Securing land rights for women

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Securing land rights for womenElizabeth Daleya; Birgit Englertb

a Mokoro Ltd, Headington, Oxford b Department of African Studies, University of Vienna, Vienna,Austria

Online publication date: 03 March 2010

To cite this Article Daley, Elizabeth and Englert, Birgit(2010) 'Securing land rights for women', Journal of Eastern AfricanStudies, 4: 1, 91 — 113To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/17531050903556675URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17531050903556675

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Securing land rights for women

Elizabeth Daleya* and Birgit Englertb

aIndependent Consultant, Mokoro Ltd, 87 London Road, Headington, Oxford OX3 9AA;bDepartment of African Studies, University of Vienna, UniCampus Hof 5.1, Spitalgasse 2�4,1090 Vienna, Austria

(Received 27 June 2009; final version received 30 November 2009)

This collection of papers on Securing Women’s Land Rights presents five articlesrelating to eastern Africa. Four of these illustrate practical approaches to securingland rights for women in distinct situations: law-making for women’s land rights(Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda); land tenure reform in practice (Rwanda);women’s rights under pastoral land tenure (Ethiopia); and women’s rights in areasof matrilineal-matrilocal land tenure (Malawi). This article serves as an overallintroduction to the subject, reviewing past issues and highlighting new ones, andsetting out the shape of a positive, pragmatic approach to securing women’s landrights in eastern Africa. Five key themes emerge: the role of customary institutions;the continuing central role of legislation as a foundation for changing custom;issues of gender equity and equitability, and underlying goals; the challenges ofreform implementation and of growing women’s confidence to claim their rights;and the importance of encouraging effective collaboration among all those workingin the field of women’s land rights. The article calls for a stronger focus on genderequity �on securing equal land rights for both women and men � in order to achievesustainable positive change in broader social and political relations.

Keywords: women; land rights; land tenure reform; gender; gender equity

A decade ago, land tenure reform and land rights were hot topics across the wider

eastern African region. Mozambique, Uganda and Tanzania had just passed new

land laws in, respectively, 1997, 1998 and 1999, while Rwanda passed a law in 1999

establishing gender equality in land inheritance and went on to develop a new land

policy in 2004, and a land law in 2005. In Ethiopia, a federal land proclamation had

empowered the regions to autonomously administer land in 1997, leading to major

activity in land administration and land registration in the country’s highlands, while

a first draft of Malawi’s national land policy was circulated for consultation in 1999.

Zimbabweans saw their land issue about to escalate, following the failure of a widely

touted conference in London in 1998 to achieve significant breakthroughs.

As the decade continued, more countries in the region took up the land reform

agenda. The Zambian government began a review of its land laws in 2002, coming up

with a new draft land policy by 2006. Similarly, in Kenya, national land policy

discussions started in 2002 and still continue, with a draft land policy having been

finalised in late 2007 just before the eruption of post-election violence (re)politicised

the whole land issue there. In June 2009, the national land policy was finally

*Correspondence author. Email: [email protected]

Journal of Eastern African Studies

Vol. 4, No. 1, March 2010, 91�113

ISSN 1753-1055 print/ISSN 1753-1063 online

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approved by the Kenyan Cabinet and was to be discussed in Parliament at the time of

going to press in March 2010. In Uganda, the debate on land rights has reintensified

around the current drafting of the national land policy, while some commentators in

Malawi expect the national land policy there to be tabled early in 2010. A draft land

law has been under development in Burundi for several years, while work on

demarcating and recording customary land areas in Sudan’s transition states has

taken place throughout the past decade in the context of the establishment and

consolidation of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement.1

In many of these countries, the process of drafting new land policies and laws led

to disputes between women’s groups (seeing this as a chance to strengthen women’s

land rights as individuals) and other constituencies within civil society (seeing the

potential privatisation of land rights through land tenure reform as a threat to

smallholders as a whole, irrespective of gender).2

It was also at the beginning of this decade that the World Bank began revising its

land policies with an extensive process. A wide process of international and regionalconsultation among academics and land rights activists that resulted in the 2003

publication of Land Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction.3 This marked a step

forward in World Bank thinking on women’s land rights, yet in many respects the

Bank’s ‘‘new’’ land policy remained the same � for example, through its emphasis on

economic growth as the main justification for land reform.4 The promotion of land

titling as a means to make credit available to smallholders is another continuity with

the Bank’s former thinking on land.5 Neither is it surprising that women’s land rights

are primarily discussed in this publication in terms of how providing women with

more secure land rights might contribute to society and social welfare, especially to

girls’ education.6

In the same year that the Bank’s new land policy was published, an inspiring

workshop took place in Pretoria dedicated to discussion of women’s land rights in

Southern and Eastern Africa. Organised by Kaori Izumi of the FAO and Robin

Palmer of Oxfam GB, this workshop brought together academics, NGO staff and

women directly affected by violations of their land rights.7 There was much awareness

shown at the workshop of the need to differentiate, not only between the situations indifferent African countries, but also between the local variations within most

countries. This inspired the subsequent publication in 2008 of Women’s Land Rights

and Privatization in Eastern Africa, a volume edited by the authors of the present

paper.8 Chapters on Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda examined the state of

women’s land rights in the context of contemporary processes of change, such as

commoditisation, economic and rural�urban change, conflict (and post-conflict

reconstruction and reconciliation), the spread of HIV/AIDS, and the increasing

‘‘privatization’’ of land tenure � which we defined as ‘‘the formulation and

implementation of land tenure reforms which aim primarily at the private registration

of land’’.9 More recently, new processes of change have had a growing impact on the

land rights of smallholders across Africa, such as land-grabbing for bio-fuels and

food production, climate change, and food security more broadly. The articles

gathered here in the Journal of Eastern African Studies are thus framed within the

new global context, yet without losing sight of the longer-standing processes of

change which remain as important to debates about land issues in eastern Africa as

they were before.Our purpose in these publications has been to generate fresh debate on the subject

of women’s land rights in Africa, based on experience and insights from detailed

92 E. Daley and B. Englert


qualitative case studies, and to move that debate towards a positive and pragmatic

approach to active engagement with, and identification of, effective strategies to

secure women’s land rights in practice. We thus seek ‘‘to offer suggestions as to how

women can best be supported in their struggles over land’’.10 The various case studies

in our edited volume demonstrated an awareness and understanding of gender as

only one differentiating factor among others, such as age, marital status, education

and economic situation, and showed clearly that ‘‘women in Eastern Africa are not

powerless actors but find creative means to claim and ensure their rights to land’’.11

We concluded that, given the number and complexity of processes of change

impacting on women’s land rights, the arena of land tenure reform policy formulation

and implementation offers the most direct scope for effective action to secure

women’s land rights.12 The four articles that follow this introductory paper now pick

up on what this means in practice.

Two of these articles address key practical issues that we feel deserve greater

attention: law-making for women’s land rights, and land tenure reform in practice.

