like to stop here and thank you all. So, I would be happy to hear your comments and questions. Thank you. Thank you Raji for that. Setting out some of the legal challenges and the importance also of access to land for women to realise many of their rights in many different areas of their lives as well. So, thank you for that and we will definitely come back to you with questions after we've heard our following two speakers. So, I want to turn now to Felicity Cain, who is a technical advisor on the city for all programme with UN Habitat in Afghanistan. Felicity, over to you. Hi, thank you, Jim. Good afternoon. Good evening to everyone. My name is Felicity Cain. I am the technical advisor on the city for all programme. And I think I'm joined online today by my colleague Anthony who is out CTA. So, nice to be here with you all today. I will focus a little on the contributions of land registration and improved occupancy rights for women in Afghanistan. As we've undertaken as part of the city for all programme. Well, first a little background. Our data from the 12 cities where we've worked suggests that 84% of city of properties are informal. So, only 16% of these actually have formal land ownership documents. And of all properties, only 5% are owned by women. And so, as we all know that this insecure land tenure for women underpins and is essentially an indivisible for many of the other challenges faced by Afghan women, particularly those in informal settlements. In secure land tenure underpins adequate housing and poor wash conditions. Most residents in Afghan informal areas don't have access to water, sanitation or waste services. Of course, women's role in unpaid domestic labour and childcare means they suffer greater negative health effects and more prone to economic shocks than men. There's also the challenges of lack of economic opportunities, including access to credit. At our colleagues mentioned that it leaves women facing uncertain land inheritance rights and greater threats of violence, particularly in the context of land disputes. Further, it's incredibly important for identity and self determination and pride for women. Moving now to what I'd like to focus on, which is this example of how through the CFA program, the city forum program, we've been working to address land tenure security for women. I think it's a practical example of on the ground implementation of the voluntary guidance on governance of tenures recommendations. It's specifically its recommendation that land tenure program should build on existing or culturally appropriate models. And so we do that using a spectrum of tenure approach. The CFA program is funded by the EU and USAID and it seeks to improve stability and stimulate local economic development and improve land management. And thereby strengthening the social contract between the citizens and state working in 12 cities. We do this through a three-pronged approach. Firstly, is looking to improve land tenure insecurity and effective land management, including by surveying and registering all properties in the 12 cities where we work. Second, we support government to improve municipal revenue generation or transparent generation. Including by generating safae fee, which in Afghanistan translates to a cleaning fee, but in other contexts would be considered a property tax levied by municipalities. Thirdly, we then support government to improve municipal urban planning and service delivery, including through projects for upgrading that use the safae revenue. So now moving to some examples of what specifically under the CFA program we've been doing to improve land tenure security, including for women through the spectrum of tenure approach. We do this primarily through occupancy certificate regulation. So while the 2017 land management law sets out that ownership is proved by formal documents, as well as some customary documents, specifically those that are informally document transactions of land that was previously formally recognised. This obviously leaves a gap, and that's where the regulation on managing affairs of urban informal properties in 2018 seeks to address. It's also known as the occupancy certificate regulation. So that fills the gap for properties that don't meet the land management law requirements to prove ownership through formal documentation, but they can legally occupy land. So in this way, it helps us to formally recognise these occupancy rights through registration and also through issuance of occupancy certificates provided certain conditions are met. So the program we support government to survey all of the properties and then government issue the occupancy certificates. Given these are officially government issued documents, these are regarded as providing a higher degree of tenure for recipients and form as a service, a form of land ownership documentation that can be upgraded to deeds. In terms of how the program or how the OC regulations further access to land for women, there's three things I want to highlight. These are provisions, the following provisions. Firstly, both spouses names are to be on to be in the registration process and on the occupancy certificate, thereby providing an equal share of recognition for properties on state land. Second, women have a right to equal share of the property documented with an OC. And thirdly, in the case of female head of households, a property is registered in their names only, and OCs are issued to them, thereby removing this risk of claim by other family members. So through this process, I think there's some interesting data that I'd secondly like to share, including some data on the number of women who have been issued OCs. So far, the program has surveyed 837,000 properties. So that with an average household of 7.2, that's over 6 million people have