Women landlords rise to 20%, govt urged to accelerate ownership formalisation

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Olivia Nabirye, a farmer and housewife from Kangulumira sub-county in Kayunga district, said she has been buying plots of land with her children, but has not made an effort to acquire land titles.

“I only have agreements for my plots, and I have not taken it seriously to acquire land titles,” she says.

Nabirye is not any different from most women in Uganda, yet land in Uganda is a critical factor of production because our economy is agriculture-based. Agriculture employs over 80% of the population, contributes 60-70% to the total annual exports. Out of these numbers, women provide over 70% of the labour for agriculture.

Statistics from the lands ministry show that the percentage of women who own land formally in Uganda has only jumped to 20%, from 2% in 1995. However, the lands ministry says it is looking to accelerate efforts to achieve 40%-50% of women registered as landowners in the next five years. To realise such an ambitious target, the ministry has rallied development partners to commit more support to the Government.

“By the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women, women’s land registration in Uganda was at just 2% and in 2002 it moved to 7%. Today, the percentage of women on registered land stands at 20% for mailo, freeholds and leases. We are hoping that when we bring on board customary land countrywide, then we should be able to at least reach 40% by the year 2030,” lands ministry spokesperson Dennis Obbo says.

“This is Government’s target, following the Kilimanjaro declaration on women. All these contributions from partners are working to ensure that we reach at least 40%-50% of women registered as land owners.”

Obbo says they want women to stop registering as witnesses or as neighbours, but as landowners, because a witness can never be a landowner.

“The issue of women buying land and putting it in the names of their husbands, their brothers or their sons and not their own has to stop. Women should be convinced to register in their name,” he said.

For Nabirye, it had to take the intervention of Arise Integrated Development Effort (AIDE), a nonstate organisation, to realise the need to acquire a land title.

“After being trained by AIDE, I have realised the importance of formalising land ownership,” she said.

According to Nabirye, she has heard families being evicted by land grabbers in different sub-counties in the district, though it has not yet reached their area.

AIDE is working to empower women on land governance as a remedy to bottlenecks undermining women’s efforts to own land. In close collaboration with African Women Development Fund and the Government, AIDE is implementing a land governance project in Kayunga district, one of the hotspots of land conflicts in the country. Their campaign in Kayunga district has targeted 500 rural women in five sub-counties of Bbaale, Kayonza, Busana, Kayunga and Kangulimira, with the principal objective of achieving a woman-centred land governance of at least 45% representation on area land management committees.

According to Kayunga sub-county LC3 chairperson Joshua Kampi Ssentongo, the land conflicts and evictions in his area were being fuelled by a lack of awareness.

“Fortune seekers had created enmity between landlords and tenants (bibanja owners) through cheap popularity, instead of fostering agreement. With the help of AIDE, we have sensitised people, including women. People now know how to distinguish between fraudsters and genuine land owners,” he said.

Lillian Nabatanzi Nsubuga, the chief executive officer at AIDE, advocates for affirmative government action to increase the representation of women on area land committees and boards to 45%. She argued that if this is achieved, it will be a key milestone in purging the prevalent land insecurity faced by women in Uganda.

"Land governance comes with a lot of other things attached, such as marriage, inheritance, which demand sustained efforts,” Nansubuga said, asking the lands minister, Judith Nabakooba, to ensure the reduction of the land surveying fees.

“The high surveying fees affect the women’s ability to formalise land ownership. Therefore, we have asked the lands minister, Judith Nabakooba, to ensure the reduction in land surveying fees to make it affordable for them to process titles,” Nansubuga said.

Nsubuga said empowering women to own land promotes equitable development.