Patrick McAuslan provides us with a valuable account of his longstanding experience

of working to secure women’s land rights through the drafting of new land laws in theeastern African region (especially in Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda). Following this,

Elizabeth Daley, Rachel Dore-Weeks and Claudine Umuhoza draw on their

experiences of working on land tenure reform and women’s land rights in Rwanda

to explore some of the practical issues in working to secure women’s land rights

during the implementation of land tenure reforms. The third article, authored by

Fiona Flintan, deals with women’s rights under pastoral land tenure, exploring

strategies to address their needs under forthcoming anticipated reforms in Ethiopia.

The final article, by Pauline Peters, provides an historical account of changing

customary matrilineal land tenure in Malawi and assesses the likely impact on

women in matrilineal areas of the country’s new land policy.

By way of introduction to these four papers, we here give a brief overview of

women’s land rights in eastern Africa, reviewing past issues and highlighting new

ones. We give emphasis to five key themes. First, we re-engage with the debate over

customary institutions, reflecting on their role in securing women’s land rights. We

then discuss changing custom and reiterate the continuing central role of legislation

as a foundation for change. From this, we explore gender equity and equitability

issues, and underlying goals � raising the fundamental question of ‘‘what is it all for,what exactly are we trying to achieve?’’ Our fourth theme highlights the challenges of

reform implementation and of growing women’s confidence to claim their rights. Our

final theme discusses the need for and methods by which academics and practitioners

might work more effectively together to build more secure land rights for women. We

conclude that a positive, pragmatic approach to securing women’s land rights must

have at its base the principle of gender equity � the securing of equitable land rights

for both women and men � if it is to achieve sustainable positive social change.

Land in eastern Africa13

In all African countries land is still predominantly held by most people under different

forms of informal customary tenure. Such tenure exists alongside the formal systems of

common and statute law which were imported by Africa’s former colonial regimes.14

Throughout the twentieth century, land tenure in eastern Africa has responded to a

changing environment characterised by population pressure and growing competition

Journal of Eastern African Studies 93


for land.15 Increasing individualisation and commoditisation of land rights has

occurred, and private rights of use and occupancy within customary tenure have

become increasingly the norm.16 These processes of commoditisation and change have

weakened some women’s customary land rights in eastern Africa,17 and there has been

a widespread perception within the region that this is more generally the case, that

women’s ‘‘fragile’’ rights are ‘‘eroding’’.18 At the same time, most women’s opportu-

nities to access land through market transactions are more limited than men’s �markets needing also to be seen as ‘‘gendered institutions’’.19 Yet by no means are

all women losing out from the increasing commoditisation of land: some manage to

take advantage of the opportunities provided by commoditisation to acquire their own

land through purchase, while the development of land rental markets creates

additional opportunities for women to gain access to land.20

Another factor affecting women’s land rights in eastern Africa is the HIV/AIDS

pandemic. This contributes to growing numbers of women and children being left

behind with no land when their husbands, fathers and in-laws sell off family land to

pay for treatment, often without their knowledge or consent.21 It has alsocontributed to a disturbing growth in widows and orphans being chased from their

land, including, at the extreme, through the use of witchcraft allegations.22 Related to

the HIV/AIDS pandemic is the impact of conflict on women’s land rights,

particularly those of women among refugee and internally displaced populations,

and of the women who stay at home while men go off to fight. Humanitarian

agencies have only recently begun to grapple with land issues, and the specifics of

women’s land rights in immediate post-conflict situations have yet to be seriously

addressed.23

Women’s rights to land have also been negatively affected during the twentieth

century in eastern Africa by land tenure reforms which introduced land registration

on the basis of formal survey in the pursuit of agricultural development, commencing

in Kenya in 1954.24 This private registration of land � the narrowing of broad

customary rights to ownership rights (title) in the hands of a single (usually male)

person � became the dominant approach to African land law and administration,

despite numerous criticisms of its effectiveness in achieving its goals, and of its

negative impact on marginalising women’s rights.25

During the 1990s ‘‘land tenure privatisation’’ broadened out, such that while land

titling and registration remained important, land tenure reform processes also

became concerned with the formalisation or regularisation of land rights via the

registration of land interests in whichever context they customarily occur.26 Most

recent land legislation therefore emphasises the formalisation and regularisation of

land tenure through the titling and registration of existing rights to land, be they held

individually, jointly or collectively.27 In addition, land tenure privatisation in eastern

Africa in some cases came to involve the surrender by the state of any tenure interest

in the land itself while usually only retaining powers over land administration,

management and policy-making.28

In terms of the underlying objectives of land tenure reforms, however, ‘‘[T]he

importance of land markets and individual tenure as the essential ingredients for

agricultural productivity and growth’’ has remained paramount.29 As we write, land

tenure privatisation is now swinging back to the original straightforward narrowingof customary land rights into private � and, in many cases, corporate � hands. The

1990s concerns of land rights activists in eastern Africa in relation to foreign

investors are now firmly back on the agenda after a break during the 2000s � a decade



in which discourse on land rights more generally has been dominated by the ideas of

the Peruvian economist, Hernando de Soto. With his book, The Mystery of Capital,

de Soto renewed the argument that formally registered property rights open the way

to the collateralisation of land assets, providing the basis for the creation of capital

and thus leading to economic growth. From this, he concluded that there is a need for

land registration to convert poor people’s assets from ‘‘dead capital’’ into ‘‘live

capital’’.30 While many authors have criticised his work � especially its ignorance of

the African context and its blindness towards the gendered impact of land tenure

privatisation31 � de Soto received a great deal of attention from the World Bank and

other donors, as well as from a number of developing country governments, while his

Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor has served to further

institutionalise his message.32

Regardless of de Soto’s thesis, the evidence from the ground in eastern Africa

specifically suggests that smallholders (and especially women) show little interest in

mortgaging their land. One Tanzanian study, for example, found women to be

(compared to men) especially cautious about the possibility of mortgaging their land.

Most were aware of the risks associated with taking out loans and felt that using their

land as security for a loan would be irresponsible behaviour towards their families,

especially the children � ‘‘this would be equal to giving away my house and my field,’’

as one woman expressed it.33

Emerging issues for the second decade of the twenty-first century

More recently, the Oxford economist Paul Collier has stepped into de Soto’s shoes.

Collier has generated a high-profile debate by suggesting the replacement of

smallholder farming with large-scale agro-industrial commercial farming as a means

to overcome the world food crisis, as well as promoting genetically modified

organisms and reduced subsidies for biofuels in the USA.34 As Collier elaborates:

The remedy to high food prices is to increase supply [ . . .] There are still many areas ofthe world � including large swaths of Africa � that have good land that could be used farmore productively if it were properly managed by large companies [ . . .] Unfortunately,large-scale commercial agriculture is deeply, perhaps irredeemably, unromantic. We laudthe production style of the peasant: environmentally sustainable and human in scale. Inrespect of manufacturing we grew out of this fantasy years ago, but in agriculture itcontinues to contaminate our policies. In Europe and Japan huge public resources havebeen devoted to propping up small farms. The best that can be said for these policies isthat we can afford them. In Africa, which cannot afford such policies, the World Bankand the [UK’s] Department for International Development have orientated their entireefforts on agricultural development to peasant-style production. Africa has less large-scale commercial agriculture than it had 60 years ago. Unfortunately, peasant farming isnot well suited to innovation and investment. The result has been that Africanagriculture has fallen farther and farther behind.35

