Objectives
This project explores the different dimensions of women’s right to communal lands in the context of the climate crisis in East and West Africa. It draws lessons from and scales up efforts to advance women’s right to land in 4 target countries: Kenya, Tanzania, Mali and Guinea. It is a collaborative action research action with different components: capacity building, participatory research, community dialogues, and action for social change.
From 2020-2023, this project focused on 5 key aspects: recognizing and protecting communal land ownership; ensuring women and youth participation in communal land governance; defending women’s right to own and inherit land; securing women’s individual and collective access to and control over the land; and eliminating gender-based violence.
Moving forward (2023-25), this project will explore the land, gender and climate nexus. It will look at the various impacts of climate change on women’s right to land and key responses by farmer and pastoralist organisations; and it will identify ways to support women’s participation in climate governance i.e. in climate mitigation and adaptation policies and projects at different levels.
Videos with Four Key Messages
Recognizing And Protecting Community Lands
Securing Land for Women and Youth
This video features Alimata Traoré from COFERSA, a rural women’s organisation in Mali. It insists on the importance of ensuring access to and control over land for women and youth as a way to foster autonomy, food security, livelihood opportunities at family and village level and avoid rural exodus. It highlights that women collectives are an efficient strategy for women to secure their access to land over long periods of time and that local authorities and village chiefs should work hand in hand to promote women’s right to land.
Women and Youth Participation in Communal Land Governance
This video features Grace Scorey and Thadeus Clamian from PWC, a pastoralist women’s organisation in Tanzania. It highlights that one of the key challenges facing women and youth is their participation in communal land management. Women and youth are very few in numbers within land management structures and this limits their ability to participate and make decisions. It is important that traditional leaders, policy makers and communities use the laws that encourage women’s participation, notably through quotas. The video also explores the impact of gender based violence (GBV) on women’s participation.
Women’s Right to Own and Inherit Land
Local Organisations
KPL, Kenyan Peasants League, small-scale farmers’ organisation, Kenya
PWC, Pastoral Women’s Council, Maasai pastoralist women’s organisation, Tanzania
CNOP-G, Confédération nationale des organisations paysannes de Guinée, small-scale farmers’ platform, Guinea
COFERSA, Convergence des femmes rurales pour la souveraineté alimentaire, a women farmers’ organisation, Mali
Academic Organisations
CAWR, Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University, UK
IDR, Institute for Development Research, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU)
Contact information
Priscilla Claeys, priscilla.claeys[at]coventry.ac.uk
Stefanie Lemke, stefanie.lemke[at]boku.ac.at
Key Outcomes and Multimedia Resources
PHASE 3: Exploring the gender, land and climate nexus
October 2023-April 2025
Research agenda
In October 2023, we met for 2 weeks in Tanzania to develop a joint research agenda on women, land and climate. We decided that the following three priorities will be our focus:
TOPIC 1 – What are some of the key impacts of climate change on women’s right to land? And what would be adequate responses to those?
TOPIC 2 – To what extent are women participating in climate governance i.e. in climate mitigation and adaptation policies and projects at different levels?
TOPIC 3 – What are some of the impacts of large-scale climate projects on women’s right to land?
Here is the link to the full document highlighting some specific research questions under each topic.
4 country research reports (coming in 2025)
PHASE 2: Sharing knowledge across the 4 countries
April 2022- July 2023
4 Country research reports (by May 2024)
PHASE 1: Identifying key dimensions of women’s right to land
September 2020 – February 2022
Special Issue and Editorial on Women’s Right to Communal Land
This Special Issue explores challenges women face in their efforts to realize their right to land, with a focus on communal land. It analyses the complex web of state, civil society and private actors that are shaping the rapidly changing field of women’s right to, and governance of, communal land. Its 5 articles cover a variety of legal, policy and socio-cultural contexts, from Latin America to Africa and Asia. In our Editorial we present some common but contrasted trends emerging from these articles, as well as avenues for future research.
COUNTRY RESEARCH REPORTS
Kenya
In this report, the Kenyan Peasants’ League (KPL) explores some key dimensions of women’s right to land: their right to participate in land governance, their right to inherit land, their access to land ownership and joint titling with their husbands, and their right to be free from gender-based violence. The research involved 300 peasant farmers across 10 counties, and adopted an intersectional lens: it explored the specific situation of married, single, and divorced women as well as widows facing evictions and family land grabbing. It also looked into men’s perspectives on women and land. Click here to download report.
