The importance of agriculture to economic development in Africa and the critical role that rural women play within this sector cannot be overemphasised, especially in smallholder subsistence agriculture, which is critical to ensuring the food security of the continent. About 73 per cent of the rural population consists of smallholder farmers (IFAD, 1993:6). In Sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture accounts for approximately 21 per cent of the continent's GDP and women contribute 60-80 per cent of the labour used to produce food both for household consumption and for sale.[1] Estimates of women's contribution to the production of food crops range from 30 per cent in the Sudan to 80 per cent in the Congo, while their proportion of the economically active labour force in agriculture ranges from 48 per cent in Burkina Faso to 73 per cent in the Congo and 80 per cent in the traditional sector in Sudan.[2]

It is widely acknowledged that improved women’s access, control and ownership of land/natural and productive resources, are key factors in eradicating hunger and rural poverty. This has been restated in the framework of international commitments.[3] Land is critical for improving women’s, social security, livelihoods and their social status. Women face discrimination under both customary and formal systems as a result of culturally embedded discriminatory beliefs and practices, male control of inheritance systems, and the spread of HIV/AIDS, which further weakens land rights and livelihood options of widows and orphans.[4]

Securing land rights for women would dramatically alter the insecurity, disempowerment and abuse that are associated with poverty and inequality, and would create new fronts for rolling back HIV and AIDS. Thus, ensuring that women’s rights are comprehensively addresses in the on-going Africa Land Policy Framework and Guidelines discussed below is very critical.

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WOMEN’S RIGHTS CONCERNS

Structural adjustment and macro-economic stabilisation programmes have demanded reductions and/or the commercialisation of social services including health and education, leaving women to bear the burden of care. Agricultural liberalisation programmes, subsidy withdrawal and the closure of state marketing institutions have resulted in the collapse of smallholder livelihoods, forcing women to abandon food production for alternative livelihood strategies and, often, a hand-to-mouth existence.

Market-based land reform has repeated the mantra that investment – particularly foreign direct investment – is the means to financial growth. The experience of many communities who have leased out land to investors is that they lose the land as well as the common resources on it, for leases that might be for up to 50 years, with few overall benefits for the community. Women are not party to these negotiations and are not in a position to prevent land leases. Indigenous women’s land rights are constantly being undermined as a result of displacements and evictions, intrusion of other actors on their lands, and assimilationist policies. Dispossession of indigenous lands is frequently an extremely violent process, which has included crimes of rape, murder and torture of women as a means to subjugate indigenous populations.[5]

In Africa, rural women have less access to credit than rural men, which limits their ability to purchase seeds, fertilisers and other inputs needed to adopt new farming techniques. An FAO analysis of credit schemes in five African countries, where women predominate in food production (Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Zambia and Zimbabwe), found that women received less than 10 per cent of the credit directed at smallholders and just 1 per cent of the total credit directed to agriculture (Bullock, 1993, p.47). In addition, in all of the countries, rural populations generally have less access to credit than urban residents.[6]

Women are under-represented in decision making and therefore in the administration and management of land and other productive resources. Women are under-represented in decision-making organs for land administration at all levels. Thus their concerns are often not taken on board and they have limited influence over the policy-making processes.

Due to the conflicts on the continent, African peoples as a whole have been displaced from their land and this places all citizens land rights in jeopardy. Internally displaced women face multiple forms of displacement as when they return to what would have been their natal home they are not considered as belonging.

In sub-Saharan Africa, women now account for 61 per cent of people living with HIV, up from 57 per cent in 2003[7] and young women aged 15 to 24 are more than three times as likely to be infected than young men[8]. While hunger fuels the spread of HIV, the virus is equally a cause of hunger and poverty in households. The arguments for women’s land, livelihood and property rights to be part of the battle against HIV and AIDS are therefore multiple: Rights provide security and protection against violence and dispossession, allow women control over their sexuality and choices, meet basic needs such as food and shelter and provide women with an income and a home.

