This webinar summarized lessons from implementing locally-negotiated solutions to increase women's participation in local land decision-making processes in Ghana, Tanzania, and Senegal. Presenters from each country discussed their approaches: in Tanzania, supporting adoption of gender-sensitive village by-laws; in Ghana, strengthening community land committees and developing tenancy agreements; and in Senegal, including women on land commissions. Key lessons included the importance of inclusive, consensus-building processes and addressing both legal and social barriers to strengthen women's voices in land governance.

1. DOCUMENT TITLE 1
[Name]
[Date]
In this webinar, we distil lessons from implementing locally-negotiated solutions to increase women’s
participation in local level decision-making processes on land in Ghana, Tanzania and Senegal.
Mary Richard, Head of programs, Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (TAWLA):
Supporting the adoption of gender sensitive village by-laws in Tanzania
Fati Alhassan, Grassroot Sisterhood Foundation, Ghana:
Strengthening Women’s Voices in Land Governance through Community Land Development Committees
(CLDCs) and Tenancy Agreements in Ghana
Mamadou Fall, Director, IED Afrique, Senegal
Including Women on Land Commissions: The Senegal experience
IIED webinar, Tuesday 30th April 2019, 11:30am – 12:45pm (BST)
Local solutions to strengthen women’s voices in land governance
Philippine Sutz, Senior researcher, Legal tools team, Natural Resources group, IIED:
Introduction, key lessons and closing remarks
Simon Anderson, Senior fellow, Strategy and Learning, IIED
Question and answer session moderation

2. DOCUMENT TITLE 2
Lessons from Ghana, Senegal and Tanzania
Webinar, 30 April 2019
Introduction by Philippine Sutz, Senior researcher,
Legal tools team, IIED
Local Solutions to Strengthen
Women’s Voices in Land Governance

3. DOCUMENT TITLE 3
The issue: women and land in
Sub-Saharan Africa
• Rural women have fragile access and control over
land
• Indirect access through a male relative
• This is despite adoption of laws and policies promoting gender equality and
women’s land rights
• Aggravated by commercial pressures on land, urbanisation, population growth,
climate change
• Land governance and land allocation processes
remain dominated by men

4. DOCUMENT TITLE 4
The project
• Goal: to strengthen women’s voices in land
governance across East and West Africa
• Activities included developing, testing and
or/upscaling approaches to enhance women’s
participation in local land governance in Ghana,
Senegal and Tanzania

5. DOCUMENT TITLE 5
In-country work with local partners
• Tanzania: supporting the adoption of
gender-sensitive village by-laws
• Partner: The Tanzania Women’s Lawyers Association
• Ghana: Strengthening gender-sensitive Community
Land Development Committees (CLDCs)
• Partners: NETRIGHT and the Grassroot Sisterhood Foundation (GSF)
• Senegal: Including women on Land Commissions
• Partner: IED Afrique

6. SUPPORTING THE ADOPTION OF GENDER SENSITIVE VILLAGE BY-LAWS
in TANZANIA
Mary Richard, Tanzania Women’s Lawyers Association
Head of Programs

7. ABOUT TAWLA
• Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (TAWLA) is
an Association founded in 1989 and officially
registered in 1990 under the Societies Act (Cap
337 R.E 2002).
• The aims and objectives of the organization is; to
advocate for gender equality, promotion of
human dignity and gender justice through policy,
legal and institutional reforms, community action
and media engagement.

8. LEGAL FRAMEWORK ON WOMEN’S ACCESS TO LAND AND OWNERSHIP AND
PARTICIPATION IN LAND GOVERNANCE
• Tanzania has adopted a very progressive legal framework and women
are legally entitled to access land directly however in practice women
continue to primarily gain access to land through a male relative
• The legal framework also promotes women’s participation in Village
Governance
• However, there is an important gap between the laws and practice in
realizing gender equality in matters related to women access to and
ownership of land.