been reached through this insecure, secure tenure approach rather. Of those properties we surveyed 16% have formal documents, 49% have customary and 35% have no documentation. So that 49% is where we see the gap, the opportunity to improve land tenure security in particular. As I mentioned at the outset, only 5% of properties are owned by women. Though in some cities, in particular in the South and Spinbolduck and Cundahar, that's at 0%, whereas in Kabul it's slightly higher at 7%. Of those that are owned by women, 33% have formal ownership, which I think is interesting compared to 16% of the national average. Presumably, I was talking to my colleague Anthony about this previously, that this may indicate that for women to actually own their own land, it has to go through the formal system. Because through informal systems, they're less able to claim that right to the land. 46% have customary documentation and 21% have no documentation, compare that to 35%, which is the national average. So secondly, moving to the OCs data, we have issued 30,960 OCs. Over half of those, about 56%, are both in the name of men and women. So when you contrast that again to the existing national average, that's the issue of any land that's owned by women, that's a huge improvement. We also have 857 of the 30,000 that are in the name of women only, so female-headed households. Just to mention this, there are still another 274,000 properties that are eligible for OCs. So we hope to see this scaled up, particularly when some of the bottlenecks that OC issuants are addressed. We can go into those later if of interest. And finally, I just wanted to end with a couple of other notes on how I see it. I'm showing you a screen on how CFA also supports improving land access and security for women. One of the things that, through the territorial units, we have a minimum of four women of the 13 members. And these units are responsible to oversee the property registration and community engagement processes and identification of properties. We also involve women through all stages through the participatory planning and through the street addressing as well. So what I would end with saying is that I think there's a key opportunity in the cases where OCs have been issued to women to then shift our focus to engaging women in the participatory urban planning and service delivery processes so that their role in urban governance is multiplied across the scales. So I'll stop there and hand over to you. Thank you, Jim. Thank you Felicity. Thank you for sharing again some fascinating research figures and also some of the response of the cities for all programme. That's really interesting. I'm sure there'll be some questions coming in on that. Thank you for those who are sharing your questions in the chat box. We'll come to those later on or I see some are answering them there as well. Yes, whichever works. I'm going to turn now to Ombretta Temprar, who is the land specialist with the Land Housing and Shelter Unit of UN Habitat. And she's going to come from a more of a global perspective and reflect a bit on what we've heard here. And yes, so Ombretta, over to you. Thanks, Jim. I was, hello everybody. It's nice to see all the colleagues. Actually, I would like to share my screen if says I cannot share while other participants are sharing, but maybe, Jim, you can put on my presentation and I'll start talking to that. So it's really a pleasure to be in this discussion today, which actually, you know, really comes to give some concrete examples, challenges and lots of progress made on the ground with women land rights. So congratulation to all the people in Afghanistan for this really inspiring progress. I am just, I was asked to give a little bit of global perspective, but maybe more on also bringing in the kind of humanitarian development access view and on land governance in particular. So this was a quite broad area, so I decided to focus on three points, which are, sorry, I'm struggling with technology, the, well understanding and working within legal pluralistic context. Secondly, the key aspects of women empowerment at the community level. And the third one, a little bit of broader perspective on land governance, I was, as I was saying. Next please. So for the legal pluralistic aspect, I mean Afghanistan definitely is not the only one that of the country where we work, there is a challenge with legal pluralism. And I think while, you know, most of the intervention managed to work proactively with it, you know, we tried to see from other experiences as well how can be some guidance given in general of how to work within a legal pluralistic context. Then obviously would be to understand the different source of law and do a general analysis of each. And then maybe in the short term try to address those gender gaps, but also other human rights gaps on, you know, gaps that minority face with the specific, you know, maybe the formal system, the religious, the customary, etc. See what can be done in the short term, but then progressively try to harmonize align and reconcile the different provisions that are related to land and women access to land in these different systems. I will allow basically to to have this different component not to work against each other and leaving gaps and gray areas, and maybe on clarities that are actually proven to disadvantage women, and also those who are less able to, you know, really smartly or engage with each of them, you know, from a perspective maybe more educated and knows better all the system. And therefore, I mean the least gaps we have and the less, you know, this system are conflicted with each other or sending conflict messages to the beneficiaries to the women to the poor, the better. So this is a sort of a, you know, start to work towards an alignment of