Unsurprisingly, Collier’s arguments have come in for some severe criticism.36 As one

group of critics puts it, Collier attacks the populism that

Peasants, like pandas, are to be preserved. This overly general categorisation seems toinclude the very diversified category of small-scale family farming, a category whichcomprises the majority of farm operations throughout the world. These smallholders(often female farmers) are highly entrepreneurial and innovative. They are even moreefficient than commercial agriculture, if one uses the measure of capital expenditure perbushel or tonne of yield.37



On one hand, the case has already been convincingly made that women’s rights to

land require strengthening from a purely human rights perspective, and this is no

longer a subject of debate.38 On the other hand, in a context where influential

economists such as Collier are renewing calls for an end to smallholder agriculture, it

is necessary to re-iterate the point that securing women’s land rights would also

contribute to food security.39 Thus, instead of replacing smallholders with large-scale

commercial farming, their rights need to be strengthened, and those of female

farmers in particular. Women are still widely acknowledged to be responsible for the

lion’s share of food production across Africa, and their tenure security and rights of

access to land are thus critical to food security � something which has been most

recently emphasised by ActionAID’s international ‘‘Hunger Free Women’’ cam-

paign.40 A crucial aspect of women’s contribution to food production relates to the

flexibility of local land markets, as land rentals can be important channels for women

to gain access to small plots of high quality land for small-scale commercial farming

to meet domestic food demands.41 This underlines the importance of considering

land tenure security in the broadest sense, encompassing tenancy rights as well as

those of ownership and usufruct.Arguments over the future of smallholder farming also emerge strongly out of the

World Bank’s World Development Report 2008, Agriculture for Development, and do

not just arise in response to the global food crisis.42 Agriculture for Development

focuses on ways to effectively use ‘‘agriculture as an engine or facilitator of growth’’

and boost ‘‘smallholder productivity as a pathway to poverty reduction’’, yet the

Report contains a number of inconsistencies and contradictions in particular with

respect to the role of the corporate global agribusinesses promoted by Collier.43

Critics of both Collier and the World Bank emphasise the importance of analysing

political economy issues, and particularly the global context. Nonetheless, there is a

danger, when putting the global context at the forefront, of missing the agency and

diversity of the realities on the ground, at the local as well as the national and

regional levels � in the same way that looking at the local without taking into account

the bigger picture is also unproductive. This parallels the danger, when dealing

specifically with land tenure reform, of subsuming women’s issues within the broader

pursuit of smallholder land rights, or, alternatively, ignoring those in the pursuit of

women’s land rights. There certainly are topics which ask for a more globalperspective and consequent rapidity of national action, such as protection of local

land rights in the face of international land-grabbing. Yet this can � and should � be

done in ways that leave open the question of whose rights are being protected at the

local level, allowing for these to be adjudicated and determined in slower time.

As this implies, discussions about land tenure in eastern Africa must also be

contextualised within the growing trend towards a new form of international land-

grabbing, triggered first, and in large part, by the same global food crisis that has

brought the future viability of smallholder agriculture into question and by related

concerns about long-term food security in the face of climate change, and, second, by

the pursuit of alternative energy sources also in the face of climate change.44 These

two motivations behind the new land-grabbing are closely interlinked. Land taken

over for bio-fuel production to reduce energy dependence on fossil fuels (the use of

which is an acknowledged cause of climate change) and feedstock production to fulfil

developed country tastes for meat, ceases to be available for ordinary food grain

production, thereby intensifying food shortages at the same time as climate changeitself is perceived to be affecting weather patterns and overall crop and livestock



productivity levels. Moreover, it is the millions of smallholder farmers worldwide,

especially all those in developing countries who are heavily dependent on land for

their livelihoods, who are then at risk of impoverishment at the same time as

heavyweight middle-income and developed countries establish their own food and

fuel security through a growing wave of large-scale land deals that lack transparency

in the eyes of those previously reliant on the land.45

The scale of this new manifestation of international land-grabbing is worrying,

especially given the intense involvement of governments in the process rather than

mainly private corporations, as was the case during the rise in foreign direct

investment and land-grabbing in eastern Africa in the late 1980s and 1990s. Recent

data from the International Food Policy Research Institute on foreign land

acquisition in developing countries between 2006 and 2009 suggests that at minimum

8.85 million hectares of land were acquired by governments and investors from rich

food-importing countries in known land/food production deals, and that in total

some 15 � 20 million hectares of land may have been subject to transactions or talks

about possible transactions during this period; over 7 million hectares of the known

land deals were located in eastern Africa (Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania,Mozambique, Zambia and the Democratic Reupblic of Congo).46 Furthermore, this

data relates only to land for food production and does not include land that has been

given over to bio-fuels.47

The land rights of pastoralist communities are among those most affected by

international land-grabbing, as a recently reported case of violence against villagers

in Loliondo, Northern Tanzania, sadly demonstrates. There, a field force unit of the

Tanzanian police together with private guards from the Otterllo Business Coopera-

tion (OBC � owned by a member of the United Arab Emirates royal family) allegedly

burnt houses and evicted villagers, destroyed property and raped a woman, all in an

effort to chase villagers from land on which the OBC had bought hunting rights.48 As

this example suggests, and as Sikor and Lund have most recently reminded us,

‘‘access and property’’ are clearly questions of ‘‘power and authority’’.49 Gender

issues are of course intimately bound up in struggles over power and authority,

particularly in relation to land.50 This underlines the salience of considering the issue

of securing women’s land rights as a primarily political issue, and of seeing struggles

over women’s land rights as being almost inevitably likely to challenge existing

(patriarchal) structures of authority and power. Given both the complexity and levelof specificity that will therefore be required, we are convinced that a positive and

pragmatic approach must be pursued if there is to be sustainable social change.

A positive, pragmatic approach51

While it is undeniable that the land rights of smallholders in general and women in

particular face many threats for the reasons outlined above, too many studies of

women’s land rights simply present grim factual accounts of their insecure tenure and

status as property owners and users. The overwhelming negative impact on them of

patriarchal structures and processes, and of land tenure reforms that focus on the

private registration of land, tends to be over-emphasised, leading to pessimism about

the prospects for change. However, women themselves are actors in the process of

change, who can and often do succeed in securing their land rights.52 Moreover,outsiders who are committed to supporting African women’s land rights can pursue a

number of different strategies to do just that. We have argued that there are two key



entry points for engaging with women’s land rights during the current processes of

land tenure reform in eastern Africa: (i) the stage at which land policies and land

laws are formulated; and (ii) the stage at which the new policies and laws are

implemented.53 Each stage presents different obstacles and hence requires different

strategies, but they are equally important; strategies to promote and support women’s

land rights at both stages involve all levels of government and civil society, as well as

local, national and international actors. Key issues relate to the law (including

Constitutions, formal land legislation and customary law and institutions), toimplementation (including consultation, participation and the nature of the

approach taken), and to the role of civil society (including sensitisation and

awareness-raising, legal literacy and broader social and institutional change).54

However, of overall importance throughout is a proper dose of pragmatism in the

struggle for women’s land rights in eastern Africa, as can be clearly seen in

(re)appraising the role of customary institutions.

