In Africa women play an integral role in the continent’s agriculture sector, representing up to 60 percent of the agricultural labour force in some countries. In Tanzania, agriculture accounts for the largest share of employment, more than 80 percent of women are engaging in agricultural activities and subsequently contributing to the country’s food requirements.
By Allan Cain, Development Workshop Angola
* This article was originally published as part of the online discussion on customary law in Southern Africa
Our food systems are in urgent need of transformation, as humanity faces one of our biggest challenges yet; feeding a future population of 10 billion people with safe and nutritious food while keeping a healthy planet. Our food system has the power to tip the scales and transform the future of our planet and humankind.
There is an underlying tension in the land rights movement that is rarely addressed head on, which is the perception that securing women’s land rights threatens community land rights. Community land rights are typically held by indigenous people, small-scale and subsistence farmers, pastoralists, herders and many other groups who are directly dependent on land for their livelihoods but whose land tenure is often the most precarious.
After three days of intense discussion covering the breadth of land governance issues focusing on the theme of Land, Crisis and Resilience, Dr. Joanny Bélair, Postdoctoral researcher from Utrecht University and LANDac, had the unique opportunity to Chair the closing Session of the LANDac Conference 2021. Closing session panelists were Dr.
Over time, land registration has been associated with a diversity of desired outcomes, ranging from modernization and the promotion of sustainable agricultural production to protection of the livelihoods of small-scale producers notably women, peacebuilding or even nurturing good practices of local governance. In this session we have discussed, for a range of settings: How confident are we about the results of registration and formalization program? How have they been justified and have the ambitions been reached?
PhD research provides key inputs to strengthen our knowledge base on land access, land governance and challenges related to development, crisis and resilience. This is why LANDac reserves a special place in the programme to discuss their contributions.
This session zoomed in on the local situation and challenges faced by grassroots communities and women in some low-Income countries. It provided an overview of support provided by Civil Society organizations (and governments) facilitating communities, women in particular, to step up the efforts to strengthen their land rights and to generate resilience in face of the climate and COVID-19 challenges they are facing.
More secure land tenure provides much better opportunities to face climate and COVID-19 challenges by investing in high biodiversity local food & income systems.
The session addressed the impacts of land-based investments on poor and vulnerable people in the Global South. It facilitated an exchange of knowledge about the strategies that are employed on the ground to strengthen the position of these groups when it comes to negotiating for their interests with investors amidst the climate crisis and the global pandemic. How might we, as practitioners, researchers and policymakers contribute to increased developmental impact of land-based investments, especially in times of crisis?
Land. It is a commodity like no other. We live on it. We grow from it. We drink from it and build our futures upon it. But — increasingly and frighteningly so — we don’t share it equally.
The distribution of land has long defined the gap between rich and poor. Now new data shows clearer than ever how the way in which land is being shared and managed profoundly impacts extreme and rising inequality, and the achievement of women’s and girl’s rights.