Granting 30 percent of arable land to Rural Women Farmers: Tanzania leads African Union’s mission
Tanzania, through the auspices of the East African Community will now lead the continental mission targeting to ensure that at least 30 percent of land in Sub-Saharan African Region is owned by rural women.
The Tanzanian Minister of Community Development, Gender, Women, and Special Groups, Dorothy Gwajima, has been nominated to lead the campaign to that effect during the just concluded Kilimanjaro Initiative Campaign’s ten years’ anniversary Assembly held in Arusha.
“I have been asked to be the matron of the African Rural Women Assembly and assist in the campaign for their land rights across Africa, but while accepting the honor, this needs to be done on a larger scale,” Minister Gwajima pointed out.
She asked the organizers, including Oxfam International and ActionAid Tanzania to write an official request to the East African Community (EAC) Secretariat in Arusha so that she, together with fellow ministers in the region could form a coalition for championing rural women land rights.
The African Union (AU) Special Technical Committee (STC) on Gender and Women’s Empowerment had set a target of ensuring that by 2025, at least 30 percent of arable land on the continent is owned by women farmers.
“But this has not yet been realized,” explained Naomi Shadrack Mwaiponya from Oxfam International in Nairobi, pointing out that only a small percentage of the goal has been attained so far.
On his part, the Country Director of ActionAid Tanzania, Bavon Christopher said the Kilimanjaro Initiative Campaign is working to safeguard rural women’s agricultural space from land grabbing and huge investments that never take into consideration the importance of farming and food security in Africa.
The Kilimanjaro Initiative Campaign was launched in 2016 through the Rural Women Assembly (RWA) and the Rural Women Farmers Forum (RWFF), with support from Oxfam International, ActionAid and other partners.
The 10th Year Anniversary of the campaign was held in Arusha, attracting women from over 22 countries who gathered in Tanzania to review the progress.
The idea originated from the collective determination of African rural women to claim equal rights to land and natural resources, addressing long-standing gender inequalities in ownership and governance.
Kilimanjaro initiative aimed to elevate women’s land rights from local struggles to continental policy dialogues with a long-term vision of transforming structural marginalization into collective empowerment, fostering political will, unity among rural women, and stronger institutional frameworks for gender equality in land governance.
Now, ten years later, the Kilimanjaro Initiative Campaign remains a continental milestone in advancing women’s land and resource rights. It has reshaped policy narratives, empowered women’s movements, and influenced institutional reforms across Africa.