Customary institutions

There is currently a relative consensus, or ‘‘received wisdom’’, that customary social

and political institutions, being rooted in patriarchal social, political and economic

relations, are virtually by definition bad for women.55 This follows the initially keen

promotion of customary institutions during the 1990s, in tandem with a focus on the

decentralisation of land policy and administration, which was subsequently criticised

on the basis of a range of concerns relating to social and economic differentiation.56

Reliance on customary institutions, with all their inherent biases, is therefore now

more widely recognised as being potentially detrimental to women in land matters ingeneral, and potentially leading to loss of rights and increasing tenure insecurity

during land tenure reforms that include the private registration of land. This is all the

more so, as even if

customary tenure norms provide women with some basic security, many customarytenure systems are no longer capable of ensuring that households and women have accessto sufficient land . . . . A number of factors, including a growing market economy,increasing poverty, and commercial agriculture, are converting land into an asset,accentuating land scarcity, and privatizing (and individualizing) land rights. Withinthese situations, vulnerable women such as widows and divorced, separated, orabandoned women are unable to access land.57

It is nonetheless instructive to reappraise the role of customary institutions in light of

recent evidence from the ground. For Northern Uganda, for example, Judy Adoko

and Simon Levine have presented persuasive evidence about the usefulness of

working through clans � the local patriarchal social institutions � in order to secure

women’s land rights there.58 In large part, their case rests on the failure of new

government land administration structures to materialise, and they argue thatimplementation of land registration is likely to proceed much faster if existing

structures are utilised and supported by the government. They also describe how the

clans had in the past protected women’s rights as land users, with men carrying the

role of guardians of the family land rather than that of individual owners, and argue

that these norms can therefore be drawn on to protect women’s rights during land

registration.59 Similar arguments about the value of working with and through local

customary institutions in Malawi and Ethiopia emerge in the articles here by Peters

and Flintan.



While the role of civil society in promoting and supporting women’s land rights,

through sensitisation, awareness-raising and legal literacy work, remains of great

importance,60 it is thus also the case that strategies to support and promote women’s

land rights must be suited and responsive to the situation on the ground. Where

existing customary institutions can be used as a vehicle for this, why not use them?

Equally, where existing customary institutions have become weakened, why not

pursue alternative strategies, such as creating new local institutions with mandated

numbers of women members? Considering custom and customary institutions as first

and foremost local practices and institutions, rather than necessarily ‘‘traditional’’

practices and institutions, makes it much easier to work with this kind of pragmatic

approach. Changing the terminology is thus perhaps a first step to opening up the

strategic options in the pursuit of what works best, helping to avoid getting bogged

down in generalised debates about the merits (or otherwise) of working with

(patriarchal) customary institutions, and allowing scope for the development of a

strategy that responds directly to the specifics of the situation on the ground.

In the practice of formulating and implementing new land laws and policies,taking a hard-line and principled position on the merits of a particular approach is

likely to be less effective than taking a positive, pragmatic approach which looks at

the situation on the ground as it is and asking ‘‘what now can we do to maximise the

gains for women’’? In sum, this is about ‘‘evidence-based policy-making’’ in the first

instance, and then identifying what works best to achieve the desired result.

Furthermore, as Kelsall has argued more generally, this implies being open to

locating our strategies for supporting women’s land rights within the distinctive local

notions of moral obligation and inter-personal accountability to be found within

African cultures, thereby working with, rather than against ‘‘the grain’’.61

Adoko and Levine’s work with the Land and Equity Movement in Uganda

(LEMU) offers an example of this approach in practice.62 From their experience of

working constructively with customary institutions in Northern Uganda, noted above,

Adoko and Levine argue for the extension of their approach to other settings, thus for

specific rights, and the means for their protection, to be examined in specific contexts.63

Gendered rights and responsibilities always derive from a social context, yet, as Adoko

and Levine observe, the dominant rights-based perspective emphasises individualrights in line with the Western social context in which it emerged. Adoko and Levine

claim, for Northern Uganda, that accepting the notion of culturally embedded rights

means accepting that people (women and men) have differing rights and responsi-

bilities as family members which are also subject to change as their family situation

changes. They argue that this should not mean that it would be discriminatory to accept

and support gender inequality in the form of different rights for different people: on the

contrary, this would be a culturally appropriate channelling of claims to rights, not

discrimination. As they explain: ‘‘a married woman claims land rights from her

parents-in-law, not her parents: her claim is made in a different place from her brother,

but neither claim can legally be denied’’.64

This important argument merits serious consideration. Nevertheless, it does

contain limitations, and we wish to explore caveats and refinements that might assist

in its further development. One major concern is that, to be both enforceable and

able to be monitored, this approach requires customary principles to be written

down, ‘‘making it a matter of fact what customary law said, rather than a matter ofdebate’’.65 The contested nature of such recording processes are well understood, as

is the fact of fluidity and negotiability in customary practice.66 A second concern is



that in most parts of eastern Africa, ‘‘custom’’ is continually subject to change. Any

strategy that accepts the initial ascription of differing land rights and responsibilities

to women and men must therefore be open to updating these as the local context

changes, and this must include being open to increasing assimilation of Western-

derived notions of individual rights and gender equality. As Kelsall notes, ‘‘African

governments and universities now contain individuals who are thoroughly committed

to ideas like good governance and human rights, and in some countries they are

making painstaking progress in turning their governments around.’’67 On gender

equality specifically, there are also now countries within eastern Africa whose

governments are pro-actively committed to the promotion of gender equality, and

where these norms are now filtering down to the popular consciousness.68

Changing custom

As is well known, there are countless examples in the literature of the negative

impacts on women’s land rights of land tenure reforms (including through land

registration and agricultural development schemes) which superimpose completely

new systems in disregard of what is already there.69 Still, given that customary rules

are continually subject to change, they are by definition not to be conserved as they

are but to be developed further. This leads us to suggest that a better approach to

land tenure reform would be to consider how custom can be updated and reformed

rather than replaced � on the basis that if custom is what’s there, it has to be worked

with. In the pursuit of women’s land rights, we can thus seek to build on what is

already there while simultaneously seeking to change it.