9. TAWLA/IIED ENGAGEMENT IN KISARAWE
• TAWLA has been implementing an initiative to
strengthen women’s voices in local land
governance by supporting the adoption of
gender-sensitive by-laws
• Worked in 70 villages in Kisarawe District
• Worked in 75 villages across 5 other districts
(Kilombero, Ulanga, Magu, Muheza and
Arumemeru)

10. Adopting gender-sensitive village by-laws to strengthen women’s voices in local
governance and bridge the existing gap between the land and practice
• TAWLA proposed the use of local by-laws as one of
the local solution in addressing the existed gaps.
• By-laws are regulations established by an
organization or community to regulate itself, as
allowed or provided for by high authority.
• In Tanzania, the enactment of village by-laws is
provided for by the Local Government (District
Authorities) Act, 1982 R.E. 2002 Section 163 which
allows the village council to adopt by-laws for the
purpose of the better development and fostering of
the system of local government;

11. CONT….
• Also the Land Act, 199 under Section 65 (2) provides for an avenue
whereby the Village Council may make by-laws in line with the
provisions of the Local Government District Authorities Act, 1982
RE:2002

12. TAWLA’s APPROACH
• Supporting villages to adopt gender-sensitive village by-laws
• TAWLA has developed model by-laws to support the process
• Work started in 4 villages in Kisarawe (supported by WRI)

13. CONTENT OF THE BY-LAWS
• Women shall constitute at least one
third of the Village Assembly quorum
for ordinary meetings, and one fourth
of the quorum for extraordinary
meetings.
• Women shall constitute at least one
third of the members of the Village
Council.
• The quorum for Village Council
meetings shall be: fifteen where there
are twenty or more members; and ten
where there are less than twenty
members.
• Whatever the required quorum for
Village Council meetings is, women
shall be not be less than one third of
those present.

14. METHODOLOGY USED IN
FACILITATING ENACTMENT OF
BYLAWS
• The methodology used applied the following principles:
I. Active involvement of all community members to enable local
ownership of the adoption process
II. Promotion of community dialogue on women’s access to land and
participation in land governance .

15. ADOPTION PROCESS
Informational session with Village Council members
to introduce benefits of by laws to them and earn
their by in.
Conversation with representatives of various
community groups, including women, who provides
first round of amendments based on the village
activities/ needs/ context
Village Assembly meeting to internalize and adopt the
by- laws (that’s when the awareness session is
organized, before introduction of the by-laws) the by-
laws are then presented to community by village leaders.
They discuss and debate on each provision and adopt
the draft by-laws as it is or with amendments
The adopted bylaws are approved by the District
Council and are ready for implementation

16. OUTCOMES & IMPACTS:
• A total number of 70 villages in the Kisarawe district
successfully adopted gender-sensitive by laws.
• With the support of other development Partners :We
Effect, Foundation for Civil Society and anonymous
partners we have facilitated other 75 villages in five
district to enact by-laws.
• Women are more present and vocal in the community
meetings - at the beginning of the initiative, women rarely
spoke during meetings and would generally sit separately
from men. After the intervention from TAWLA, it was
observed that women are now airing their voices in
decision making bodies and during the
meetings/gathering they mix up with men.

17. CONT……….
• Women and men have demonstrated an increased
knowledge and understanding of land governance – This
was cemented by the ward executive officer of Marumbo
village during an interview that the community
conversations conducted in the process to adopt bylaws
played a major role in equipping them with such
knowledge.
• Women participate more regularly and more effectively in
the Village Council meetings and village Assembly.
(Feedback during the follow-up visits to monitor the
implementation of the bylaws)
• Village assembly meet more regularly to discuss land
issues
• Women have been allocated land by the village
government as individual owners

18. CONT…
• Community members recognise the added value of women’s
participation in land and village governance.

19. WHAT MADE THE APPROACH SUCCESSFUL:
• Constant/regular engagement and consultation with the local communities in
the process of enacting the bylaws create sense of ownership of the by-laws, this
ensure sustainability as well.
• A good working relation and collaboration with district council and local leaders
also made the approach successful .