this system to make sure they work together well. And then, you know, ultimately, while we engage, we understand that in the short terms probably we have no option in some context really there are no option of choosing which entry point to use, you know, perhaps in some rural areas where really the formal system the formal system the formal legal system really doesn't is not known sufficiently or the institution don't reach, you know, up to there there is no option really to really engage with the religious or the customary and we have done some case studies where for example even in Niger or in other countries where it really worked well on the short term to engage with the religious and customary system. It's also important to think strategically, you know, on the longer term, what would that mean, you know, because obviously once, you know, the international community engage with one system, somehow weakens the other or there are aspects on the other one in the case, you know, we should be careful not to undermine the formal system and think a longer term a little bit. Next slide. Actually, you know that we are working together with the HLPAOR on a set of messages on what works actually to increase women access to land in infragile context, and this document hopefully will be ready soon, hopefully next month. And there is a long list of messages so I don't want to go through them and also it will be very long, but I think the main one really is to empower women at the community level and ensure they are organized and they talk to each other and they are empowered but also organized. And this obviously comes through in terms of information sharing, direct practical support, because we see also through different NRC researchers, for example, in different countries that really a lot of women fail to access land because they lack practical support, not so much maybe on the legal aspect, but really on how to overcome the practical steps on how to access the land administration system or the dispute resolution system. And again, ensure that women are part of decision making processes. We are also, you know, celebrating the 20 year of governing Security Council resolution 1325 that really puts women at the center of peace, negotiation, mediation, et cetera, but we haven't seen that very much yet on the ground. And this is really where all of us strive towards that, but I think still there is a lot to be done, especially to ensure that women are part of peace negotiation, peace mediation, but also those processes linked to those broader ones that are related to land. And that they are traditionally, I'm not traditionally like there is evidence that they are systematically fall off, particularly the restitution processes or land and HLP related commissions. These are some of the areas where women actually disappear from the picture in spite of, you know, the clear need for them to be there. Next, please. Last point is on now looking broadly actually agenda responsive land governance. And here again where we bridge a little bit the HLP perspective, the land rights, you know, of women in fragile context through the overall actually land governance system. Just to recap for ourselves, you know, there are many definitions of this, but we can say that in a nutshell, land governance is the process by which decisions are made regarding the access and use of land, the manner in which those decisions are implemented and the way the conflicting interests around land are reconciled. Right. So this is a little bit the spectrum. If we see the next slide. This is the way it looks a little bit on the, you know, all together when we talk about HLP rights, we can see that the green box which is says land tenure, which is obviously and, you know, underpin by the land policy framework, the institution, the landing from information structures, but let's say if we look at overall land management and land administration functions. There is land tenure, but there is also land value land use land development. I mean, this obviously is one model there can be others but this is the one the global and tool network usually uses to actually unpack how land management and land administration can be, you know, described, and all of this component need to be gender responsive gender inclusive. Just to give some examples. In the next slide. You know, obviously when we talk about legal policy framework. There is need to improve and make them gender inclusive in the process but also amend those part that are not gender responsive. There is need to align the different legal system. And this might be, you know, a number of laws that are, you know, beyond the formal one, etc, etc, the institution, but overall at the end, a little bit linked to the fact that women need to be empowered and be enabled to participate. It's very important that women employment in the land administration function and land administration organization is supported and courage and courage and really, you know, pushed forward because only when the land administration system overall will not be perceived as a male only sector that's where all the rest will come along. Secondly, the process need to be less bureaucratic faster cheaper cheaper and not require excessive documentation this is really proven to be what really blocks women more than anything else more even than the law more than the inheritance system blocks women from accessing land rights, and this would obviously be very inclusive also to men or poor men, etc. Remove practical barriers. I think I spoke to that earlier. Simplify it make it accessible. You know, overall, these are general guidance but clearly, you know, when there is an assessment of the gender responsiveness of the administration system in the specific context. That's where you know specific