A stronger voice for women in local land governance: effective approaches in Tanzania, Ghana and Senegal Legal tools for citizens empowerment (original) (raw)
Related papers
2019
Pressures on land have been on the rise over the past two decades across sub-Saharan Africa, notably due to increasing commercial interests fuelled by global demand for agricultural commodities. In Tanzania, Ghana and Senegal, such pressures have exacerbated tenure insecurity for rural populations and resulted in numerous cases of dispossession and displacement. 1. Customary land rights are legally recognised in Tanzania and Ghana, but not in Senegal.
2021
Despite their key role in agriculture, in many African regions, women do not have equal access to or control and ownership over land and natural resources as men. As a consequence, international organizations, national governments and non-governmental organizations have joined forces to develop progressive policies and legal frameworks to secure equal land rights for women and men at individual and collective levels in customary tenure systems. However, women and men at the local level may not be aware of women's rights to land, and social and cultural relations may prevent women from claiming their rights. In this context, there are many initiatives and programs that aim to empower women in securing their rights. But still very little is known about the existing strategies and practices women employ to secure their equal rights and control over land and other natural resources. In particular, the lived experiences of women themselves are somewhat overlooked in current debates a...
Land is one of the terrains of struggle for most rural women in Africa because of its importance in sustaining rural livelihoods, and social-cultural and geopolitical factors that hinder women from enjoying land rights. Even when there are progressive land laws, as it is for Tanzania, women have not really enjoyed their rights. However, this has not stopped women to keep fighting for their land rights. They have sought their own approaches by leveraging opportunities within traditional, religious, and formal systems standing for their rights. Using three examples of interventions implemented by civil society organizations in Tanzania, this paper shows how rural women have been helped to overcome their straggles over land. Through their agencies, the paper argues that women have used both formal and informal systems to negotiate and mediate their claims on land. Although to the great extent the interventions chosen in this paper have been shaped and influenced by the work of civil society organizations, they have equally been influenced by rural women movements and rural women themselves. The cases selected in this paper provide lessons on the security of women land rights in both privately and communally held property/land.
Policy Brief: Securing women's land rights in Eastern Africa. Time for a paradigm shift
The importance of land to poor people's livelihoods cannot be over emphasized. Land provides the foundation upon which people construct and maintain livelihoods. Consequently, secure access to land is a prerequisite for securing livelihoods. Women are the majority of the poor as they have limited access to social and economic resources. This increases their dependence on basic resources like land. The majority of women rely on a land based livelihood mainly as subsistence agricultural producers. A secured access to land will enable women to improve their welfare and that of their families. Women's capacity to develop and improve their situation is hampered by limited access to resources like land, financial capital, economic capital, labour and technology. In recognition of this, various initiatives have been undertaken at the government level to improve and secure women's access to land. The initiatives have had limited impact partially because of the limited resources and effectiveness of government. Research in East Africa has revealed how community based interventions can not only compliment but also provide more effective means through which government policies can be implemented for the benefit of women. The paper draws on research carried out in Uganda and Kenya to illustrate the ways in which local level and non-governmental institutions can improve women's access to land by drawing on existing government policies and legislation. Introduction 1 1. Women's Access to Land: A review 2 2. Research overview of women's land tenure status in East Africa 5 3. Harnessing women's agency to secure women's access to land 6 4. The role of intermediary institutions in increasing women's land tenure security 10
Journal of Agrarian Change, 2003
This article examines some contemporary policy discourses on land tenure reform in sub-Saharan Africa and their implications for women's interests in land. It demonstrates an emerging consensus among a range of influential policy institutions, lawyers and academics about the potential of so-called customary systems of land tenure to meet the needs of all land users and claimants. This consensus, which has arisen out of critiques of past attempts at land titling and registration, particularly in Kenya, is rooted in modernizing discourses and/or evolutionary theories of land tenure and embraces particular and contested understandings of customary law and legal pluralism. It has also fed into a wide-ranging critique of the failures of the post-colonial state in Africa which has been important in the current retreat of the state under structural adjustment programmes. African women lawyers, a minority dissenting voice, are much more equivocal about trusting the customary, preferring instead to look to the State for laws to protect women's interests. We agree that there are considerable problems with so-called customary systems of land tenure and administration for achieving gender justice with respect to women's land claims. Insufficient attention is being paid to power relations in the countryside and their implications for social groups, such as women, who are not well positioned and represented in local level power structures. But considerable changes to political and legal practices and cultures will be needed before African states can begin to deliver gender justice with respect to land.