20. THANK YOU
By: Mary Richard
Head of Programs
TAWLA

21. Strengthening Women’s Voices in Land
Governance through
Community Land Development Committees
(CLDCs) and Tenancy Agreements in Ghana
Presented by:
Fati Alhassan
Executive Director
Grassroots Sisterhood Foundation
Webinar -30 April 2019

22. Introduction
The discrimination women suffer regarding their participation in land
governance has over time become the norm rather the exception. An
initiative to reverse this phenomenon in the Nanton traditional area of the
Northern Region of Ghana began in nine communities of the Nanton
traditional area and it was dubbed the Community Land Development
Committee (CLDC). It was established in 2013 as an exit plan to continue
the conversations regarding women’s land right and security of land
tenure to ensure livelihood and food security
Several consultations, engagements and dialogues with and among
traditional authority, women and youth groups as well as opinion leaders
saw the launch of the CLDC in the nine communities of the Paramount
area. The CLDC comprises representatives of women and women farmer
groups, the youth, traditional authority or their representatives, opinion
leaders and other minority groups such as persons with disability. CLDC
members are elected, or nominated by their groups. It is mandatory for
any CLDC to have 30% women representation with the Community
Women’s Leader being a permanent member.

23. The primary function of CLDCs was to ensure equitable distribution of land,
serve as a link between community leadership on land issues and sensitize
the groups they represent on issues of land governance and management
to ensure that the present generation particularly women, youth and those
socially excluded are involved and their voices heard in issues of land
governance and administration.
The CLDCs had an ultimate objective of ensuring indigenes particularly
women are also provided with lands or have enhanced security of tenure
for both agricultural and residential purposes. (The CLDC is however not a
land allocation or distribution tool).
Introduction (cont.)

24. This culminated in the development of the tenancy agreement template
to safeguard women’s initial verbal agreements which were often
dishonoured by the land owners and trustees due to greed and
commercialization of lands in the phase of the large scale land based
investments and land grabs.
The tenancy agreements have been widely discussed and series of
community dialogues have resulted in both community chiefs and land
sector actors and women farmers welcome the idea and resolved to use it
to secure land tenure for women and the marginalised in the
communities. The template is yet to be endorsed by the traditional
leaders at the paramount to enable of the use of the template and
subsequent replication in the whole of the Dagbon and other traditional
areas.
Introduction (cont.)

25. Approaches
RESEARCH
Baseline studies, case studies,
review of existing Tenancies,
mapped stakeholders in the land
Sector and developed a gender
responsive tenancy agreement
template
CAPACITY BUILDING
Training CLDC and rural women
farmers on Women's Land Rights
land also development of CLDC
action plan
CONSULTATIVE MEETINGS
Engagement with various women
farmer groups, traditional authority
at community, divisional and
paramount levels and a regional
stakeholders meeting, land sector
actors, youth and opinion leaders.
MEDIA
Press Conference
Radio Talk show

26. • Empowering women improves inclusion as they demand and
claim their spaces.
Women in the project area have become emboldened through the various
dialogues that they have been included in and the capacity strengthening they
were taken through understanding their contributions to upholding the rights
as community women . The training exposed them to the understanding of
their rights to land and they have since defended and maintained such rights.
• Partnerships and Collaborations enhances consensus building
Partnering men at the CLDC level advances gender equality as they
complement each others efforts at ensuring fairness and justice in land
governance. This also enables the identification of male champions to lead the
cause of women’s land rights and security of land tenure.
Key lessons

27. • Tenancy agreement will ensure security of tenure and
increase food and incomes security.
Verbal land agreements for agricultural purposes are often dishonoured
and women farmers left with from loans from local lending organization .
A tenancy will bring sanity to land tenure security and will allow to invest
in agriculture for greater yields that will to large extend improve food and
income security
• The diversity of traditional land governance provides space
for various options to replicate.
To replicate the CLDC , it is important to understand the context of tenure
security practices of the people of the area to enable appropriate
strategies that will lead to consensus building and the acceptance and
endorsement of the tool.
Key lessons (cont.)

