"Women Get Shortchanged in Commercial Land Deals—Despite National Commitments to Gender Equality"

Kuluthum Mbwana remembers the day that biofuel investors arrived in her village Vilabwa, just 70 kilometers west of Tanzania's capital. In exchange for more than 8,000 hectares (19,800 acres) of land across 11 villages, including Vilabwa in Kisarawe District, she said they promised to bring much-needed jobs, schools and health clinics to her community...But after finalizing a land deal with the Tanzanian government in 2009, Mbwana said that British company Sun Biofuels abandoned its commitments to her and the rest of Vilabwa. Families who sold their farms to the company did not receive fair payments for their land. Wages from the new Sun Biofuels jobs were too low to offset the income villagers lost after selling their farms to the company. Apart from a shallow well, a dirt road and few portable classroom blackboards, Sun Biofuels failed to bring social services to Mbwana's village and nearby communities in Kisarawe District...

Unfortunately, stories like Mbwana's are common across Africa. As soil degradation, climate change and population growth place enormous strains on land that sustains millions of people, multinational companies are also gunning for large swaths of land. Caught between these pressures, many poor, rural communities get displaced or choose to sell their collectively held land. It's often women who suffer the most...

New research from WRI reveals that, despite constitutional commitments to gender equality, governments in Tanzania and Mozambique are not protecting poor, rural women from harmful commercial land deals. State officials' failure to close gaps in land laws and overhaul ineffective regulations shortchanges women, who receive little to no payment for their families' land. Governments' attempts to amplify their voices in community land decision-making are also falling short.