Koné M.. Women and Land [En]

Analysis of women’s access to land in West Africa shows that they are central to agricultural development as land users, but rarely have the same access to this resource as men. They mainly have limited and temporary rights, although situations do vary.

Increasing efforts are being made to remedy this through legislative texts and various bodies and non-governmental organisations, but it is particularly difficult in a context of social change and when other social categories, including men, may be in precarious land situations. How can we hope to secure women’s rights if those of men are not secure?

This is one of the PEDAGOGIC FACTSHEETS to gain understanding, ask the right questions, and take action on land tenure issues in West Africa produced during the “Land Tenure Policy Elaboration Support” mobilizing project financed by the Agence Française de Développement. These short documents aims at assisting those involved in the development and the implementation of land policies in West Africa to better understand the complexity of land issues, and to evolve in their benchmarks, based on discussions and recent experiments. Production of these factsheets was coordinated by the Hub Rural, the Land Net West Africa, Agter, the GRAF, and Roppa with the support of the “Land Tenure and Development” Technical Committee.