Also, watch KPL videos on community dialogues held in Kenya to break the taboo around women and land (Kithoni village) and testimonies of widows evicted by their relatives (Sara’s testimony, Community Dialogue at Peasant Agroecology Summer School).
Tanzania
In this report, the Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC) explores 3 important dimensions of women’s right to land: their right to participate in land governance, their access to individual land ownership, and their right to be free from gender-based violence. The research involved 186 pastoralist women, men, boys and girls as well as traditional leaders and government leaders in 2 villages of Longido and Ngorongoro districts. It shows that pastoralist women have increasing community roles including participation in land management structures (LMS) and increased access to individual land titles demarcated for settlement on village land. However, women continue to face challenges to fully participate in land governance and enjoy their right to land, due to domination of men. Click here to download report.
Also, watch PWC videos with insights from women and traditional leaders on advances and challenges facing women’s right to communal land. Other PWC videos explain the experience of Women’s Rights and Leadership Forums and their impacts on women’s rights. PWC has also established Women’s solidarity bomas which you can discover here.
Mali
In this report, COFERSA explores the issue of secure access to land, looking in particular at why women do not keep the land allocated to them over time. The research involved a total of 192 women and girls, 69 men and young women and 12 groups, in 3 municipalities. It shows that some women gain access to land through women’s groups and that women collectives are an effective strategy for securing access. The report also explains that while land governance is a male affair, it is not just any man that is involved either. Certain categories of men are involved (heads of family and other people directly concerned) but others are excluded. In conclusion, the study found that there is a significant taboo surrounding land issues, with many women afraid to speak out on the subject for fear of reprisals. Click here to download the report (in French).
Guinée
In this report, CNOP-G undertakes a vast mapping of women’s right to land in a context strongly marked by customary forms of community and family land governance. The study involved a total of 480 people in focus groups (women, young people, various stakeholders) and 166 women of different ages and socio-economic status. Using an intersectional approach, the report differentiates the situation of different categories of women: married, single, divorced and widowed. It covers the 5 natural regions of Guinea Conakry. The report shows that marginalisation in terms of access to, control over and security of tenure of land is greatest among widows, divorcees and single women, and among women with no male children in the household. This can be explained by the fact that in households the idea of preserving the family’s land heritage is paramount to ensuring family sovereignty and transmission to future generations. The study is very rich and explores many other dimensions of women’s right to land. Click here to download the report (in French).
POLICY BRIEF (forthcoming)
PHASE 0: Co-developing a research agenda on women and land
March 2018-June 2019
ACADEMIC PAPER
Absent Voices: Women and Youth in Communal Land Governance. Reflections on Methods and Process from Exploratory Research in West and East Africa
An increasing number of African States are recognizing customary land tenure. Yet, there is a lack of research on how community rights are recognized in legal and policy frameworks, how they are implemented in practice, and how to include marginalized groups. In 2018–2019, Priscilla Claeys and Stefanie Lemke engaged in collaborative exploratory research on governing natural resources for food sovereignty with social movement networks, human rights lawyers and academics in West and East Africa. In this article, they reflect on the process and methods applied to identify research gaps and partners (i.e., two field visits and regional participatory workshops in Mali and Uganda), with a view to share lessons learned. In current debates on the recognition and protection of collective rights to land and resources, the co-researchers found there is a need for more clarity and documentation, with customary land being privatized and norms rapidly changing. Further, the voices of women and youth are lacking in communal land governance. This process led to collaborative research with peasant and pastoralist organizations in Kenya, Tanzania, Mali and Guinea, with the aim to achieve greater self-determination and participation of women and youth in communal land governance, through capacity building, participatory research, horizontal dialogues and action for social change.
Citation: Lemke, S. & Claeys, P. 2020. Absent Voices: Women and Youth in Communal Land Governance. Reflections on Methods and Process from Exploratory Research in West and East Africa. Land. 9(8), 266; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9080266
VIDEO
Methodologies and Process for Collectively Developing a Research Agenda
To watch the full video, click here.