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DEVELOPMENT: This Land Is Not Her Land

Jennifer Mascia

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 10 2005 (IPS) - In Western and Central Africa, a lack of land rights is plunging rural women into an endless cycle of poverty that, without fundamental and immediate reform, will continue unabated, warned participants at a major United Nations women’s conference Wednesday.

Sponsored by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the discussion echoed a familiar refrain at the 10-day conference to review progress on commitments made 10 years ago under the so-called Beijing Declaration, as the problems of the world’s poorest women in Central and Southern Asia, Africa and Latin America are rarely given adequate attention by the developed nations.

The IFAD meeting explored the roles of microfinancing programmes and greater inclusion of women in post-conflict governments as a means of achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.

The MDGs include a 50 percent reduction in poverty and hunger; universal primary education; reduction of child mortality by two-thirds; cutbacks in maternal mortality by three-quarters; the promotion of gender equality; and the reversal of the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

Panelists at the IFAD event outlined the plight of rural women and attempted to offer solutions to discriminatory inheritance practices that often disregard female ownership.

“Let us not forget the rural women,” Phrang Roy, assistant president of the External Affairs Department of IFAD, urged the panel.

When women are given access to land, he argued, a “quiet revolution” will ensue, as opposed to present practices which sideline more than half of the population in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

But securing a timetable for such reform was dependent upon the ability of IFAD representatives in the field and other humanitarian aid workers from NGOs like UNIFEM to penetrate longstanding traditions and customs which are often unreceptive to change, especially in Africa.

Rural women have become one of the poorest population groups in the world, owning only one percent of the world’s land while heading at least 25 percent of all households.

The situation has deteriorated as a result of internal conflicts, HIV/AIDS, male migration both within and outside the country, natural disasters, and the consequences of structural adjustment, according to an IFAD report.

New technologies need to be evaluated for their effects on women’s labour burden, incomes and well-being, the report goes on to say. Yet this is not done as often as needed.

Lucy Mulenkei, head of the Indigenous Information Network, described a situation in which “the chances of breaking out of property are almost nil.”

Without property, women are denied credit, she argued. Without credit, there can be no income-generating activities. Without resources, women are unable to send their children to school.

“Land is a spiritual heritage,” she said, adding that loss of land can preclude loss of language, culture and identity.

The problem also encompasses access to health care, education, technological advancements and security, the exposure to which is essential in order to bring about economic change in the region, Mulenkei said.

Panellist Anwarul K. Choudhury, U.N. Under Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLC), stressed female empowerment as “the key to many of the areas where progress needs to be made,” which can be achieved, he said, when women are given access to land and property and a role in decision-making processes.

As a general rule, the Latin American and Caribbean countries have been receptive to innovation and novel approaches to rural development, according to IFAD.

But tribal societies in Africa “often hide behind custom and religion when it suits them,” contends Isatou Njie-Saidy, vice president of the Gambia, who attended Wednesday’s panel. “It’s one thing to have laws,” she continued, “it’s another thing to implement them.”

The New York Times reported last month that inheritance laws in Malawi and Zambia leave African women destitute after their husbands die of AIDS. Tradition in sub-Saharan Africa dictates that the families of the male head of household collect all of his property in the event of his death, a situation that has proliferated because of the numerous widows created by the AIDS crisis.

“What laws provide, man does not necessarily will,” Chowdhury remarked, urging a change of mindset in these societies, which will consequently “marginalise extremist thought and action.”

One way to do this is to establish a dialogue with the traditional chiefs who dictate land ownership laws, creating a situation where customary laws supersede the legal process. Chowdhury encouraged the participation of civil society representatives to play an integral role in educating women about property and land rights.

But women on the ground often aren’t aware of Beijing or CEDAW, argued a representative from the field, referring to both the Beijing Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1979.

CEDAW has been ratified by 177 member nations of the U.N. and is considered a powerful tool in combating property discrimination.

One small victory that can be credited to CEDAW occurred in Tanzania, where a customary law was legally challenged. Thanks to the national ratification of CEDAW, the customary law did not hold up in court.

Mulenkei urged efforts to lobby for legal reform in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as intensifying efforts to provide women with access to credit, which can spawn development on both a personal and regional scale.

Women, she said, often have no idea of their property rights, making it necessary to provide legal aid at a grassroots level.

But enabling change in such societies is no small feat, admits Phrang Roy.

In an interview with IPS, Roy admitted that in an attempt to accomplish serious reform on this issue, mistakes had been made. In the Gambia, for instance, an ambitious land redistribution project failed to take into account the traditional customs of the region, backfiring painfully.

“It’s difficult to go at customary law with a bang,” he explained. “We have to understand where they come from,” with respect and appreciation for diversity. Taking a purely ideological position when it comes to reform, he said, will always fail.

“If we’d been more attentive” to local knowledge and tradition, Roy acknowledged, “it could have worked.”

Roy said that IFAD has learned from inroads made in Latin America, organising local women’s groups, which serve as an entry point into these societies.

Reform “has to be seen as an inside need,” something that is “evolutionary, not revolutionary,” he told IPS.