In some parts of eastern Africa, women are more likely to be considered as

property than as holding property rights to either land or cattle.70 In this situation,

two possible conclusions can be drawn as regards the securing of women’s land

rights. On one hand, it may be that any kind of land law reform which includes

provision for women’s land rights is likely to be totally unimplementable. On the

other hand, it can be more convincingly argued that any kind of land law reform must

include provision for women’s land rights, as a basis for longer-term efforts to chip

away at broader gender inequality within the local customary and cultural context. It

may be that the implementable provisions for women’s land rights will therefore be

very limited initially � resulting in a gradual and incremental change process: but

land laws can be amended and reformed later on as custom catches up, especially if

there is a solid a priori constitutional basis for supporting women’s land rights as part

of a broader commitment to gender equity and equality. Thus we believe that in

parallel to efforts to support customary institutions in protecting women’s land

rights, following LEMU, there remains a key role for the state:

in maintaining and protecting the rights of women and the chronically poor throughconstitutional and legal provisions that proscribe discrimination, and particularlydiscrimination that takes place under ‘‘customary’’ law . . . thus . . . there is an importantrole for central governments as providers of policy that protects the rights of the poor.71

It is of course now widely acknowledged that the law alone is not enough in

securing women’s land rights, yet the law remains the essential starting point.72

Moreover, broad constitutional protections for women’s rights and favourable laws

of gender equity and equality provide key foundations in the struggle for women’s

land rights, on top of which the details of land policies and laws can be built.73



In particular, where a new constitution or constitutional amendment has been

endorsed after having been subject to national debate, it undoubtedly becomes

harder for those in power to resist change that is positive for women. This can be very

clearly seen in Rwanda � discussed in this collection by Daley, Dore-Weeks and

Umuhoza � where a new Constitution was passed by national referendum in 2003

that lays down the principle of gender equality in no uncertain terms. For example,

the Rwandan Constitution mandates that 30% of members of all decision-making

institutions at all levels of government must be women (Article 9). Where land

administration has now been decentralised to five-person committees at local

government level � sectors and cells � this has resulted in two of the five members

being women in literally thousands of local committees in every part of the country.

Rwanda has more recently achieved the remarkable feat of being the first country

in the world to elect more than 50% of its parliamentarians as women74 � well over

the 30% level required by the Constitution. Yet even in the previous parliaments, it

was women MPs who drove through such measures as Rwanda’s transformational

Succession Law (in 1999), persuading their male colleagues that the legal establish-

ment of equal inheritance rights for sons and daughters and husbands and wives

was in society’s broader interest.75 Two different field studies carried out seven years

later, in 2006, one for a human rights NGO and one for the Ministry of Lands,

independently came to the same conclusion that as a result of this law, Rwandan

women were increasingly starting to claim their rights and were increasingly

succeeding in doing this as the notion of gender equality in inheritance tax has

taken popular hold.76 One reason for this achievement may have been the high levels

of awareness of the law among both men and women across Rwanda � attributable to

government efforts, but also to sensitisation and legal literacy work done in

conjunction with Rwandan civil society.77

Even without constitutional change or pro-active government support for gender

equality, customs relating to women’s land rights have also been seen to undergo

change. But such changes � while being at least partly the result of conscious

decisions taken by women � can also contribute to a weakening of women’s land

rights. This is the case, for example, in the Uluguru Mountains of Tanzania, where

matrilineal inheritance practices prevail but are consciously being locally adapted to

allow also for sons to inherit land from their mother’s clan.78 In her research among

women in that area, Englert found them emphasising that they were conscious actors

in these changes as they no longer wanted to discriminate against their male children.

Several of the women had decided to challenge the influence of the matrilineal clan

and had used different strategies to bequeath part of their land to their sons: some

women silently challenged the ‘‘tradition’’ that they no longer perceived as suitable by

distributing their land equally among all their children; others tried to ‘‘please both

sides’’ � the matrilineal clan as well as their male offspring. These women, often

acting in conjunction with their husbands, bought land on the market to supplement

the land they owned through the family clan; the purchased land could then be left to

their male children without the parents having to worry that those children would

eventually be harassed by the clan making claims to that land.79 This example

demonstrates not only the changing nature of customary land tenure arrangements

and the active role that women may play in this regard, even without the support of

the law, but also the difficulty that lies in trying to draw clear lines between women’s

and men’s interests in land.



Equitable land rights for women and men

One unfortunate outcome of the pessimism that so often pervades discussions about

women’s land rights in eastern Africa, as Peters notes, is that the received wisdom has

become ‘‘the notion that women’s land rights are always secondary and ‘fragile’’’

(emphasis added).80 This notion often causes those working in the field of women’s

land rights to focus on securing and improving land rights for women. Such a goal is

not necessarily zero sum and does not necessarily imply an equal deterioration in the

land rights of men. However, it does raise fundamental questions about the

underlying objectives behind the pursuit of improved land tenure security for

women. On one hand, these questions arise from the frequent blurring in practice of

discussions about gender equality in land rights and discussions about women’s land

rights, and the frequent equating of ‘‘women’’ and ‘‘gender’’ as synonymous terms.

On the other hand, they arise also from what may be unstated and even unrecognised

assumptions on the part of those working in the field. If women’s rights are usually

secondary and fragile, and women are often subordinated by patriarchal structures

and processes in land relations and wider social and political relations, it would not

be unreasonable to concentrate one’s efforts on improving their situation and

securing their rights on the assumption that most men already have secure rights to

land. However, if this is done at the expense of equity, it seems unlikely to lead to

sustainable positive change.

Here we must make a clear distinction between gender equality and gender

equity.81 Equity � fairness � requires the treatment of all human beings as equals,

such that gender is not used as the basis for systematic discrimination in access to

and allocation of resources. However, the right to treatment as equals is distinct from

the right to equal treatment, or egalitarianism, which gender equality often implies.82

In the matter of land rights, gender equality could imply that all men and women be

granted equal rights to equal amounts of land, whereas gender equity implies that all

men and women be granted equal opportunities to access land, irrespective of gender.

Thus, if land tenure is to be privatised through the registration of individual land

ownership rights, gender equality could imply, either, that all a married couple’s land

be divided in two and the man and the woman register half each in their own name,

or, that all a couple’s land is registered jointly in both their names with equal rights

over the land. Gender equity, however, could allow for each land parcel within the

couple’s total landholding to be examined separately and rights registered according

to the use of, need for and origin of the land, taking into account also local socio-

cultural and political relations. This parallels the argument of LEMU, yet it goes

much further in requiring attention also to be paid to the land rights of men.83

Similarly, and as Patrick McAuslan convincingly argues in his article in this

collection, it would be inequitable to make provision for a minimum number of land

committee members to be women without also providing for the same minimum

number to be men. He goes on to argue that equity must also be considered in its

practical aspects. For example, if a certain number of women are required to attend a

meeting in order for it to be able to proceed, provision must be made for meetings to

be held at appropriate and reasonable times to facilitate this, taking into account, for

example, that women may be reluctant to attend meetings far from their homes in the

evenings. However, as McAuslan notes, it is not always easy to draft laws or

regulations that take into account all these aspects, so an ostensibly gender-equal

piece of legislation may become gender inequitable in its implementation.



Let us consider again the situation of matrilineal-matrilocal areas. As Peters so

amply demonstrates, women in southern Malawi have land rights which are presently

‘‘privileged’’ vis-a-vis those of men, in that land is inherited by women and not by

men, by daughters and not by sons.84 However, Malawi’s new land policy, in seeking

to protect and improve land rights for women in a country where the majority of

people live in patrilineal societies with father to son inheritance patterns, now calls

for equal land inheritance rights for men and women � thus for both sons and

daughters to inherit land in equal shares from their parents. Peters thus fears thatequal inheritance combined with future land ownership registration and the practice

of men being considered as the head of the household will lead to serious reductions

in land tenure security for a great many women in the matrilineal-matrilocal areas of

southern Malawi, while simultaneously acknowledging that gains may come for

women in other (patrilineal) areas of Malawi. Peters therefore calls for consideration

of alternatives to straightforward land titling programmes in matrilineal areas, and

more generally for the pursuit of legal protection and registration of the sorts of

overlapping claims to land found in existing customary tenure arrangements.This is certainly a tricky issue, requiring innovation in formulating and

implementing land tenure reforms that benefit and improve the situation for women,

and raising, again, the fundamental question of ‘‘what is it all for, what exactly are we

trying to achieve?’’ We must therefore be very clear about our day to day goals (our

tactics) within the bigger picture (our strategy) � a more gender equitable society

which includes recognising that sustainable positive social change must be of mutual

benefit to all, and, importantly, must not alienate men.

