The Land Is Ours: Bottom-Up Strategies to Secure Rural Women's Access, Control and Rights to Land in Kenya, Mozambique, Senegal and Malawi (original) (raw)
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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.
Land governance and gender: the tenure-gender nexus in land management and land policy, 2021
This chapter argues that gender-sensitive lessons from recent land programmes and projects are critical to the planning, design and modification of new and continuing efforts of land programmes, to achieve transformative development outcomes, for both women and men. The researchers propose three important considerations for understanding the opportunities and constraints for gender-senstivity in land programmes: (i) the context of gendered land tenure and livelihood systems; (ii) the increase in private- sector agricultural investments for economic growth and national development in Africa, and (iii) the actors and methods involved in delivering land and development programmes to rural communities. Using three recent cases from Mozambique, this chapter explores how these factors shape the interaction between development organizations and local communities creates tension between land programmes and private investors, and women's empowerment in the context of their households and...
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.
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
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.
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 ...
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.
The new Constitution is a culmination of the incremental steps taken by the country to level the socio- legal terrain in favor of women’s rights and interests in land. The new Constitution represents a significant improvement in women’s and men’s rights and status in Kenya in all spheres of life. Land is one of those spheres. There is therefore need to consider the broader definition of land (water and space inclusive) as natural resources, as well as other property and assets in all matters land. Land and other property (such as cattle, extractive minerals, machinery etc.) can be used for farming and production, and can also be the basis for wider political empowerment for women. Having access to secure land and property tenure can provide a home and enable women to engage in political struggles over resources; land is an asset to bring to marriage and can be used as collateral for loans. As such, land and property are the foundation of economic empowerment, giving many women in Kenya the confidence to take risks and to negotiate rights to resources, but also providing them with ‘peace of mind’ In this publication, the opportunities and suggestions given that if women are to make a wholesome contribution to the Kenyan society they must take advantage of the framework in the new Constitutional dispensation is given great prominence.