Improving Access to Land and strengthening Women's land rights in Africa
2013
The need to improve access to land and strengthen women's land rights in Africa has elicited a lot of discussion with women's rights activists arguing for increased access and control over land and other productive resources. The paper examines inter-relations between women’s land rights and socioeconomic development, peace and security and environmental sustainability in Africa. It goes on to highlight the impacts of the discrimination against women with regard to access, control and ownership of land and identifies promising practices related to strengthening women’s land rights with possible benchmarks and indicators to track progress made in strengthening women’s land rights in the context of the implementation of the AU Declaration on land. It concludes by providing concrete recommendations on how to further promote dialogue, advocacy, partnerships and capacity development in support of women’s land rights in Africa. This paper is as a result of a study commissioned by ...
Diminished access, diverted exclusion: Women and land tenure in sub-Saharan Africa
African Studies Review, 1999
Increasing commercialization, population growth and concurrent increases in land value have affected women's land rights in Africa. Most of the literature concentrates on how these changes have led to an erosion of women's rights. This paper examines some of the processes by which women's rights to land are diminishing. First, we examine cases where rights previously utilized have become less important; that is, the incidence of exercising rights has decreased. Second, we investigate how women's rights to land decrease as the public meanings underlying the social interpretation and enforcement of rights are manipulated. Third, we examine women's diminishing access to land when the actual rules of access change.
Women's Land Rights in Tanzania and South Africa: A Human Rights Based Perspective on Formalisation
Forum for Development …, 2005
One of the critical issues in current debates on land policies in Africa is how to balance equity considerations with the quest for potentially more effective and productive uses of land. In this article, we explore the strengths and weaknesses of a human rights based approach (HRBA) to development in securing women's land r i g h t s using Tanzania and South Africa as examples. We analyse the relationship between gender-neutral laws and policies aiming to provide secure tenure through titling and registration and the highly gendered land uses and productive activities on the ground. An overall theme is how women may be effectively protected against the direct and indirect discrimination that is often a consequence of gender-insensitive land laws and policies. We conclude that HBRA offers a critical corrective and counterbalance to the neoliberal approaches that tend to dominate current policy formulation. It applies in contestations over formalisation of land rights. And as a policy tool it offers a set of binding standards that require the taking of measures preventing discrimination in relation to access and control of land and ensuring women's participation in registration processes. The article calls for a closer scrutiny of current fomalisation programmes and initiatives in the light of human rights standards.
Securing land rights for women
Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2010
This collection of papers on Securing Women's Land Rights presents five articles relating to eastern Africa. Four of these illustrate practical approaches to securing land rights for women in distinct situations: law-making for women's land rights (Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda); land tenure reform in practice (Rwanda); women's rights under pastoral land tenure (Ethiopia); and women's rights in areas of matrilineal-matrilocal land tenure (Malawi). This article serves as an overall introduction to the subject, reviewing past issues and highlighting new ones, and setting out the shape of a positive, pragmatic approach to securing women's land rights in eastern Africa. Five key themes emerge: the role of customary institutions; the continuing central role of legislation as a foundation for changing custom; issues of gender equity and equitability, and underlying goals; the challenges of reform implementation and of growing women's confidence to claim their rights; and the importance of encouraging effective collaboration among all those working in the field of women's land rights. The article calls for a stronger focus on gender equity – on securing equal land rights for both women and men – in order to achieve sustainable positive change in broader social and political relations.