Renée Giovarelli
Rural Development Institute
1411 Fourth Avenue Suite 910
Seattle, Washington USA 98101
(206) 528-5880 / Fax (206) 528-5881
reneeg@rdiland.org

KEY QUALIFICATIONS
Ms. Renee Giovarelli has extensive general project experience with legal and sociological issues concerning land tenure reform, land market development, land titling and registration, farm reorganization, rural development, pasture management, and land conflicts. She has specialized in intra-household and gender issues related to land tenure and customary and legal property rights for the past eight years. Her experience includes:

• Policy-oriented research and writing on land rights, pasture rights, rural development, and gender issues related to these issues.  Specific focus on intra-household land tenure issues.
• Quantitative and qualitative research focused on women’s access to land in both formal and customary legal systems.
• Review of women’s involvement in land titling and administration projects and recommendations for changes.
• Writing land tenure reform, pasture reform, and rural development legislation and regulations; developing and advocating lgal frameworks that support land market development; and developing laws for reallocating land, expropriation, and resolving land conflicts.
• Training of government representatives in land-related issues and programs.
  Training and administration of in-country lawyers providing land-related legal aid and advocacy to rural populations.
• Developing and delivering conflict resolution and land rights education programs to local farmers and pastoralists on land rights, ownership, markets, financing, taxation, and transactions.

EDUCATION
L.L.M., Law of Sustainable International Development (Honors), 1995, University of Washington School of Law, Seattle, Washington. 

J.D., 1993 (cum laude), Seattle University School of Law, Seattle, Washington. 

B.A., English (High Distinction), 1984, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Director, Global Center for Women’s Land Rights, Rural Development Institute, Seattle, Washington, November 2008—Present.  Responsible for RDI’s Women and Land Program, including development of a Center focused on establishing and maintaining women’s land rights, both legal and customary.  

Principal, International Partners in Development, LLC, Seattle, Washington, March 2003–November 2008. Provided services related to the legal, policy, and sociological aspects of land tenure and property rights with a specific focus on gender differences in rural development. Recent assignments include the following:

• Research Project on Women’s Legal and Customary Land Rights, World Bank, Tajikistan.  Fieldwork and legal review of women’s legal rights to land and how those rights are implemented.  Focus on women’s inheritance rights and intra-family relations.

• Agricultural Investments and Services Project (AISP), World Bank, Kyrgyzstan. In preparation for this project and its focus on pasture management and veterinary services, reviewed and analyzed related laws and regulations; continue to work with local policymakers and lawyers, and make recommendations for changes to the legislation in light of the goals of the project and legal best practices for alpine pasture management and veterinary services. (April 2007–Present)

• Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Research paper on Legal Empowerment of the Poor and the Right to Land. (September 2006–Present) 

• RAISE IQC—Lessons Learned: Property Rights and Natural Resources Management Task Order, ARD, Inc., USAID. (October 2005–May 2008) Specific duties included:

  • Part of a team that developed and tested land tenure and property rights assessment tools (situation, impact, and sequencing) with a specific focus on inclusion of gender issues in USAID’s land tenure work. Lead a team of researchers in testing an early version of the impact tool. 

  • Lead work on effectively incorporating issues affecting women and other vulnerable groups in land tenure and property rights programming for USAID.  Countries of focus included, Angola, Kyrgyzstan, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Ethiopia.

  • Participated in workshops in Northern Uganda on land and resettlement issues.  Provided recommendations for including women in the process.

  • Developed training material on gender issues related to land tenure and property rights for trainings in Washington DC.  In cooperation with East African gender and land tenure specialist, developed material for Kigali, East Africa training on women and property rights.

• Gender Consultant, USAID-funded Ethiopia – Strengthening Land Tenure and Administration Program (ELTAP), Ethiopia.  (March 2007-April 2008).  Specific duties included,

  • Prepared a simple gender questionnaire to collect anecdotal information on issues encountered by Wereda and Kebele staff on women and land rights in ELTAP focused regions to be incorporated into the KAP impact studies, audience survey, and PIA training planned under Component 2—Public Information and Awareness.

  • Reviewed PIA materials to examine how women's land rights have been accommodated in the outreach and legal literacy efforts.

  • Visited the regions of Amhara, Oromia, SNNP and Tigray to review/document issues encountered by women related to the three components of ELTAP’s project:  land and legal reform, certification and administration, and public information and awareness. 

  • Assisted with drafting a Baseline Survey, including gender disaggregated data

  • Assisted with drafting a Protocol for Qualitative Interviews of women

• Millennium Challenge Corporation, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Madagascar, Lesotho. Participated in review of MCC projects for their potential impact on women and assist in the design of interventions that ensure that men and women have equal opportunities for participating and receiving benefits from those projects (November 2005–August 2008).  Focus on policy and legislative issues that affect women including legislation related to inheritance, divorce, co-tenure, and polygamy.

• World Bank, Tajikistan. Policy and Legal Research related to land rights, farm reorganization, and debt restructuring (focus on women and the extreme poor). Assisted in design of new World Bank Cotton Sector Project. (December 2006–March 2007)

• UN-HABITAT. Research paper with Susana Lastarria, “Co-Tenure and other forms of group tenure: Gender Concerns.” Worldwide desk review of co-tenure legislation and programs that address co-tenure issues. (January–August 2005). 

• Tajikistan Land Legislation Project, ARD, Inc., USAID, Tajikistan. Designed and implemented five training workshops on comparative law and farm reorganization and land reform related to current Tajik legislation and the legislative agenda. (April–December 2005)

• Impact Study on World Bank Land Titling Projects on Women, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Ghana, and Laos. Led a group of four specialists in field research and desk review of four World Bank land projects and their impact on women and women’s rights. (March 2004–July 2005)

• Training of Chinese researchers to collect information on women’s land rights and customary law, Ford Foundation, China. (February 2004).  Focused on inheritance and intra-household relationships.