targeted measures can obviously be designed and made tell her to that. That's just that that's it. That's what I wanted to say on this, you know, for this discussion to give a glimpse a little bit of the brother picture beside HLP rights land rights. And I'm happy to take any questions or inputs from from the floor. Back to Jim. Thank you. Greta. Thank you for giving that. Yeah, that sort of global sense of what's going on and some of the things that you've been working on to respond to to some of these issues. I appreciate that a lot. Now, so we've got about 1015 minutes to have some discussion. In the chat box has been a number of questions that have already been posed and some of these have have been answered. What I intend to do is. I'm going to just frame a couple of the questions that have been asked. And then ask, ask whoever of the panellists wants to respond to respond and as Emma, I don't know if you've joined us, but if you have please you're very welcome to respond as well. So I thought I'd begin just by grouping some questions that have come together that speak a little bit about protection risks and power and those kind of things. So we've heard from Jenny Mona and Eveline. So when securing land to women, have you experienced any protection risks related to women owning land alone around harassment. Also what's done to avoid the overburdening of women with land ownership, for example, payment of expensive taxes related to this. So how does the program mainstream protection not have an indirect harm by increasing violence against women due to access to land. And again, again related to that, how do these programs address power relations between men and women. So I open those up to to our panellists. That might kind of features in some of the work you've done. I know David, it sounds like it really relates to the work you've been involved in as well and Felicity Ombretto, I really welcome your inputs on that. So, yeah, would one of you like to respond to that general area. Yeah, Jim, with the intelligence, I would just want to sort of top up a few of the responses that I've shared with Jenny and Eveline. It's not the easiest of the things to do if I must be honest. It has involved a lot of persuasion has involved a lot of alternate legislation. While my colleague Felicity and Anthony will be able to share a little bit of what they have done with regards to the municipal law while they'll be able to share in terms of what they have done in terms of working within the cause of the city, especially with occupant certificates, looking at the question of land grabs, looking at the question of the place of women within the urban fabric. Looking at the entirety of the question of displacement vis-à-vis the social fabric that has been sort of the mainstay in Afghanistan. Now, Afghans have a unique attribute of the transnational networks and intramational networks that we then had to really study to be able to understand how do these networks come into play in terms of being able to create a new space within the context of the new settlements that we are trying to put in place. And the question was, how do you find neutral land that is less contested so that at least they have a little bit of a breather to be able to establish themselves, establish themselves one, as part of the small localized governance structures, to as part of the quasi municipal governance structures, and then how could we restructure the way we do our urban planning to be responsive to this new dynamic of say a lady that left to Pakistan or left to Iran and comes back to the mother country, and they can be able to go to the village of origin. They have established new friends, how do you bring them together. So from the Shura perspective, and I'll give way to Felicity, and I should, as Emma be online, should be able to speak more within a personal context, how that works. So to be able to work out, we then created a program called reintegration, reintegration meaning a social re-engineering process. There is no culture. These are people from kicked out of Copenhagen kicked out of Europe, return back to either as a voluntary repatriation, or otherwise as a voluntary repatriation based on how they were able to reach those particular places that they hoped to be able to get a little bit of relief. So when they return back, their culture has changed, they are no longer nomads, they are no longer cwchies, their culture is sort of fragmented, how do you bring them back together. So it's an entire social re-engineering process where the friendship that is developed in the indignity of those refugee camps comes to bear in terms of creating new little microcosms of a new culture that then is able to work within the voting cluster under the citizens charter program, and within the gender policy context of the national solidarity program, we then use those to be able to apply them within the new urban architecture of re-establishing those communities within the sense of their new experiences, not the old experiences. So none of them has a place ownership, they both must have a new place ownership, that's how we play around. So those are my few remarks and I give the floor to either Felicity or Anthony, if they're online they could be able to share within the context of what do they do within the cause of the city, while we try to encompass the peripherals of the city to expand the space and make that space less contested as it were. Thank you. Thank you David. Felicity, would you like to come in or Anthony, whoever's. Okay, sure. Thanks, Jim. I can build on that a little and I think in response to, I think with Evelyn's question on what did the program also do to address power relations. Her point was right that it's documentation of registration of flight, this is only one step. And so I