NATION LEADERSHIP FORUM IN AFRICA

Women's rights are human rights

KAMPALA — In many countries in Africa, women face legal and cultural barriers that prevent them from enjoying equal rights to land. This has major implications for their livelihoods, security, and their status within their homes and communities. Changes are needed to ensure that women have uninhibited access to land and the power to make their own decisions about land use. Such changes are foundational for fostering human rights and democracy in Africa.

Last week, Stand for Her Land partnered with Nation Media Group to host the Nation Leadership Forum in Kampala, Uganda. The televised event brought together representatives from government, civil society, and grassroots women to discuss issues of land governance, gender equality, and how women are organizing to break down barriers to land rights in Uganda and across Africa.

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Landesa’s Chris Jochnick and Shipra Deo on building resilience

In partnership with Devex and Hilton Foundation, Chris Jochnick and Shipra Deo discuss how humanitarian organizations can build resilience to address the crises that will emerge in the next years and decades:

“When local communities are involved in the planning process, they take ownership, and the designed program ultimately falls in alignment with their interests, and that also ensures the sustainability of any intervention,” Deo said.

Jochnick noted there is still an important role to play for INGOs from the global north in humanitarian work, but that “we have to approach that role with more humility and with more of an appreciation for the long term needs of strong local actors.”

Watch the video and read the full article on Devex.

Land-based investment in Tanzania

How simplified legal guides are empowering communities

Over the last 20 years in Tanzania, an increasing number of foreign investors have been leasing land for agriculture, tourism, and forest plantations. But to date, too few land-based investments have generated significant incomes for rural communities, threatening the land tenure rights of affected communities and leading to an escalation of land-based conflicts, especially over disputed claims.

Much is due to the fact that rural communities have limited capacity to engage in land-based investment deals. Combined with ineffective community engagement and a lack of transparency on the part of investors and responsible government authorities, it has meant that contracts are often signed without the communities being aware of their rights or the implications of the terms agreed.

What can be done to improve the situation? Over the last five years, Landesa has worked with the Tanzania Land Alliance (TALA) and the Tanzania Natural Resource Forum (TNRF) on a National Engagement Strategy to monitor land-based investment in Tanzania and promote people-centred land governance.

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Landesa in the news

Photo by Phill Magakoe/AFP via Getty Images

In advance of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification's fifteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (UNCCD COP15), Landesa and UNCCD released a new paper on responsible land governance for combatting desertification, land degradation, and drought.

The paper offers options on how to increase awareness of land tenure and responsible land governance to catalyze action towards land degradation neutrality. The paper utilizes a gender equitable and socially inclusive approach to raising awareness, centering the equitable representation and leadership of vulnerable groups, including women, Indigenous Peoples and local communities, youth, pastoralists, migrants, and persons with disabilities, in these efforts.

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