
‘Women’s access to land key for development’
The Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Ms Barbara Serwaa Asamoah, has underscored the relevance of women’s access to land in national development, describing it as fundamental to women’s economic empowerment and sustainable livelihoods.
At a national policy dialogue on gender equity in land governance in Accra on Tuesday, she said there was the need to safeguard women’s access to land rights without compromise.
The two-day workshop, which brought together 50 participants from the public sector, traditional leaders and civil society organisations (CSO), was to build consensus among key stakeholders on the most effective strategies to promote gender equity in land governance in the country.
It was organised by the Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT) and the International Institute for Environment and Development.
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Women’s land rights
According to the minister, the government, realising the importance of women’s land rights, had taken steps to mainstream gender equity in the Land Administration Project (LAP) instituted in 2003 to deal with challenges in land administration.
She added that through the LAP, the sector ministry was incorporating gender and women’s land right issues in a new draft land bill in the offing to protect the interest of women and the vulnerable in society, in relation to land administration.
Ms Asamoah said stakeholders were still collecting proposals to finalise the drafting of the bill, and, therefore, called on all stakeholders to get involved in the process.
Land speculation
The minister advised traditional leaders to use their lands for equity investment instead of outright sale to investors, to help address some of the problems associated with land administration.
She said the ministry had identified the outright sale of land to be a major cause of land speculation in the country, which involved the process whereby investors with sufficient capital for such investment bought lands cheaply in large quantities and withheld them from the market, until rising prices led to increased profits.
Ms Asamoah said the increase in land speculation had resulted in the high prices and scarcity of land with its related problems, despite its high demand for national and individual development.
Customary ownership accounts for 90 per cent of the land ownership in the country.
Disparity in land rights
In her opening remarks, the Convener for NETRIGHT, Ms Pauline Vande-Pallen, said land was an important economic resource that was central to sustainable livelihoods, particularly for rural dwellers.
“It is a crucial source of poverty reduction, food security and rural development. However, men and women do not enjoy the same rights to land in Ghana,” she said.
Ms Vande-Pallen said discriminatory attitudes and practices severely undermined the rights of women to land, pointing out that being denied the right to land access made women more vulnerable and almost entirely dependent on men to access land for their basic economic survival.
Officials from the Lands Commission, the administrators of the Land Administration Project (LAP) and the Civil Society Coalition on Land (CICOL) made respective presentations on what the three entities were doing to advance women’s rights in land management.
Writer’s email doreen.andoh@graphic.com.gh