Discrimination against women in respect of their access to and control over land has dire and direct implications for the African peoples as a whole. Firstly it affects food security and undermines sustainable development. It has been noted that in Ghana for instance, limited security of tenure for women ‘is one of the obstacles to the introduction of soil conservation practices’.[9] Some studies have shown that if women farmers were given equal access to extension services their yields would increase by up to seven per cent and that if all women farmers were had primary schooling, yields would increase by 24 per cent.[10]

THE AU LAND POLICY AND LAND REFORM FRAMEWORK AND GUIDELINES: ANY PROMISE FOR AFRICAN WOMEN?

Governments have made numerous international commitments to promote and defend women’s rights, as well as recognising the importance of women’s rights in combating HIV and AIDS. However, these commitments are far from reflected in the ways in which resources are allocated and programmes are prioritised.

Drawing on, and benefiting from the wealth of information and the impetus from the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development Declaration (ICARRD) the African Union (AU), the African Development Bank (ADB) and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), launched an initiative aiming at the development of a Land Policy and Land Reform Framework and Guidelines for Africa in March 2006 that will be adopted by the AU Summit in Libya in July 2009.

It is envisaged that it will:
- Provide a basis for commitment by governments at the continental level to common actions at regional and national levels by putting in place sound land policies as a basis for sustained economic growth and poverty reduction;
- Establish guidelines and benchmarks for good practices of land policy and land reform and the performance of land institutions, as well as making land policies and the performance of land institutions subject to the African Peer Review Mechanism;
- Serve as a platform for gaining commitment of partners to a sustainable funding framework and capacity building.

To kick-start the process of developing of the Africa land policy and land reform framework and guidelines, the AU, ECA and ADB in collaboration with partners launched through a regional consultative workshop held in Addis Ababa, 27-29 March 2006. Regional assessments and consultative workshops have been held[11] allowing the critical challenges to be assessed and key issues to be addressed by national land policies and implementation process and also to provide valuable insights into commonality and diversity of situations among regions and countries.

In November 2008, in a meeting ‘Securing women’s access to and control over land in Africa through the Africa land policy framework and guidelines’ after the African Development Forum VI (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 21-22 November 2008) made recommendations to the task force on how to integrate women’s rights throughout the draft[12]. Their concerns and recommendations reiterated what African women have been demanding for a long time[13]:

- Governments should dismantle all discriminatory policies and legislation in line with regional and international commitments
- Women’s role in the agricultural sector must be given due recognition through affirmative action programmes specifically targeted at providing women with rural support services, increase tenure security and land rights
- Strict procedures and guidelines should be followed to ensure that land transfers do not deprive communities of common resources. They should be sensitive to gender differentiated land uses and fully protect women’s land rights
- Agrarian reforms must see rural communities – both women and men – as a key force for national development. They should provide for sustained and adequate levels of public investment in communities, aimed at creating a vibrant and prosperous small scale farming sector
- The role of women in sustaining rural life and agriculture must be acknowledged by asserting women’s land rights and building leadership of rural women in community and national decision-making
- Governments must support forums where rural women dialogue with each other and put forward proposals to policy makers
- Women’s representation in local decision-making structures in charge of land administration matters (village councils, committees etc) must be given priority in strengthening land administration systems. The necessary training must be provided to women office holders so that they are able to build strong political constituencies to defend and promote the interests of women peasants.

The Experts and Ministers of Land/Agriculture adopted the Draft Framework in April 2009 in Addis Ababa paving the way for its adoption by the AU Summit in July 2009. As things stand, some of the recommendations have been integrated in the draft. However, women’s rights need to be treated more comprehensively in each of the dimensions of the land question mentioned in the draft policy framework (state sovereignty over land, unequal distribution of land resources, duality of property systems, enhancing agricultural productivity, sustainable management of the environment, protecting the commons, impact of HIV/AIDS).