would emphasise this way the program, the CFA program we work in this three-pronged approach. So it's not just issuing occupancy rights, it's also engaging women through broader urban development processes. Specifically through, as I mentioned earlier, there's the CTUs that are cadastral territorial units, which have a minimum of four women of the 14 members. And they play a key role in overseeing, overseeing the land processes, so when a property is surveyed, advertised, so that the ownership can be confirmed through the community. And these committees are responsible for overseeing that. Any land dispute and as per the OC regulation, if there are any land disputes that involve women specifically, at least one female member from the CTU must be involved in that dispute committee. And so I think that that involvement, not just in the CTUs, but in broader goals are assembly networks and community development council networks, which are similar CTUs, but in all urban areas of Afghanistan. So these are area-based networks. There are also minimum quotas of women. And these community-based networks serve a key role. They're registered with municipalities. They serve a role in broader urban development planning processes. For example, as per the municipal law of 2018, all local municipal plans and budgets should be consulted through these committees. And CDCs in particular play a key role in, they have women's committees who also play a key role in selecting and implementing projects for communities. And so I highlight this as an example of how we seek to actually build a stronger relationship between women in the community and also position women in a capacity that enables them to take decisions for their local urban area. Another example is through the strategic municipal action planning process. So we support governments to utilise the participatory urban planning approach to develop local municipal plans. And that includes through consultations with ensuring that there are minimum 20 to 40% of women who are participating and ensuring the identification of projects that are focused specifically for women. And so I think this is one example of this stepping stone approach to not just give women more secure land rights. And as Umbretta said, but also use this community for an approach to further strengthen the role of women as local urban leaders. Thank you Felicity. Sorry, I'm just aware of time. So I'll just turn quickly to Umbretta and then Raji, I'll come to you for a comment as well. Umbretta. Yes, thanks a lot. I think there's an element of women being victim of violence because of claiming their rights is faced in many communities. A different levels and what worked from some of the case studies we analyzed is that, you know, the promotion of women land rights shouldn't be like as a standalone process, but should come together as a package of basically supporting gender empowerment, women empowerment. And for example, in some cases where there have been, you know, women land rights, I think this because was in Jordan, women land rights pushed ahead at the same time as programs to, you know, address gender based violence, as well as consistent and targeted messages from the leadership from the highest level of leadership, you know, the royal family that, you know, this is important and this is the way the country is going that proved to be effective. So, you know, I think having an intervention that really tries to change one of the dynamics while living the others as they are, it can be more risky than having a sort of a whole of society approach as much as, you know, obviously this is difficult, but it's important and really the engagement of the leadership at the highest level proved to be useful in that. Thank you. Thank you, Ombretta. Raji, did you have any comment on that question and also there was another couple of questions specifically directed to you, which we can look at as well. Yeah, I think the colleagues addressed all the issues, but I would like to address the two questions that were specifically addressed to me. I think the first question was about the, you know, the future perspective of the women rights specifically related to each of them in Afghanistan. I think there have been good improvements in this regard, in this regard recently with the two, you know, regulations first this PD 305 and then this land management informal lands in urban areas. These two regulations are, you know, very, you know, the good steps in terms of, you know, securing the land rights of women because these two regulations, you know, require the relevant authorities to put the name of the wife as the shareholder or as the partner on the title, which is very good, you know, progress. So, with this, you know, progress, I am hoping that access to each of the rights for women in Afghanistan would increase and, you know, with the support of the humanitarian actors and, you know, human agencies in terms of this issue. So the other question that was, at least I think it was about the expropriation, if I am not mistaken, we have a law in Afghanistan for the expropriation, and there is no difference between men and women. I mean, if based on the law and their certain circumstances, your land is expropriated by the government so you are, you know, entitled to compensation. So there is no difference between men and women as far as I know based on the law in this regard. The last point that I wanted to add here is, you know, about the displaced people because we in RC are working for the displaced people, IDPs, internally displaced people and persons and refugee returners. Refugee returners and IDPs are, you know, in a, you know, what to say, in a harder situation in terms of accessing, you know, or practicing, exercising their HLP rights for different issues. You