Implementation � where the real struggle begins

The reform of land law and policy is now the starting point for the implementation of

land tenure reform in eastern Africa; there is no longer a question of whether such

reform is necessary or not, but of how best to ensure that the gender dimension is

considered when law reform takes place. The question remains as to whether gender

equitable and gender equal legal provisions can actually be implemented in

practice.85

The evidence from the ground still leaves many doubts. For example, as Ingunn

Ikdahl has argued for Tanzania:

when residential licences (Land Act section 23) are issued in Dar es Salaam thedocument has space for several names � but only for one picture of the rights-holder.With respect to the process, several women lawyers explained that they had discoveredthat the officials who had visited residential areas during working hours had talked toneighbours and, based on such information, had put only the husband’s name on thedocuments. Understanding the potential consequences of this omission, these womenexperienced that getting it changed required a level of legal literacy, as well as time andpatience, to deal with the bureaucracy.86

As reported by Ikdahl, one senior bureaucrat in the Tanzanian Ministry of Land

stated that, although wives sometimes came to get their name included on the

residential licence, officials would ‘‘normally not deal with such conflicts’’. Instead,

they told the wives to ‘‘go home and clear the conflict’’, as they saw it as a domestic

household matter.87 In a separate community-driven titling effort in the Hanna

Nassif settlement in Dar es Salaam, most of the women Ikdahl interviewed were not

aware of the joint titling provision � some even thought it was prohibited to put more



than one name on the title deed. An officer in one of the organisations involved in the

registration process expressed a profound lack of interest in the gendered fallout of

the registration exercise: they simply did not recommend joint titling in the area,

because as ‘‘the husband was already the owner’’ the provision was ‘‘not relevant’’.88

Such attitudes on the part of land sector officials are not unique to the Tanzanian

case, having been described elsewhere also.89

Together, these stories and postures illustrate how the transformative potential of

gender equal legal provisions is dependant on the competence and commitment ofthe political and bureaucratic actors involved. Yet despite often very difficult

circumstances, women in eastern Africa are not powerless actors but find creative

means to claim and ensure their rights to land.90 Efforts to develop women’s

confidence to claim their rights can help further.91 This can be done through

sensitisation and legal literacy work, but also indirectly by working to strengthen the

links between the various institutions that women are involved with. For example,

Flintan points to the need for activists in Oromia Regional National State in

Ethiopia to work on strengthening ‘‘the linkages between customary institutions suchas the Gada and the already existing and new forums where women’s voice can or

could be better heard in Boran society, including siiqqee and Women’s Associations’’,

stressing the role that external actors can play in supporting this process.92

Moving forward, working together

If our common goal is to contribute to creating the enabling conditions for eastern

African women to secure their own land rights, what then can be said about the

respective roles of different outsiders, and about the intersection of research, policyand practice in promoting and supporting women’s land rights? As outsiders

academics and practitioners often find themselves on opposing sides of a divide

between what might be theoretically desirable (for example, from a rights-based

perspective), and what is realistically ‘‘do-able’’ in practice. Conversely, debates about

what indeed can and should actually be done or achieved are rife among different

practitioners. Practitioners include NGO staff, civil society and grassroots activists,

independent consultants, and corporate contractors. In addition, and perhaps in

greater numbers, they include all the technicians and administrators working in theland sector, whether for national or local governments in the region (among whom

many are also consultants or contractors), or in the private sector as surveyors, GIS

experts, urban planners, land use planners and the like. Land sector technicians are

often focused on precise technical functions, and may lack a detailed understanding of

social and political aspects, including gender relations around land. Some academics

also work at least part time as practitioners through consulting work on land-related

projects, or more broadly for donors and development institutions, thereby crossing

the notional academic/practitioner divide. This enables a degree of cross-fertilisationof ideas between theory and practice which is firmly to be encouraged.

At the same time, the theory/practice divide between academics and practitioners

is not necessarily a bad thing. Academics play an important role in presenting

‘‘extreme’’ theoretical positions, which open up space for practitioners in the middle

ground, operating in often constrained and delicate political contexts, to move law

and policy formulation and implementation in one direction or another without

having to appear themselves as ‘‘extremists’’ with their own policy agendas.

Academic research also allows for important lesson learning beyond the standard



project monitoring and evaluation exercises, particularly when it can be conducted

away from the time pressures caused by project cycles and, even more so, the rapid

shifting of events on the ground. But, given that land sector practitioners do tend to

work within very complex and politically charged environments, where there may be

limited scope for manoeuvre and where the situation on the ground may be

constantly shifting, ‘‘extreme’’ theoretical positions arising within academia can

themselves become part of the operating environment. Academic articles and books �even when they are thoughtful and well researched � feed into the development of

‘‘received wisdoms’’ about land rights which may then create greater tensions in

practice for those working quietly to improve the situation. In Rwanda, for example,

a ‘‘received wisdom’’ in the literature persists in raising concerns about women’s land

rights which do not necessarily reflect the current situation on the ground.93 More

generally, where a government perceives their track record to be under attack by

academics, it might respond in the defensive by refusing to acknowledge, for example,

the insecure land tenure of a particular vulnerable group. A problem denied cannot

be solved, and whereas supporting and helping governments is clearly not the job of

academics, neither is it always constructive to attack them.

How then can academics and practitioners in the land sector all work better

together in promoting and supporting women’s land rights? How can we get round

the fact that many practitioners do not publish the findings from their own research?

Could academics working on women’s land rights be encouraged to seek out research

partners from among full-time practitioners? Could academic journals and publish-

ing houses make more efforts to seek out the contributions of practitioners to the

theoretical literature? Could funding for academic research in the social sciences be

opened up to include greater support for knowledge advancement with a firmly

practical application, tied into land sector programmes and projects even at the

design stage and not just the more obvious monitoring and evaluation stage? These

questions require seriously to be addressed.

It is also vitally important for those promoting women’s land rights to keep in

mind that eastern African women often hold highly variant views about their land

rights, based on their own social, economic and political circumstances. This adds to

the complexity of the whole issue, but does not detract from the importance of

listening to what they have to say. The goal must be to learn and understand how

different groups of women can best be supported in differing ways according to

circumstances, choosing from every strategy available the one that is most likely to be

effective, and then being open to adapting the strategy as events unfold. This requires

continual awareness of our underlying goals and conscious engagement with the

fundamental question of ‘‘what is it all for, what exactly are we trying to achieve?’’

We therefore conclude here with a call for a stronger focus on gender equity as the

basis of a positive, pragmatic approach � on securing equitable land rights for both

women and men � in order to achieve sustainable positive change in broader social

and political relations.

