This blog was originally posted on ILC Africa’s blog.

By Jane Njeri Mwangi, Partnership and Resource Mobilization Officer, ILC Africa

‘‘Land is not a mere commodity, but a crucial ingredient for the realization of many human rights.’’

This message runs deep at the core functioning of ILC Africa’s work and its commitment to promoting women’s land rights and steering the implementation of the Stand for Her Land (S4HL) campaign.

While its vision towards people-centred land governance remains paramount, ILC is conscious of the recurring gaps in securing women’s land rights, the deliberate exclusion and lethargy in sustaining the gender equality discourse. This calls for sustained efforts, innovative approaches and momentum to advocate and profile the campaign in national, regional, and global spaces.

In this regard, ILC Africa participated in the Landac Conference in Utrecht, Netherlands from the 3rd to the 5th of July 2024. The conference brought together various stakeholders from academia, land practitioners, civil society, and researchers to deliberate on the key conference themes. These sessions were hosted by the Stand for Her Land Campaign and co-organised by ILC Africa, Landesa, IDLO, GROOTS Kenya, UCOBAC, and UN-Habitat/GLTN.

The Plenary Session

The plenary session was titled: Women’s Land Rights as a Pathway to Social, Economic, and Climate Justice.

The plenary session was informed by the widespread recognition of the importance of land tenure rights in addressing the global challenges of climate change, gender inequality and unsustainable food systems. While remarkable progress has specifically been made in the context of key international frameworks such as the Beijing Platform for Action, the 2030 Agenda, the three Rio Conventions (UNFCCC, CBD and UNCCD) as well as the UN Decade on Family Farming, all of which acknowledge the critical role of land tenure security in the context of climate change solutions and food security. However, a huge challenge continues to persist as far as the implementation of these frameworks and commitments at the national and local levels is concerned. Although women bear the greatest brunt of the double crisis of climate change and land degradation, gender inequality in the control, access, use and ownership of land is yet a battle to be won. At the same time, while emerging climate solutions such as renewable energy have the potential to bring numerous benefits to Africa, they equally pose a risk to women’s land rights if a gender perspective is not taken into consideration.

This plenary session therefore aimed at engaging in a candid dialogue that addressed the following themes and objectives:

• To amplify collective efforts to advance secure women’s land rights on one hand and gender equality, climate action, food security, and just energy transition on the other hand.
• Highlight the progress made on the policy front in terms of recognizing the importance of women’s land rights in achieving gender equality, climate action, food security, and just energy transition.
• Address the challenges affecting women’s equitable access to land and property rights and examples of innovative approaches that contribute to addressing these challenges such as the S4HLC.
• Reiterating key policy recommendations on how women’s land rights can be best integrated/mainstreamed in the pursuit of gender equality, food security, and just energy transition.

This session was hosted by the Stand for Her Land Campaign and co-organised by ILC Africa, Landesa, IDLO, REN21, GROOTS Kenya, UCOBAC, and UN-Habitat/GLTN.

The Side Event

The side event was titled: What will it take to accelerate results in the advancement of women’s land rights in light of emerging global challenges?

1. To share knowledge, experiences, and lessons learnt among regional and global actors on women’s access to technology for advanced women’s economic justice and resource rights.
2. To promote multi-stakeholder engagement and approaches to leverage technology for women-led organizations to enhance digital transformation in their work to advance women’s rights in general.

During the side event, an ILC member and significant partner of the S4HL Campaign, the Uganda Community-Based Association for Women and Children’s Welfare (UCOBAC) through Frances Birungi, shared insights about the S4HL Campaign. A call to action to close the implementation gap on WLRs, financing the land sector building the capacity of land actors and promoting inclusive and gender-responsive climate action.

A representative from Senegal (CICODEV/S4HL), Ngone Ngom, shared case studies related to the campaign. She highlighted how women’s land rights are a major concern for sustainable development in Senegal. While noting the efforts made by Senegal in stabilizing its land governance system and creating the conditions for equal access by men and women to land resources, she highlighted that there is still considerable retrogression in women’s access to and control over land. She shared the various strategies they have embraced to address the issue such as knowledge generation for data production – capacity-building and training for women on texts, procedures for obtaining administrative titles, responses to climate change issues, food security, as well as advocacy at local (administrative, customary and religious authorities), national (parliamentarians, ministries, etc.), regional and international levels. She called for the need to take up the challenge of fair and inclusive land governance, as a journey towards sustainable development. She further called for movement building to build a critical mass of actors to address the issue of access and control by women who live off the land and for the land.

IDLO, a strategic partner through Nupur Prakash, also shared interesting perspectives on the theme by framing the issue. Jane Mwangi from ILC gave closing statements of the plenary.

The plenary discussions elicited thought-provoking insights that emphasized the need for women to proactively engage in demand for their land rights and participate in key decision-making processes, to solve environmental issues. This was more so, the essence of the Stand for Her Land Campaign. It was a common agreement that securing women’s land rights has a ripple effect on promoting food security, and biodiversity as well as promoting climate actions.

Key takeaways of the session included:

• Prioritising the women’s land rights agenda at national, regional and global levels including as key to guaranteeing women’s economic and human development.
• There is a need to integrate /mainstream women’s land rights in the pursuit of gender equality, food security and just energy transition.
• Support progressive economic and social norms, policies and practices that create opportunity and promote equality and rights for women and girls on ownership of land. This entails eliminating any discriminatory and social-cultural barriers that hinder women’s ownership or access to land.
• Enforcement of policies and legal frameworks implementation and agenda /plans supporting women’s land rights initiatives.
• Promote accountable, just and inclusive democracies governed by law in which rights are promoted and protected for women. Empower women politically to influence decisions and elimination of all gender injustices – fair and increased representation and meaningful participation of grassroots women in climate change and land governance and boards decision making organs at local, national, regional and global policy spaces.
• Grassroots /women equitably benefit from bilateral and multilateral climate change and
• Partnerships & collaboration for collective actions & impacts need to be enhanced as part of strategic advocacy.
• Rights-based approaches to protect women’s land and environment activists, including fostering their access to justice.
• The need to promote women’s land rights as a foundation for economic empowerment, climate resilience and gender justice.