CONCLUSION

Women are the primary agriculturalists in Africa yet this is unacknowledged and they are not provided with training; nor can they own what they produce or access agricultural credit. What difference would it make for Africa’s future if this injustice were addressed? Women hold indigenous knowledge pertaining to biodiversity. This isn’t recognised so Africa cannot benefit from this knowledge. Imagine the opportunities that would be available to the continent if women’s indigenous knowledge was acknowledged as a resource. Isn’t it time we got rid of the claw backs – in what way are they benefiting us?[14]

Small scale farmers, largely women, must be at the centre of agricultural development in Africa taking in to account the fact that they are the major producers and in recognition of the fact that a majority of the African population lives in rural areas and are not directly dependent on the market economy. Investment must be made to smallholder farmers so that they have the capacity (tools and inputs) and skills (extension service) to develop their own knowledge systems oriented to more productive technologies.

To ensure that agricultural and wider economic development in Africa is pro-poor, it is necessary to ensure a viable future for family farming and reconcile existing land rights and the need for investment, through equitable frameworks for land access by both rich and poor men and women, and through strengthening market access, technical support, credit availability and farmers organisations.[15]

Will the African Union Summit delegates acknowledge and demand that the Land Policy and Land Reform Framework and Guidelines embraces these realities before they adopt it in Libya in July 2009?

* Mary Wandia is a feminist from Kenya with over ten years experience in women's rights at regional and international level. She is currently gender justice and governance lead
 for Oxfam GB’s Pan Africa programme. She writes here in a personal capacity.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

NOTES

[1] http://www.fao.org/docrep/X0250E/x0250e03.htm#TopOfPage
[2] http://www.fao.org/docrep/X0250E/x0250e03.htm#TopOfPage
[3] Including: Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948); Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979), Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995); International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1976); UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS; Declaration of Commitment (2001); Millennium Declaration (2000); FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Food (2004); World Food Summit and its Plan of Action (1996); the FAO’s 32nd Committee on Food Security in October (2006), The International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development-ICARRD- Declaration (2006) and the African Union’s Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (2003).
[4] FAO ‘Agrarian Reform, Land Policies and the Millennium Development Goals: FAO’s Interventions and Lessons Learned During the Past Decade’, ARC/06/INF/7 (2006)
[5] See ActionAid International Policy Brief, Women’s Land Rights, 2006
[6] http://www.fao.org/docrep/X0250E/x0250e04.htm#P760_80833
[7] UNAIDS, AIDS Epidemic Update, December 2007
[8] UNAIDS/UNFPA/UNIFEM, Women and HIV/AIDS: Confronting the Crisis, 2004
[9] E.B. Aryeetey, Behind the Norms: Women’s Access to Land in Ghana, The Dynamics of Resource Tenure in West Africa, eds. C.Toulmin, P.L. Delville and S. Traore, (London: IIED, GRET, Currey and Heinemann, 2002) as quoted in the Draft Land Policy Initiative: A Framework to Strengthen Land Rights, Enhance Productivity and Secure Livelihoods. Regional Assessment on Land Policy in West Africa
[10] See Agnes R. Quisumbing et al, Women: the Key to Food Security, Food Policy Report (Washington DC: The International Food Policy Research Institute, August 1995). In this report there are various studies cited illustrating the food security benefits out of enhancing women’s access to extension services and ensuring their land rights.
[11] Southern Africa (August 2007) Eastern Africa (January 2008), West Africa (April 2008) Central Africa (August 2008) and North Africa (November 2008)
[12] The meeting co-hosted by the African Development Bank (AfDB), African Union Commission (AUC) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in collaboration with the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF), Urgent Action Fund Africa and ActionAid International.
[13] See ActionAid International Policy Brief, Women’s Land Rights, 2006
[14] Atsango Chesoni -‘African Women’s Rights to Land, the Challenges and Commitments in International and Regional Policy Frameworks’ November 2008
[15] FAO ‘Agrarian Reform, Land Policies and the Millennium Development Goals: FAO’s Interventions and Lessons Learned During the Past Decade’, ARC/06/INF/7 (2006)