know, including the fact that they are, you know, they are in a, you know, lower position in terms of, you know, economical situation so they would not be able, you know, even to, you know, to effort the cost of taking a case through the formal justice system. So that is why they are, you know, more, you know, vulnerable to the protection risks that can, you know, arise from lacking, from lack of access to land and HLP rights in general. That's it. Thank you. Thank you, Raji. So I'm mindful of time. Now I'm happy to stay around and keep this going for another 10 minutes or so, but people may have to drop off. So I just want to, in case people do have to leave, just want to say thank you so much for being here and for the presenters sharing and then answering questions. And just to highlight that this webinar was part of the themes related to this, a part of something that's being developed in Afghanistan that there's a legal brief about to be released by the HLP Task Force on a Brief Guide to Women's Land Rights in Afghanistan. So do look out for that. We'll be sharing about that within the HLP AOR and I'm sure there's many other channels as well. And this discussion we're hoping will kind of feed and contribute into a maybe a one or two page of policy documents. So again, thank you so much for your comments and please keep them coming and we will make sure we note everything down and keep a hold of it. The recording of this event will be made available through the Protection Cluster and other kind of via YouTube and elsewhere. And I'll be updating on the HLP AOR website as well as the newsletter. I'm just going to put the link if anyone wants to sign up to that newsletter in the chat box. And I'm also going to put in my email address as well in case you need to get in touch with me for anything and to be in touch with other colleagues. So in the meantime, just that was by way of making sure that information has been shared, but we can carry on discussing for another 10 or so minutes. So Anthony, or should I say Hawaii P30 Pro, I believe you would like to make a comment. Yeah, so this is Anthony appearing as Huawei. I work with Felicity in Afghanistan in the same program. I just like to put into very quick comments. And these are actually coming from questions asked by I believe Evelyn. So her first comment is not to be taken lightly. The idea that in some contexts, especially mostly majority countries, power relations might be disturbed by some interventions where there are protection risks that come up between spouses at household level or even community level. This is very true. It's been seen in many countries. I've been told that there's a certain amount of stress that has been caused in some households in Afghanistan. I've even heard of divorces or potential divorces that have come out of the idea that this occupancy certificates will now be registered in the name of both spouses giving equal rights to spouses. So it's a reality that has been seen and it's something to be taken lightly and any interventions should perhaps have elements that take care of such externalities. Second point I'd like to comment on is although registration is not everything in terms of mainstreaming HP rights for women. It is extremely important, especially in the context of formal rights. Registration is very important. As you know, the two most important rights that are given by ownership registration for ownership and ownership documents is the rights to use and the rights to dispose. When there is registration, formal registration, it works very well for women because it restricts the right to dispose by husbands or spouses. They cannot dispose property by way of sale or by way of lease when it is registered in the woman's name. So it's extremely important and in formal context it is the game changer, I would say. Thank you. Thank you, Anthony, for those comments. I just one thing to mention as well within the chat. I know on Bretter shared some examples of case studies so a link to those. So please do have a look at those. Would anyone like to raise a question or make a comment in the participants is please do you know feel free to raise your hand or or come in otherwise I can turn to another question. OK, so please do continue to add to questions or do raise hand to get my attention. I just want to turn to a question that came in around there's been this actually bit of a theme that emerges is the you know what happens with some of the in terms of the power imbalance and Anthony touch on it there when sometimes there are these difficulties in having those rights actually fully realised and what does that mean in the home and in the community. And I think there's a question that's coming around land disputes that are they gender responsive and how can we better address specific barriers to access to just in the justice that women face. So this obviously relates to promoting protecting land rights but also more broadly I wonder if people have comments on that particularly maybe experiences where that's that's been achieved or there's been some progress because obviously there's a lot of challenges there but are there things that have worked things that we can learn from. I would like to add a comment on this. Yes. So, you know, as I said, you know, the land disputes, you know, are time consuming in terms of, you know, to be resolved. So that is why whether it is, you know, through, especially if it is through the formal justice system through court, you know, some land dispute, some land cases can take like two, three or five years, even 10 years, you know, to be resolved. So that is why a lot of people, you know, prefer to take it through the informal justice system, you know, this local churros and gyrgus. And, you know, because these informal justice systems are not