By Vera Shawiza
The Intergovernmental Authority on
Development (IGAD) endorsed the R
egional Women’s Land Rights Agenda in a
bid to support the implementation of
the AU Declaration on Land Issues and
Challenges in Africa toward The 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’. 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
prioritisation 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.
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
The AU Declaration on Land Issues and
Challenges gives 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 mandate to
member states to promote land sector
interventions that tackle underlying
causes of tenure insecurity including
through 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.
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