Publication: Women's Access to Land in Kenya
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Date
2010-01
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2010-01
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This study strongly indicates the lack of access to land for women in Kenya's agricultural communities cannot be framed as a failing of formal or informal systems, but rather as issues with both. Even the creation of fused or hybrid mechanisms, such as the Land Control Boards (LCBs) and Land Disputes Tribunals (LDTs), has not increased access to justice. Underlying power dynamics and the use of such systems by self-serving individuals undercut gender equity efforts. The findings strongly suggest the key to increasing access to justice at both the community formal and informal levels is to address power dynamics and understand further how they operate to the detriment of women. This would be aided if concurrent formal reform addressed barriers such as overly complicated procedures and unrealistic costs which further prevent women from realizing their rights. With land issues currently receiving a significant amount of attention 2007-8 post-election violence, now is an opportune time to bring greater attention to the problems and issues regarding women's access to land in Kenya.
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“Harrington, Andrew. 2010. Women's Access to Land in Kenya. Justice for the Poor Briefing Note; Volume 4, Issue No. 1. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/10942 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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Publication Arguing traditions(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-01)Two major approaches on how to address women's land security can be identified: reforming the formal legal sector, and embracing informal community practices. However, through research conducted among Kenya's agricultural communities, the authors find that these systems formal, informal, or hybrid are underpinned (and undermined) by the same local power dynamics that control and ultimately prevent women from obtaining land, leaving all of these systems inadequate in ensuring women's access to land. Community leaders play a key role not only as local power brokers, decision makers, and protectors of local practices, but also as gatekeepers to the formal system. Thus, their decisions to support local power dynamics and limit access to the formal system essentially supporting traditions? in lieu of rights can effectively deny women access to their land rights. 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By working with existing positive values, the justice system used formal or informal becomes less important and a lasting, positive change on women's access to land rights might be achieved.Publication The Illusion of Inclusion : Women's Access to Rights in Northern Kenya(World Bank, Nairobi, 2008-12)This paper shows how official laws concerning justice for women, can be difficult to apply when they are not socially acknowledged, contextualized, or received, and therefore have minimal impact on women's lives. It demonstrates that the inclusion of women through international conventions, domestic legal reform, and gender quotas in participatory processes, is illusory. 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The report makes specific recommendations to address gender-related barriers in the context of ongoing government and donor initiatives to encourage private sector development as the key driver of poverty reduction and economic growth, in line with Kenya's Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and Employment Creation 2003-2007 (ERS). Addressing these constraints will not only allow women to make a full contribution to the economy but also improve their livelihoods and those of their families and help create a more enabling environment for all businesses in Kenya.Publication Land Tenure and Gender : Approaches and Challenges for Strengthening Rural Women's Land Rights(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014)Land tenure security is crucial for women's empowerment and a prerequisite for building secure and resilient communities. Tenure is affected by many and often contradictory sets of rules, laws, customs, traditions, and perceptions. For most rural women, land tenure is complicated, with access and ownership often layered with barriers present in their daily realities: discriminatory social dynamics and strata, unresponsive legal systems, lack of economic opportunities, and lack of voice in decision making. Yet most policy reform, land management, and development programs disregard these realities in their interventions, which ultimately increases land tenure insecurity for rural women. This paper seeks to further develop the evidence base for access to and control over land.Publication Expanding Women's Access to Land and Housing in Urban Areas(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014)Evidence is mounting that secure property rights have positive effects for poor people in general and women in particular. The aim of this report is to review what is known about women s access to and control over land and real property in urban settings, identifying approaches to strengthening property rights that enhance women s agency, and sharing key lessons. Section two synthesizes the evidence on urban women s priorities with respect to land and housing; the factors that influence women s access to and control over land and secure tenure, including legal and institutional frameworks and social relationships, especially within the family; and what is known about the extent to which women have access to, control over and use of urban land and housing, and through what forms of tenure. In section three, recent reform of laws, policies and practices to meet the needs of poor people in urban areas, especially women, will be assessed. Section four provides a short discussion of some of the strategies, tactics and alliances that are being adopted to bring about legal reforms and to influence the content, design and implementation of programs in urban areas. The report draws on successive research projects by the author and her colleagues on land and housing markets and policies, urban livelihoods, and urban politics and governance in a variety of contexts, in particular Rakodi (2010).
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