The government owns the land, and citizens have ‘user rights’. Local government distributes the land in co-operation with the Ministry of Environment. In every village, a Village Committee decides who is eligible for land allocation. Each Committee must include at least one woman. In practice, these women are not gender-sensitive and do whatever they are told. The reforms in land distribution that the Ethiopian military government and the national liberation fronts have attempted to bring, have mostly resulted in allocation of land to heads of households, who are primarily male. Women were not involved in the administration and distribution of this land and the intention of the policy makers to distribute land equally among women and men did not materialize in practice. The EPLF has tried to involve women in the distribution of land, but the women who were part of the committees were not gender-sensitive and their presence did not improve the situation of women.