EVWA Council Policy Paper 1: Enhancing Access to Land For Women Smallholder Farmers

Policy Recommendations from the Elevating the Voices of
Women in Agriculture (EVWA) Council
Paper 1: Enhancing Access to Land for Women
Smallholder Farmers
Women produce approximately 70% of food in
African countries, despite gender gaps in
access to land, resources, and leadership that
reduce their average output per hectare.
Women are much less likely than men to own
the land they cultivate or have control over
what to plant, whether to purchase inputs and
what to do with their harvests. When women
have their own land outside of family plots, it is
on average of poorer quality than that
controlled by men. For example, women’s land
may have poorer soil or be located farther
away from their residence, markets, roads, and
storage infrastructure. Advancing equitable
access to land is crucial for women’s economic
and political empowerment: in many places,
land ownership is closely tied to influence in
the community and to social, cultural, and
religious practices.
Studies have shown that total agricultural
production and food security increase when
women have secure tenure over and are able
to invest in their land, and even that advancing
women’s rights to land reduces domestic
violence. Ownership of land further
encourages long-term investment, which is
critical for increasing income and building
resilience to climate change. As women’s
incomes increase, so does investment in
children’s education and health.
Women farmers’ access to land has been the
subject of many programs, studies and reports,
a selection of which is presented at the end of
this document. This Policy Brief does not seek
to summarize the findings of these previous
studies, provide a comprehensive overview of
measures and policies, or assess their
effectiveness. Rather, it briefly presents five
‘Seedlings’ – ideas, concepts, or insights –
derived from the discussions held within the
council that merit further exploration so as to
reframe discussions around women’s access to
land in a productive way. It is hoped that these
Seedlings will provide inspiration to
policymakers, development practitioners,
farmer representation groups, and smallholder
farmers.
Seedling 1: undertake genderresponsive
land registration
processes - ensure smallholder
farmers, particularly women,
receive land titles and genderdisaggregated
data is collected
Insecure land tenure forms a major barrier to
advancing the climate change resilience of
African smallholder farmers, as it discourages
long-term investment in soil and ecosystem
health and in agricultural infrastructure and
technology. In recent years, governments and
other actors have started using a wide array of
modern technologies to speed up and
democratize land registration processes,
including drones, mobile phones, and artificial
intelligence tools to map land boundaries, and
blockchain-based applications to register
ownership. These new tools are usually
combined with more traditional
methodologies for community consultation
and consensus building to ensure wide
support.
This accelerating movement towards the
formalization of land tenure creates two
opportunities for advancing women’s access to
land. If these opportunities are not grasped,
land registration processes are at risk of further
entrenching and formalizing gender gaps in
agriculture. The EVWA Council therefore calls
upon those designing these processes to do
the following:
1