It all started with a debate organised by the women of the Banizoumbou community listeners’ club… now an amazing initiative will make a dream come true. Eight of the village’s landowners have agreed to lend a plot of land to the village women’s group for agriculture, and the agreements have been formalised in a contract. Below is the story of this innovative experience which will secure land for a women’s group. [Read more]
Mali | Women’s cooperatives and land agreements
Building dams and supplying villages with water is all well and good, but ensuring they are optimally used is even better! That is what the Groupe de Recherche et de Réalisations pour le Développement rural (GRDR – Research and Action Group for Rural Development) has tried to do as part of a surface water management programme that has been underway in Mali since 2007. Women, often organised into cooperatives, are the main stakeholders in this development work, particularly where market gardening activities are concerned. By protecting women’s right to land access, demanding that they be involved in decision-making and giving them access to the training they need to perform an economic activity, GRDR is restoring women to their place at the centre of everything. [Read more]
Madagascar | Land reform and women’s access to land
The history of land tenure in Madagascar has been rather turbulent. Since the country became independent in 1960, the legal framework has been based on the principle of land as State property and on land ownership justified by an individual registration system involving the issuance of land titles. However, the Malagasy people have rarely used this procedure for registering land rights. Ignorance of land laws, the complexity and excessive cost of the registration procedure, the land administration’s lack of resources and the centralisation of land services and domains have led to a national land tenure crisis in the country. [Read more]