Rural women’s livelihoods in Africa are dependent on their rights and entitlement to land as well as security of tenure. Equally important is how land laws and land governance systems shape and reshape women’s access to land and tenure security. As such, this paper focuses on women’s access to land and tenure security after the adoption of a new Constitution in 2013 and Statutory Instrument 53 of 2014 in Zimbabwe. Whereas both legal instruments are progressive and guarantee women’s rights to property, their realization is shrouded in complexities and contradictions.

Denial of women in land entitlements especially in patriarchal societies has been a major development concern in Ghana, resulting in promulgation of legal establishments that seek to enhance equality in access to land. This paper examines the underlying factors for gender inequality in land access and usage despite laws established to bridge the gap. Interviews with land custodians and households in North-Western Ghana revealed the desire to preserve cultural heritage as the primary reason for non-inclusion of women in access rights.

Land and natural resource tenure security is a central yet often neglected area for economic development and poverty reduction in the developing world. Land is fundamental to the lives of poor rural people. It is a source of food, shelter, income and social identity. Secure access to land reduces vulnerability to hunger and poverty. There are some 1.3 billion extremely poor people in the world, struggling to survive on less than US$1.25 a day, and close to a billion continue to suffer from chronic under-nourishment.

Food insecurity has been a major global development concern. Hence, SDG Two seeks to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030. The situation is severe in sub-Saharan Africa, where customary practices deprive women of land ownership and limit their access rights. This paper explores the influences of a gendered land tenure system on food security in Nandom District, adapting conditional assessment modules defined by USDA and FAO. With a list of households categorized under headship, 30 respondents were proportionally selected from each of the four study communities.

This paper examines the awareness and information access linkages that could be improved to enhance women access to appropriate conflict resolution mechanisms in rural Tanzania. The awareness and access to information indices were constructed and combined with women satisfaction levels based on survey data from 112 women in Makete district. The results suggest that public awareness programmes have the potentials to increasing knowledge on conflict resolution options available to women and enhances the chances that they would report land cases to relevant authorities.

 Population increase influence the dynamics in land market and agitate land access competition, which results into exclusion of some individuals. Inequality is evident in majority of Tanzanians women, youth, children and elderly. It is more prevalence in land markets where rich individuals are favorable to make choices regarding access to land resources. Owing to potential developments, peri-urban areas are becoming places where changes in land uses and activities take place.

Les femmes de la région de l’Extrême-Nord du Cameroun font face à un environnement sociologique qui limite leur accès au foncier : mariage, illettrisme et ignorance des dispositions règlementaires, complexité et coût des procédures de sécurisation foncière, facteurs financiers... Par ailleurs, l’accès des femmes au foncier est accompagné des perceptions locales à la fois positives et négatives, mais qui reste fortement influencées par la coutume et les règles traditionnelles.

The purpose of this study is to explore the challenges of women on land rights, in Tanzania customary practices often required woman to access land through their fathers, brothers, husbands or other men who control the land, so this makes women vulnerable and decreases agricultural productivity. When women loses their connection to this male relative, either through death, divorce or migration, they can lose their land, home and means of supporting themselves and their families.

L’acquisition de larges superficies de terres arables dans les pays en développement pour y effectuer des investissements a pris forme et ampleur au Sénégal en 2000 avec l’avènement des réformes dans le secteur agricole. Une étude d’IPAR de 2011 dresse un tableau sombre d’attribution de grandes surfaces au profit d’investisseurs privés.Les femmes sont particulièrement touchées par ce phénomène.

This article discusses different issues pertaining gender and land governance with focus to access and control of land by rural women and how this affects their resilience in G5-Sahel region- Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Mauritania. Findings show that land remains the property of men, customary chiefs, male members of the family who have the full control of land use; women continue to serve as servants of their husbands in the farming activities.

Rwanda has implemented a land tenure regularization program since 2008 that enabled the adjudication and registration of land rights for both men and women. However, Rwandan women are vulnerable to land conflicts because some men do not recognize or respect women’s rights in land. This study investigates the extent to which government institutions in Rwanda empower women in claiming and defending their land rights. Data sources include questionnaire survey, interviews, and the review of literature on land reform in Rwanda.

 L’accès des femmes au foncier est au cœur de l’actualité depuis trois décennies. Dans le Sud de la Mauritanie, la mainmise des hommes sur les terres est une réalité. Les femmes ne représentent que 4.2% des détenteurs des Titres fonciers. L’égalité entre l’homme et la femme en matière d’accès à la propriété foncière est ainsi loin d’être atteinte et le genre un objectif lointain dans le foncier.