• Land Reform and Land Legislation Legal Review and Design of new FAO project, Tajikistan. Conducted field research regarding impediments to land reform for women, especially women headed-households and post-conflict vulnerable groups. (November 2003–March 2004)

• University – Village Outreach Program, Kyrgyz Republic, World Bank Knowledge Innovation Fund Grant. Created, designed, and implemented a training project to extend the reach of university education to local youth and vulnerable communities in rural areas (including women and minority populations) so as to improve local knowledge of rural development issues. Created an interdisciplinary university course on rural development for students that includes a course project, conducted in cooperation with local development practitioners. (March–July 2003)

• Village Investment Project, Government of the Kyrgyz Republic and the World Bank, Kyrgyzstan. In preparation for this demand-driven project that will strengthen capacity of local governments and community-based organizations, reviewed and analyzed laws and regulations. (March 2003–September 2004)

Senior Staff Attorney/Women and Land Program Coordinator, Rural Development Institute, Seattle, Washington, January 1994–February 2003. Participated in the following representative assignments:

• Women’s Access and Rights to Land Pursuant to Recent PRC National Land Reform Measures, China. Researched the extent to which national land reform legislation has influenced women’s access and rights to agricultural land. (January 2002–February 2003)

• Land Reform and Poverty Alleviation Studies, World Bank. One of five research and writing efforts focused on land reform and the extent to which it is successful in targeting the poor and women (published book). Regional focus included Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the FSU. (May 2002–August 2004)

• Training Local Leaders to Provide Legal Rights Advocacy and Dispute Resolution to the Rural Poor. Development Marketplace Grant Recipient, World Bank. Pursuant to a World Bank Development Marketplace grant, and in conjunction with a Kyrgyz counterpart, designed and implemented a program to train traditional/customary local community leaders (both men and women) in several Kyrgyz locales to educate and provide dispute resolution related to land rights to community members who were not able to exercise their rights due to recalcitrant collective farm bosses and local officials. (January 2002–June 2003)

• Women’s Access and Rights to Land in Karnataka State, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Funding, India. Fieldwork and follow-on report preparation to determine the extent to which women in Karnataka have access to land both within their families and when their families break-down due to death, abandonment, divorce, polygamy, or domestic violence. Fieldwork included rapid rural appraisal interviews with women with a special focus on religious minorities. (October 2001-April 2002)

• Gender/Family Issues and Land Rights Study, Government of Uganda. Fieldwork and follow-on report preparation to determine the extent to which recent Ugandan legal land reform has affected women’s and orphans’ rights to land and housing. (October 2001–February 2002).   Focused on rights of women and orphans to inherit land.

• Local Customary Institutions and Their Influence Upon Women’s Access and Rights to Land in the Kyrgyz Republic, World Bank. Field research regarding the local institutions that enforce and implement customary law in the Kyrgyz Republic and how they influence women’s access to land and other inputs. Report and recommendations published by the World Bank. (May–November 2001)

• Land Issues for Women and the Roma, Evaluation and Recommendations, Bulgaria, World Bank. Fieldwork to determine the extent and severity of gender issues that could prevent women or the Roma from obtaining credit or registering rights to land. Reviewed types of land conflicts occurring in rural areas. (March 2000–May 2001)

• Women’s Access and Rights to Land in the Kyrgyz Republic, World Bank. Rural household fieldwork and follow-up paper and workshop in the Kyrgyz Republic and at World Bank headquarters. Compared customary law and written law and the implementation of both. Focused on minority populations as well as ethnic Kyrgyz. (May–July 2000)

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND REPORTS
With Bruce, Rolfes, Bledose, and Mitchell.  Land Law Reform, Achieving Development Policy Objectives, The World Bank. 

With Katz, Nichols, and Lastarria.  Gender Issues and Best Practices in Land Administration Projects:  A Synthesis Report, The World Bank, Agriculture and Rural Development Department, Report No. 32571-GLB (2005).  Publication reviewed land administration projects in 4 countries:  Bolivia, Ghana, Laos, and Azerbaijan.

With Lastarria.  Shared Tenure Options for Women:  A Global Overview. UNHABITAT. (2005).  Publication that reviewed land and housing tenure options for rural and urban women. 

With Childress.  “Rapid Appraisal of Land Reform in the Kyrgyz Republic,” USAID (2003).  Report on arable and pastureland reforms in the Kyrgyz Republic. Presented at a workshop in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. 

“Land Rights and Legal Framework Issues in Dispute Resolution,” Rome, FAO Land Tenure Service, (2003). 

With Elizabeth Eilor, “Land Sector Analysis: Gender/Family Issues and Land Rights,” The Government of the Republic of Uganda (2002). 

“Land Literacy Strategies,” Rome, FAO Land Tenure Service (2002).

With Jennifer Brown and Kripa Ananthpur, “Women’s Rights to Land in Karnataka State, India,” Rural Development Institute, Seattle Washington (2002).

With Chinara Aidarbekova, Jennifer Duncan, Kathryn Rasmussen, Anara Tabyshalieva, “Women’s Rights to Land in the Kyrgyz Republic,” World Bank (2001).

“Land Reform and Farm Reorganization in the Kyrgyz Republic: A Legal Perspective,” chapter in Rural Development in Eurasia and the Middle East, Land Reform, Demographic Change, and Environmental Constraints, Engelmann and Vjeran Pavlakovic, eds., (Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies Center at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington in association with University of Washington Press, Seattle and London (2001).

“Mortgage in the Bulgarian Agricultural Sector,” RDI Report on Foreign Aid and Development No. 104 (2000).

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