Strengthening women’s voices in land decisions
Since the mid 2000s, sub-Saharan Africa has experienced a land rush driven by factors such as rising commercial agriculture, mineral extraction and large infrastructure projects. This has increased pressures on land and the livelihoods that depend on it.
While investments in agriculture can potentially provide local benefits, they often result in communities losing their land due to exclusionary practices.
Women tend to lose out more than men. They are often excluded from decisions that determine land allocation. And with weaker tenure security, the land that provides their main source of livelihood is more easily taken away.
Over the past two-and-a-half-years, IIED alongside partners in Ghana, Senegal and Tanzania that seeks to strengthen women’s voices in local land governance. While local land governance differs by country, one similarity is clear: women have very limited influence on how land is allocated.
In Tanzania and Ghana this is largely due to a lack of legal implementation and patriarchal socio-cultural norms. Land issues are often perceived as a man’s issue because land is traditionally tied to family lineages and men are generally seen to have sole responsibility for land management and decision-making. Division of labor also plays a role: women tend to work longer hours making it harder to attend community meetings.
Discussions highlighted that Tanzania’s decentralised governance system – with its local government bodies, gender quotas (the minimum number of women required to be members of village councils) and clear democratic processes for allocating land – holds real potential for developing replicable locally-owned solutions to improve women’s participation.
In Ghana, local-level land management is governed by customary law and practices. Decisions on land allocation are usually made by traditional chiefs or family heads (mostly men) and rarely involve community members. Getting women involved would not only require navigating local customs but also establishing inclusive and participatory platforms.
[International Institute for Environment and Development]
This entry was posted in Humanitarian Aid, International Cooperation, Uncategorized by Grant Montgomery.