Women's Communal Land Rights: facing the climate crisis

This project explores the different dimensions of women’s right to communal lands in the context of the climate crisis in East and West Africa. It draws lessons from and scales up efforts to advance women’s right to land in 4 target countries: Kenya, Tanzania, Mali and Guinea. It is a collaborative action research action with different components: capacity building, participatory research, community dialogues, and action for social change.

From 2020-2023, this project focused on 5 key aspects: recognizing and protecting communal land ownership; ensuring women and youth participation in communal land governance; defending women’s right to own and inherit land; securing women’s individual and collective access to and control over the land; and eliminating gender-based violence.

Moving forward (2023-25), this project will explore the land, gender and climate nexus. It will look at the various impacts of climate change on women’s right to land and key responses by farmer and pastoralist organisations; and it will identify ways to support women’s participation in climate governance i.e. in climate mitigation and adaptation policies and projects at different levels.