| Land Tenure and Rural Livelihoods in Cameroon: Rethinking Women’s Access to Land Ownership |
| Paper ID : 1226-IGA |
| Authors |
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Glory Nkini Shey * Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts, Letters and Social Sciences, University of Yaoundé I, Cameroon |
| Abstract |
| Background and aim: In most agrarian economies like Cameroon, land remains the backbone and source of rural livelihoods. Although women constitute about 51% of the population in Cameroon, provide 70% of the agricultural workforce, they own just about 2% of land. This existing gap in ownership rights seems to widen the gap between agricultural productivity and rural livelihoods. And the gap is exacerbated partly as a result of Cameroon's gendered land tenure systems. This study explores how gendered land systems in Cameroon impede secured agricultural productivity, leading to household impoverishment and increasing food insecurity. The paper goes ahead to call for a rethink of these formal and informal land systems in order to ensure agricultural productivity and household welfare. Materials and methods: Theories of social representations and of gender and development were used in the qualitative research. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used to select participants. Case studies, direct observation, semi-structured interviews and life stories were used to gather useful information in Fako division. And the content analysis method was employed to interpret data. Results: Findings reveal the weight of land tenure systems, the capitalist scramble for peasant land and the weight of patriarchal mentalities as factors that widen the gap between agricultural productivity and rural livelihoods. It further reveal that, in spite of the implementation of strategies aimed at guaranteeing the transformation of households and communities by facilitating women's access to land, women continue to face persistent restriction to access land, thus, necessitating a rethink of existing land laws and traditional practices. Conclusion: As such, the transformation of rural livelihoods would require a contextual reconstruction of power dynamics by giving women and men the skills and resources to bring about the desired changes in communities. |
| Keywords |
| land ownership, women land right, land governance, agricultural productivity, rural livelihoods. |
| Status: Accepted |
