Women’s right to communal land: facing the climate crisis

The project will explore the land, gender and climate nexus in 4 African countries (Kenya, Tanzania, Mali and Guinea). It will analyze how women's right to land is affected by the climate crisis in Africa and show the various ways in which protecting women's right to land can effectively contribute to addressing the climate challenge. Since 2020, the 4 grassroots organizations engaged in the research project on Women’s Right to Communal Land – CNOP-G (Guinea), COFERSA (Mali), KPL (Kenya) and PWC (Tanzania) - have documented and supported efforts to advance women’s right to land within communal land governance systems. This project has delivered 5 key findings, which were elaborated collectively during a international knowledge exchange (Kenya, October 2022), building on individual research conducted in 2020-2022 in the national contexts. First, it has highlighted the importance of protecting and recognizing communal ownership while most development actors have promoted land markets, land titling and individual land ownership as ways to ensure gender equality when it comes to land. Second, it has shown the importance of boosting the participation of women and youth in communal land governance. Opening spaces for a diversity of women and youth (using an interectional approach) to participate in more horizontal and transparent communal land governance institutions is key to promoting women’s right to land in the long run. Third, to ensure that women fully participate, putting an end to gender-based violence (GBV) is key. One of the direct impacts of violence is that it generates fear, trauma and inhibits participation. Fourth, the project has shown that women’s right to own and inherit land continues to be violated. Gender-based discrimination is very high when it comes to land succession. Finally, the project has documented the need to ensure women’s secured access to land in communal land systems, highlighting that individual ownership is not necessarily the best option. Customary systems can perform well when it comes to ensuring that everyone gets access to land, but guarantees must be provided by customary leaders/village chiefs to ensure that certain categories of women and youth are not excluded and can work the land over long periods. Women are not isolated from but are pillars of their communities. For this reason, efforts to secure women’s access to land will be more successful if they support community cohesion and community needs.