What We Do


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What We Do

WOMEN’S LAND LINK AFRICA (WLLA) is concerned with control of land and housing for women at the grassroots. Linking a community development with a rights-based approach, this unique collaboration strengthens existing efforts around women’s housing and land at all levels.

The first and foremost function of the WLLA is to ensure that efforts by organizations and grassroots women around issues of housing and land rights are linked to and inform each other through engaging civil society actors working on themes related to women’s land, housing and property rights, to ensure broader dissemination of information; and stronger initiatives around housing and land rights advocacy and action. The WLLA operates on a partnership basis, building strong relationships with and between all those concerned with housing and land rights for women in Africa.

Activities of the WLLA are carried out by the WLLA partners. The activities that WLLA facilitates range from advocacy for law and policy reform and implementation, information gathering and dissemination, facilitating exchange on good strategies and lessons learned, up-scaling workable practices and the development of tools, all towards the realization of women’s equal rights to land, housing and property within Africa. 

 Activities of WLLA promote a variety of processes:

  1. They allow communities to uncover existing problems around women’s housing and land rights that may have not been previously discussed, for example, the practice of disinheritance;
  2. They allow for the development of community based initiatives to directly address such problems from a community perspective;
  3. They provide a platform on which to engage communities, leaders and other stakeholders in dialogue to seek sustained solutions to these problems.

WLLA links grassroots women’s organizations, NGOs, CBOs, academics, donors and governments offices, in a quest to strengthen efforts for women’s housing and land rights and to support localized development initiatives. 

MISSION STATEMENT OF THE WLLA:

Utilizing both a human rights and development based approach, Women’s Land Link Africa supports, strengthens and increases the visibility of women’s initiatives to have access to and control over land, housing and property, at all levels with particular emphasis on the community.

A major role of the WLLA is to link ongoing initiatives in a functional manner, to support stronger already existing initiatives related to law/policy reform and implementation, including initiatives and involvement by women at the grassroots level.

The WLLA supports grassroots groups to document the obstacles grassroots women face in realizing their housing and land rights, as well as work with grassroots women to map already existing strategies for securing tenure for themselves and their communities, fully aware of the fact that such strategies do exist and should be replicated.   This information is a basis of further functions of the WLLA.

The WLLA additionally contributes to coordinated and increased awareness raising efforts, and advocates for initiatives for law and policy reform and implementation on the national, regional and international scale. The WLLA contributes to the ongoing monitoring of the implementation of legal obligations of States.

The WLLA supports exchanges of grassroots and community women, particularly to share experiences, approaches and strategies for securing tenure and will support demonstration projects to highlight grassroots strategies for securing tenure of land, housing, and property.

News Headlines

Land Policy Reform: The role of Land Markets and Women’s Land Rights in Malawi -Noragric Report No. 36, Oct. 2006

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