When Manjari was 23, she was elected the first woman pradhan in her village as well as in all of Himachal Pradesh. She hasn't looked back since.
As the country marks 56 years of independence, there is little to celebrate on the steps taken by the government to protect women land rights.
Land access is still a privilege to most women in rural areas. The quest for gender equality on land access and ownership brought forth several reforms.
The big win was the 2010 Constitution that was a game-changer on matters gender equality and non-discrimination on land rights.
Force of Wayúu women is part of a group of four organizations that filed a nullity claim for the environmental license granted to the multinational company Carbones de El Cerrejón, which owns one of the largest open pit coal mining mines in the world. The presence of the mine in the region has had a devastating effect on the quality of li
Rwanda and Tanzania are among six countries in Africa seen to be working towards securing land rights to at least 30 per cent of their women by 2025.
According to a report by the Africa Land Policy Centre, these six countries—the rest being Botswana, Ethiopia, Senegal and Malawi — have or are working on the policies, institutional and legal frameworks to ensure women have equal access to land.
They also have mechanisms to collect sex-disaggregated and specific data on women’s land tenure security.
ADDIS ABEBA – The African Union (AU) Declaration on Land Issues and Challenges, the AU Declaration of committing 2010 – 2020 as the African Women’s Decade and the AU 30 per cent target for documented land rights in women’s names by 2025, are important messages from leaders on the continent that empowering women through tenure security is a necessary condition for equity and the socioeconomic and agricultural transformation of Africa.
Experts attending this year’s conference on Land Policy in African have called for fair and efficient land management to support moves to transform the continent.
The third edition of the conference on Land Policy in Africa, currently underway in the Ivorian capital, Abidjan is co-organized by the African Union, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the African Development Bank.
Next week the Conference on Land Policy in Africa - Winning the Fight against Corruption in the Land Sector: Sustainable Pathway for Africa’s Transformation, will take place in Abidjan. The African Union recognises that corruption is a key factor hampering efforts at promoting governance, socio-economic transformation, peace and security, and the enjoyment of human rights in the Member States.
BACKGROUND
Land governance across borders or transnational land governance looks at rule making, standard setting and institution building across borders. Empirically, one can see a variety of patterns of regulatory governance emerging. The studies commissioned by IGAD in 2016 reviewing the of land governance systems in the IGAD Member States identified four transnational elements:
As advocates for women’s land rights, isn’t it time we support the establishment of land-rights-specific grievance mechanisms?
From farms to towns, women are a major provider of food and food security for their families, but women in half of the world still struggle to access their equal land and property rights in spite of legal protections.
Last Tuesday, a group of about 100 women from rural counties converged on the Christian Leadership Centre, otherwise known as Ufungamano House, in Nairobi for one of those rare moments when they get to “talk to the world” about what they do and, hopefully, be heard.
While their live audience was really nothing to write home about in terms of numbers, that did not deter them; they were just happy to exchange ideas, challenges and experiences.
At the Women Deliver conference in Vancouver in June, Dr. Monica Mhoja made an impassioned case for land ownership rights for women.
"We understand that land is life," Mhoja, the Tanzania Program Director for Landesa, told the crowd gathered. "Land is dignity. Land is destiny. Land is hope. Land is empowerment of women and equality. And land is power. The power to prosper. To thrive."