necessarily, you know, accountable and responsible to the government so they do, you know, their work and they, you know, address the legal disputes. Unfortunately, because, you know, of the culture and because of the context, what happens is that, you know, the decision is made against women usually and, you know, in favor of men, especially, you know, if it is, you know, one party male and one party female. You know, I can give you a lot of examples from what we have experienced working for years with IDPs and returners in terms of each LP, you know, a lot of sisters who, you know, claim their inheritance share from their brothers. So when it goes through the churros and gyrgus, they want to, you know, come with a reconciliation with kind of, you know, an agreement, which does not necessarily mean that the sister, I mean, the woman would, you know, receive whatever the share that she is entitled to. So part of it actually is because, you know, the churros and gyrgus or informal justice system thinks that, you know, if they, you know, push, enforce the main, you know, to, you know, give the inheritance share, the portion to the women, it can result in, you know, a whatever intention, family tension or disputes, whatever. Or some, you know, the hostility between these family members. So that is why they think somehow, you know, to reach an agreement, which is somehow good. I mean, in the state of having nothing, it would be good to have something, but it is not always, you know, fair and it does not always mean that they would, you know, with justice. So that is why in RC, we in RC have tried to build the capacity of the justice actors, both formal and formal through, you know, capacity building trainings and mentorship programme in terms of, you know, each LP issues. So they would receive three day capacity building trainings and a series of mentorship programme to make sure that they, you know, have first the knowledge, the skills and attitude, you know, to address the each LP cases responsibly, especially when it comes to women, each LP cases. Thank you. Thank you, Raji. On bretta, I see a hand raised. Is that a fresh hand? Yes, thank you. It's a fresh hand. Sorry to take the space again. I just wanted to agree with what Tula just said and let's say it was witnesses also in other contexts, for example, in the Gaza Strip, with, you know, when the conflictuality actually increased, there was an increase of number of women were actually resorting to religious and, you know, community based dispute resolutions in spite of those being, you know, less in terms of the less gender responsive in terms of the provision that they had. And exactly the reason was, I mean, not only that they were cheaper and faster, but that would allow them to basically keep access to the main resource that for them is the protection and the affiliation with the family. You know, breaking the family ties, you know, especially in conflicts or in context where women already face many challenges would really be the last resort, you know, even if it's about claiming inheritance, nobody would know women would do that unless this is really the last option to really feed the kids on something like that. The other aspect is the enforcement, you know, especially in fragile context where law enforcement and enforcement of decision taken is obviously a challenge. There is, you know, we can see that if we have a less conflictual, you know, decision made is more likely that actually the community will come together and try to enforce it. My question is, and I think was raised also in some other reports done by various organisations, I think also related to the case of Afghanistan, what is the long term, you know, implication of as sustaining such dispute resolution mechanisms on the long run. You know, is there a way to combine the short term gains with a sort of a bit of a longer term, you know, sustainability, you know, of the dispute resolution vision, what's our dispute resolution vision I would say in terms of land. Thank you. Thank you, Ombretta. And I think that's, yeah, a really important point and a good place to finish the discussion for today. How do we think longer term about these, these interventions, what is the transition, how do we see that shift to those sort of more nexus perspectives and working with other actors and within the country within with government with other actors in country as well. How do we get that longer term perspective so thank you. I want to say thank you to David to under Zema to Raji Felicity and Ombretta for your really engaging presentations and for fielding the questions thank you for all those who've contributed questions and raised issues and for listening in as well. We're going to finish the discussion now. Just want to say thank you again and I'm going to leave the sort of the meeting open for a little while in case everyone wants to add anything into the chat box just to make sure we've got all your comments and questions in that we can then sort of feed into the broader reporting process. Thank you to particularly to Ben and Patricia of the HLP taskforce in Afghanistan who've been organizing this and arranging this event and again just want to say look out for the legal brief a brief guide to women's rights in Afghanistan, which will be released soon and yeah I really look forward to keeping in touch. You've got my email and you can sign up for the mailing list. It won't be spam. I promise it will be a monthly newsletter and maybe invites to events like this and also to join in with a thematic group we have around women's HLP rights as well as many other things as well so please do get in touch and otherwise look forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you. Cheers. Thank you. Bye bye. Thank you everyone. Bye bye. Thank you all.