July 21, 2025 – Addis Ababa is set to host a landmark event in the fight for land justice and gender equality in Africa. From July 22 to 23, 2025, a regional awareness workshop on gender-responsive land governance and women’s land rights will take place, an initiative led by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), in close collaboration with the National Land Coalition and other strategic partners.
This workshop is more than just an academic exchange. It represents a concrete mobilization at the intersection of human rights, climate resilience, and sustainable development. It builds on the broader initiative Gender-Responsive Land Governance in Africa, which aims to transform land systems to become more inclusive, equitable, and responsive to the realities faced by both rural and urban women. The COVID-19 pandemic starkly exposed—and worsened—gender-based land inequalities. Women, especially those involved in subsistence farming and the informal economy, faced reduced access to land, violations of their rights, and threats to their livelihoods. This health crisis highlighted a fundamental truth: women’s land rights are a crucial pillar of their resilience to economic, climatic, and health-related shocks.
This awareness fuels the ambition of the workshop: to equip policymakers, land institution officials, civil society organizations, and community leaders with practical tools to implement equitable national policies, enhance women’s land tenure security, and advance the African Union’s land agenda. The event will bring together a rich and diverse continental delegation, with confirmed participation from experts, public officials, representatives of land institutions, and female leaders from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya, Uganda, Guinea, as well as the Netherlands. This geographic and cultural diversity reflects the shared urgency and collective commitment to building land systems that leave no woman behind.
Over the course of two days, participants will be invited to present, discuss, and validate national assessment reports on progress in gender-responsive land governance, deepen their understanding of the guidelines on women’s land rights in Africa, share successful experiences, and build sustainable regional synergies. The aim is also to develop concrete roadmaps to strengthen gender equality in land governance.
This workshop comes at a strategic moment, as donors, policymakers, and environmental organizations seek cross-cutting approaches to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the African Union’s Agenda 2063. By making land systems more inclusive, this workshop contributes to building more resilient, equitable, and environmentally responsible African societies. The expectations are clear: this event must go beyond generating recommendations—it should lead to coordinated mobilization, renewed political commitments, and robust follow-up mechanisms. Organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), with active support from the National Land Coalition, this workshop stands as a major continental milestone in the promotion of women’s land rights. It underscores the reality that land governance cannot be effective or sustainable without the full inclusion of women at all levels of decision-making and implementation.
By kilalopress