Notes

1. See Adams and Palmer, eds., Independent Review; on the recent situation in Kenya seeWakhungu, Huggins and Nyukuri, Land Tenure; and Ministry of Lands, Housing andUrban Development, ‘‘Draft National Land Policy,’’ for the latest from Uganda.



2. See Manji, ‘‘Gender and the Politics,’’ Manji, The Politics of Land Reform, and Shivji,‘‘Reflections,’’ on the latter perspective; see Tsikata, ‘‘Securing Women’s Interests,’’ for acritique.

3. World Bank, Land Policies.4. Englert and Daley, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 7�8. Compare the World Bank’s position on land with

its ‘‘new’’ policy towards agriculture for development (World Development Report 2008:Agriculture for Development), in which ‘‘the growth fetish remains unquestioned,’’suggesting an ‘‘inability to focus on agriculture as an arena of (sustainable) developmentin its own right’’ (original italics); McMichael, ‘‘Banking on Agriculture,’’ 237.

5. See for example World Bank, Land Policies, xix; Englert, ‘‘Changing Land Rights,’’ 92.6. World Bank, Land Policies, xxvi�xxvii; Englert and Daley, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 9. Note,

however, that the Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook, published by the World Bank in 2009,especially 125�71, suggests women’s land rights are now being discussed within the Bank ina more nuanced way than before.

7. The sharing of experiences and information continued via a listserver which Robin Palmerestablished � an instrument that has contributed a great deal to establishing a strongnetwork of people with a shared commitment to securing women’s land rights in Africancountries.

8. Englert and Daley, Women’s Land Rights and Privatization in Eastern Africa.9. Englert and Daley, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 1; see also Englert and Palmer, ‘‘Women’s Land

Rights,’’ 1.10. Englert and Daley, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 3; Daley and Englert et al., ‘‘Afterword.’’11. Englert and Daley, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 2�3.12. Ibid., 3.13. For more detailed general historical accounts, see Bassett, ‘‘Introduction’’; Daley and

Hobley, Land: Changing Contexts; and Englert and Daley, ‘‘Introduction.’’ See also Berry,No Condition, on the social dynamics of land relations in Africa, and Peters, ‘‘Inequality,’’on processes of increasing social differentiation therein.

14. Adams and Turner, Legal Dualism; McAuslan, ‘‘Only the Name.’’ See also Peters, ‘‘OurDaughters Inherit Our Land.’’

15. Platteau, Institutions, Social Norms; Peters, ‘‘Inequality.’’16. For example see Daley, ‘‘Land and Social Change’’ (1 and 2) on Tanzania. Antwi, Our

Common Estate; Benjaminsen and Sjaasted, ‘‘Race for the Prize’’; and Ubink, ‘‘Chiefs,Customary Law’’ provide West African comparison.

17. For example see Pala, ‘‘Daughters of the Lakes,’’ on Kenya.18. Englert and Palmer, ‘‘Women’s Land Rights’’; Palmer, ‘‘Foreword,’’ ix; cf. Englert and

Daley, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 1. See also Whitehead and Tsikata, ‘‘Policy Discourses’’ andRazavi, ‘‘Liberalisation.’’

19. Razavi, ‘‘Liberalisation,’’ 1485�8; Lastarria-Cornhiel, ‘‘Impact,’’ 1326.20. See Daley, ‘‘Gender, Uenyeji,’’ and ‘‘Land and Social Change,’’ 2.21. Izumi, ‘‘Gender-based Violence’’; Izumi, Reclaiming our Lives; Okuro, ‘‘Struggling with

In-laws.’’22. Aliber et al., ‘‘The Impact of HIV/AIDS’’; Izumi, Reclaiming our Lives, 4.23. Palmer, ‘‘Securing Women’s,’’ 7. See Overseas Development Institute, ‘‘Uncharted

Territory’’; Pantuliano et al., The Long Road Home, and other work of the ODI’sHumanitarian Policy Group on land, refugees and IDPs.

24. Alden Wily, ‘‘Land Rights Reform,’’ 7; Swynnerton, A Plan to Intensify.25. Daley and Hobley, Land: Changing Contexts, 8�13; Englert and Daley, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 5�

6; Davison, ‘‘Without Land’’; Mackenzie, ‘‘Gender and Land’’; Platteau, ‘‘The Evolu-tionary Theory.’’

26. Alden, ‘‘Land Rights Reform.’’27. See Kanji, Innovation in Securing, on formalising land rights. See also Benjaminsen and

Lund, Securing Land Rights, on ‘‘informal formalisation.’’28. Englert and Daley, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 6�7.29. Razavi, ‘‘Agrarian Change, Gender,’’ 6.30. de Soto, Mystery of Capital; cf. de Soto, ‘‘Listening.’’31. For example, see Nyamu-Musembi, ‘‘Breathing Life,’’ and Von Benda-Beckmann,

‘‘Mysteries of Capital.’’



https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227729108_Agrarian_Change_Gender_and_Land_Rights?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-9aa24d5a-357b-4f9a-a385-1048bba1a29e&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIzMzA3MzI3OTtBUzoxMDIzMDY1MTk0NTM3MDNAMTQwMTQwMzE4MzYxNg==

32. Daley and Hobley, Land: Changing Contexts, 15�17.33. Englert, ‘‘Changing Land Rights,’’ 95.34. Collier, ‘‘Food Shortages: Think Big’’; cf. Collier, ‘‘The Politics of Hunger.’’35. Collier, ‘‘Food Shortages: Think Big.’’36. For example see Byerlee et al., ‘‘Smallholders Unite’’; Wiggins, ‘‘Are Large Scale

Commercial Farms the Answer.’’37. Aal, Jarosz, and Thompson, ‘‘Food is a Human Right.’’38. See, among others, Ikdahl, ‘‘Go Home.’’ See Agarwal, A Field, for the more broadly

applicable justification of women’s land rights that she developed for South Asia. Cf.Englert and Daley, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 8�9.

39. See Wandia, ‘‘Safeguarding Women’s Rights.’’40. See Palmer, ‘‘Securing Women’s,’’ 8, and Nafula, ‘‘No Land.’’41. For example see MINITERE/DFID/HTSPE Ltd, ‘‘Results,’’ for the case of Rwanda.42. Oya, ‘‘Introduction’’; McMichael, ‘‘Banking on Agriculture’’; World Bank, Agriculture for

Development. For debate over the relative weight of agriculture within livelihoods in thecontext of economic liberalisation, and over trends towards livelihood diversification and‘‘de-agrarianisation,’’ see Ellis, Rural Livelihoods; Bryceson, ‘‘The Scramble’’; Bryceson,‘‘Multiplex Livelihoods’’; Barrett et al, ‘‘Nonfarm Income’’; Razavi, ‘‘Liberalisation’’; andDaley, ‘‘Land and Social Change,’’ 2. Within eastern Africa, however, for the foreseeablefuture the majority of families will still depend on agriculture.