28. • Taking ownership of processes.
Taking ownership of the reactivation of the CLDC is empowering especially
among women as they identify their own handicaps and proffer their own
collective solution.
• Bottom Up Approach
Building the capacity and continuously creating awareness and sensitizing
members of the community on land strengthens women’s participation and
inclusion in decision making.
• Dialogues, Consultations
It is important to engage various actors and build consensus on land issues
and promote gender inclusion.
Key lessons (cont.)

29. • Identifying champions on Women’s Land Rights
To sustain the synergy built so far, chiefs and traditional authority who
empathized with women’s rights were identified and engaged to be the
rallying point for inclusion of women in land governance as they are the
custodians of the traditional practices
• Media is a great tool in advancing inclusion in land
governance
The media will not only serve as a tool for the dissemination of the
activities and plausible impact of the CLDC on women's inclusion in land
governance but also serve as the space where people can debate the
positive impact of inclusion and build a platform of people outside the
implementation area to support the call for inclusion in land governance.
Key lessons (cont.)

30. In conclusion, the approaches to the implementation of the
project brought up challenges, most of which were patriarchal,
but the CLDCs and GSF turned these into actionable points
bearing in mind that the challenges strengthen women’s resolve
to be agents of change and in the process have come along with
their whole communities to ensure women are on the same
table with their male counterparts, designing the change they
want to see.
It is our hope that the momentum will be maintained to build
consensus and advance inclusion in land governance.
Conclusion

31. Thank you for your time

32. Including Women on Land Commissions:
The Senegal experience
Mamadou Fall,
IED Director
Afrique,
Senegal
www.iedafrique.org/

33. DOCUMENT TITLE 33
Concluding remarks by Philippine Sutz, Senior
researcher, Legal tools team, IIED
Key lessons

34. DOCUMENT TITLE 34
• All approaches built on existing governance arrangements;
• Process is key: not just the ‘What’ but the ‘How’
• Processes were inclusive – they benefitted all community members
(not just women)
• Impacts of strengthening women’s participation in land allocation
processes is wider than land
• Strengthening W’s participation in LG: one fundamental component
of a broader picture. It increases likeliness of women’s accessing
land formally when LTR processes take place ( mapping and
demarcation, land use planning, certification…)
Key lessons

35. DOCUMENT TITLE 35
Question and answer session with webinar presenters and participants
Mary Richard, Head of programs, Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (TAWLA)
Fati Alhassan, Grassroot Sisterhood Foundation, Ghana
Mamadou Fall, Director, IED Afrique, Senegal
IIED webinar, Tuesday 30th April 2019, 11:30am – 12:45pm (BST)
Local solutions to strengthen women’s voices in land governance
Philippine Sutz, Senior researcher, Legal tools team, Natural Resources group, IIED
Simon Anderson, Senior fellow, Strategy and Learning, IIED
Question and answer session moderation

36. DOCUMENT TITLE 36
[Name]
[Date]
In this webinar, we distil lessons from implementing locally-negotiated solutions to increase women’s participation in local
level decision-making processes on land in Ghana, Tanzania and Senegal.
IIED webinar, Tuesday 30th April 2019, 11:30am – 12:45pm (BST)
Local solutions to strengthen women’s voices in land governance
To find out more about our work on gender, land and accountability in East and West Africa, visit:
www.iied.org/gender-land-accountability-context-agricultural-other-natural-
resource-investments
and
www.iied.org/strengthening-womens-voices-land-decisions-what-works
More information…
Mary Richard,
Head of programs,
Tanzania Women
Lawyers Association
(TAWLA)
Fati Alhassan,
Grassroot
Sisterhood
Foundation,
Ghana
Mamadou Fall,
Director,
IED Afrique,
Senegal