IGAD Endorse Regional Women’s Land Rights Agenda

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has today endorsed the Regional Women’s Land Rights Agenda in a bid to support the implementation of the AU Declaration on Land Issues and Challenges in Africa toward Africa We Want and Leaving No One Behind.

This is a culmination of the convention of the Ministerial meeting for the Ministers responsible for Land and Ministers responsible for Gender/Women Affairs in the IGAD member states, preceded by a Directors’ level meeting on July 26 and 27. To move the gender equality on land forward from a regional perspective, the Directors’ meeting will draw common threads from the National Women’s Land Rights Agenda for the seven (7) Member States and the recommendations from the IGAD Regional Women’s Land Rights Conference into the IGAD Region Women’s Land Rights Agenda.

The Regional Women’s Land Rights Agenda is a framework document that will enable the IGAD Secretariat to provide the necessary support to the Member States in implementing gender and land projects for the next 10 years.

Cabinet Secretary in the Ministry of Lands Farida Karoney said the AU Framework and Guidelines for land policy in Africa calls for individual member states to cooperate at regional levels to address land issues and challenges through comprehensive people-driven land policies and reforms in which women’s rights to land are ingrained.

“The Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning, in collaboration with IGAD, has held consultative meetings with key stakeholders to draw out Kenya Women’s Land Rights Agenda. Consensus building has been done on outstanding Women Land Rights challenges and prioritization of the key issues.”

 The IGAD Regional Women’s Land Rights Agenda is operational, enabling the implementation of Gender Equality programs on land by the IGAD Secretariat and its IGAD Member States; Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, South Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, and Ethiopia.

A Communiqué was issued at the closing of the ministerial meeting.

It should also be noted that IGAD on 28 – 30 June 2021 held its first-ever Regional Women’s Land Rights Conference that brought to bear the transnational and intergenerational connectedness of women’s rights to land. Statements of commitment were received from the highest representatives of Government in the Ministries responsible for Lands and the Ministries responsible for Gender/Women Affairs of each of the IGAD Member States.

The IGAD Land Governance Programme is supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Embassy of Sweden in Addis Ababa.

Background 

The AU Declaration on Land Issues and Challenges gives a mandate to IGAD to provide technical guidance to the member countries, monitor land sectors’ progress, and promote regional land policy harmonization and women’s land rights.  

The same Declaration gives a mandate to member states to promote land sector interventions that tackle underlying causes of tenure insecurity including securing and protecting all tenure rights, increasing transparency in land administration, and promoting equal access to land for all land users.

It is on this basis that IGAD, through the IGAD Land Unit has worked on progressively crafting a strategic framework for its operations. The starting point was to help Member states assess common and shared land tenure challenges.

For Gender Equality on land, the work commenced in 2020 with conducting gender assessments of the land sector in each of the IGAD Member States, with the aim of identification not only of issues for national attention but the transnational land governance issues and draw recommendations that strengthen regional integration through convergence.