43. Oya, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 231, 233.44. See Von Braun and Meinzen-Dick, ‘‘Land Grabbing’’; The Economist, ‘‘Outsourcing’s

Third Wave’’; GRAIN, Seized! The 2008 Land Grab.45. McMichael, ‘‘Banking on Agriculture‘‘; GRAIN, Seized! The 2008 Land Grab. See also

Cotula et al., Land Grab, 5�7, who argue that while increased investment as a result of landacquisition may bring macro-level benefits and thus some improvement to livelihoods inrural areas, the land acquisition itself may also result in critical land loss by local people.

46. The Economist, ‘‘Outsourcing’s Third Wave,’’ 65.47. On biofuels specifically, see, for example, Cotula, Dyer, and Vermeulen, Fuelling Exclusion?48. For a detailed account of this case and the findings of research conducted by the

Tanzanian Feminist Activist Coalition (FEMACT) see FEMACT, ‘‘Loliondo Report.’’49. Sikor and Lund, ‘‘Access and Property.’’50. See Daley, ‘‘Land Tenure and Social Change,’’ 28�67, for a review of the literature.51. The conceptual analysis and arguments in the remainder of this paper originate in various

ideas we raised in presentations to launch our edited volume, Women’s Land Rights. Palmerwrote a summary account of some of our ideas in ‘‘Securing Women’s Land Rights inAfrica’’ � the ideas noted therein are thus developed in detail in the present paper.

52. Englert and Daley, Women’s Land Rights.53. Englert and Daley, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 3.54. See Daley and Englert, et al., ‘‘Afterword,’’ passim.55. Cf. Whitehead and Tsikata, ‘‘Policy Discourses’’; Tsikata, ‘‘Securing Women’s Interests’’;

Daley and Hobley, Land: Changing Contexts, 34�5; Razavi, ‘‘Liberalisation,’’ 1489�93.56. Daley and Hobley, Land: Changing Contexts, 34�5; Peters, ‘‘Inequality’’; Woodhouse,

‘‘African Enclosures.’’57. World Bank, FAO, and IFAD, Gender in Agriculture, 137.58. Adoko and Levine, ‘‘Falling.’’59. Ibid. However, by way of comparison see Khadiagala, ‘‘The Failure,’’ on women’s

disgruntlement with the ‘‘rule of persons’’ that operates within customary insitutionsdealing with land disputes in south-western Uganda, and their preference for the ‘‘rule oflaw.’’

60. Daley and Englert et al., ‘‘Afterword.’’61. Kelsall, ‘‘Going with the Grain.’’62. Adoko and Levine, ‘‘Falling.’’ See also Chopra, ‘‘Promoting Women’s Rights,’’ for a

comparative example from Kenya.63. LEMU, ‘‘Fighting the Wrong Battles?’’64. Ibid., 2.65. Ibid.



66. There is a vast literature on this based on colonial experience of recording customary law:see, for example, Chanock, ‘‘Making Customary Law’’; Ranger, ‘‘The Invention.’’

67. Kelsall, ‘‘Going with the Grain,’’ 648.68. For example, Rwanda, as discussed by Daley, Dore-Weeks and Umuhoza in this issue, and

see also below.69. See for example, Hanger and Moris, ‘‘Women,’’ on irrigated farming schemes in Kenya;

Bernal, ‘‘Losing Ground’’ on irrigated farming schemes in Sudan; Brain, ‘‘Less thanSecond-Class,’’ on Tanzanian village settlement schemes; and Davison ‘‘Without Land,’’on land registration in Kenya.

70. This is the case in parts of Southern Sudan. See also Flintan, ‘Siting at the Table’ on theBoran of Ethiopia.

71. Daley and Hobley, Land: Changing Contexts, 35; Cf. Whitehead and Tsikata, ‘‘PolicyDiscourses’’; Tsikata, ‘‘Securing Women’s Interests’’; Woodhouse, ‘‘African Enclosures,’’1718.

72. The World Bank’s current thinking is that ‘‘Changing the law can be difficult, andsometimes it takes years to win one small battle. Changing people’s attitudes toward a newlaw once it passes can also be difficult. Many examples exist of legal efforts that wereineffective in helping women gain rights to land . . . . At its best, legal reform is a necessaryprerequisite for change.’’ World Bank, FAO, and IFAD, Gender in Agriculture, 143. Wetake a less pessimistic view of law reform than this.

73. Boone, ‘‘Property and Constitutional Order,’’ has argued that land law reform cannot beseparated from debates about the nature of citizenship and political authority in Africa.This underlines the importance of constitutional provisions as the basis for securingwomen’s rights, on which statutory provisions can then be built. International conventionsalso play a role (such as CEDAW) as there is international moral pressure for states tosupport these, and thus scope for activists to push for their provisions to be transmitteddownwards into national legislation.

74. See: http://www.unifem.org/news_events/story_detail.php?StoryID�73675. See Daley, Dore-Weeks, and Umuhoza, ‘Ahead of the Game.’’76. Ibid.77. cf. Daley and Englert et al., ‘‘Afterword,’’ 174.78. Englert, ‘‘Changing Land Rights.’’79. Ibid., 87.80. Peters, ‘‘Our Daughters Inherit Our Land.’’81. ‘‘Gender’’ itself is conceptually problematic. We use it to refer to that aspect of social and

political identity which is constructed in some way from, and gives meaning to, anindividual’s biological sex and physical body. We define ‘‘women’’ as all those individualswho fall into the category of women as it is socially understood in any particular society orculture. We take gender relations to mean the socially constructed (and contestable)relations between people, based on the different social meanings attributed to biologicalsexes and different bodies. See MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified, and Moore, ‘‘TheDivisions Within,’’ from which we derive our position.

82. See Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, Chapter 9, especially 227.83. LEMU’s position is flawed in that it promotes inequity by supporting individualised land

rights and titling for ‘‘urban and educated women’’ but not for ‘‘the rural, the less educatedand those who see themselves as family and community members and not only asindividuals.’’ LEMU, ‘‘Fighting the Wrong Battles?,’’ 3.

84. This contrasts with the Tanzanian matrilineal case just discussed.85. Daley and Hobley, Land: Changing Contexts.86. Ikdahl, ‘‘Go Home,’’ 53.87. Ibid.88. Ibid.89. For example, see Adoko and Levine, ‘‘Falling’’ for Uganda; see Varley, ‘‘Gender,’’ for

problems with titling programmes in urban areas more generally.90. See Englert and Daley, eds., Women’s Land Rights, especially Okuro, ‘‘Struggling with In-

laws,’’133�5, and Daley, ‘‘Gender, Uenyeji,’’ 75�9, for some examples.91. Daley, ‘‘Gender, Uenyeji,’’ Daley and Englert et al., ‘‘Afterword.’’



92. cf. Daley and Englert et al., ‘‘Afterword,’’ 174.93. For example, see Pottier, ‘‘Land Reform’’; Burnet, ‘‘Gender Balance,’’ 379�80; and

compare with Daley, Dore-Weeks, and Umuhoza, ‘‘Ahead of the game.’’

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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240521197_'Liberalisation_of_the_Debates_on_Women's_Access_to_Land'?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-9aa24d5a-357b-4f9a-a385-1048bba1a29e&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIzMzA3MzI3OTtBUzoxMDIzMDY1MTk0NTM3MDNAMTQwMTQwMzE4MzYxNg==

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Documents

Securing land rights for women