MS Zambia Newsletter April 2009

More land for women in Chipata

In Zambia, Chipata District Farmer’s Association has come up with a new and innovative way of ensuring equal and equitable access to land for women.

By Chipata District Farmer's Association

03. April 2009

Land is the most fundamental resource in any society as it is the basis for human survival. It is the space upon which all human activities take place, and it provides continued existence to all forms of life including forests, wildlife and fisheries as well as the much talked about minerals in Zambia today. The country, therefore, cannot be food secure without addressing the security of land tenure and land accessibility.

In his opening speech of the second session of the 10^th National assembly, the late president Dr. levy Patrick Mwanawasa, SC, clearly stated that one of the priorities of the government is to improve the land delivery system, because while the country has plenty of land, accessing the resource for development is very cumbersome and effective control is almost impossible. Many views have been put across by different sectors and stakeholders on the right land administration systems for the country. Many argue that a decentralized system of land administration will promote an equal and equitable access to land as a productive resource. However, this vision of an equal and equitable access to land is still far from being realized as vulnerable and marginalized citizens struggle to access and /or control this resource.

Land access and control has seemed elusive to many marginalized citizens in Chipata district, especially to female small scale farmers. Efforts to access and control land have been rendered unfruitful by factors such as cultural practices, poverty, not to mention the customary land tenure system , which gives traditional leaders all the control over land. This has so far been identified as the main hiccup in land access and control for women in rural areas, because most traditional leaders are unwilling to give land to women.

MS partner, Chipata District Farmer´s Association (CDFA), has gone an extra mile to ensure that rural women access and control land using innovative lobby ideas. The Association designed a project, which would empower rural women to produce traditional, highly nutritious crops on loaned land to feed orphans and women living in HIV/AIDS affected households. The traditional highly nutritious crops (cassava, garlic, bondwe & beans) have been proven to be useful in building the body’s immunity against disease and for general body growth, but many people in the communities either do not know these facts or are ignorant of the same. The message from this project to the world is…’we can sustainably produce crops to feed the vulnerable in the society if we have the land’. This is an especially important message to put across since traditionally, women do not own any land and are often chased from their matrimonial homes upon the unfortunate death of their husbands. To help the women deliver the message, drama performances and music were used. In one such meeting, village headmen joined in the singing & dancing in agreement to the project idea. The project is funded by the Egmont Trust of UK and supported by Voluntary Service Overseas [VSO]

The biggest success and change in this project, however, is the confirmation by a cross-section of the traditional leaders to give women in their areas access and control over land. During the community sensitization meetings for this project, traditional leaders in areas, where the project is being implemented, confirmed to CDFA that they would give land to the women. CDFA welcomed this move and continues to encourage other traditional leaders to do likewise. Women themselves are now exercising their right to land ownership by demanding it from the traditional leaders. The women have also formed strong women groups affiliated to CDFA to give their demands for equal & equitable land access a unified and amplified voice.