 We're now going to have a bit of a Q&A session and I'm going to hand over to Simon who is going to facilitate that. I'm going to just ask a couple of questions that I would like each of the presenters to consider. Firstly, I was fascinated by this mention from the presentation by Fatih Fongana of the fact that I was said that there was a diversity of traditional land governments that this diversity provides options for what could be a replication of improvements in land governments in terms of women's access and particularly gender equality and the way the decisions were made. From my understanding of that, if there is a diversity of models in traditional land governments already operating perhaps there's the possibility to identify which of those then are better for enabling better gender equality and also enabling women's rights. So perhaps if Fatih could explain exactly what the diversity of traditional land governments, how that is expressed and how we see that and also what kind of options that provides that would be very interesting. The other question I had is around changing customary practices and in your experience how do societies react to groups of women seeking to change those customary practices? And do the women's groups that you're working with, do they have to negotiate the right to be able to propose those changes to customary practices? Perhaps if we could start with Fatih and then go to Mary and then to Mamadou. All right. Thank you very much and I want to say well done to all the presenters as well Mary and Mamadou. To the first question about the diversity of land laws relating to land governance in Ghana. In Ghana we have two types of customary practices given in the land governance. We have the matrilineal and we have got the patrilineal. In the parts that I work in in northern Ghana we have patrilineal inheritance and so most of the issues is always surrounding all the men. In southern Ghana and particularly not in almost all of them but most of the practices are matrilineal, especially in the Ashanti Kingdom. In the eastern region of Ghana they practice the matrilineal system and other parts like the Volta region of Ghana they practice the patrilineal system. And so we have got even these systems within the customary practice that affects women one way or the other. And I'm seeing the diversity of these practices could be an entry point for all of us. Because if you are going to in a way replicate what the work that we have done in northern region we are within the patrilineal system. And so if you are coming into southern Ghana to undertake such or to replicate the model of the CLDC you will have to understand the customs and the traditions and the practices of the people within the area to be able to implement. Even though you could be running into trouble with the communities because they have different practices that we have the same issues when it comes to women's land rights and women in land governance. Even in the national house of chiefs the women our women chiefs who are part of our traditional system don't even have much say at the national house of chiefs. There's a lot of work that is ongoing currently by gender advocates or women women's rights advocates to get the women get them seats, get them voices within the traditional council that the national house of chiefs. It's a little difficult. That is because the systems that rule most of these things are quite diverse. And so when you are trying to bring all these things together, there's a lot of work that you have to do, a lot of consultations that you need to do to bring people to the table to understand the need for women to be in these spaces. Now, on the on changing the customary practices and how we seek to change this, we will be able to change this through advocacy. Now, customs and traditions are not static. They change. And so you use the best practices in other places. Use it as an example in the area that you want to seek the change from or the change in and then you get them to understand. For instance, when I was going to do the model Tennessee agreement, it was very difficult to get even the women who had learned from their husbands to say, okay, I'm going to enter into a Tennessee agreement with my husband. Even if it is a gift, he has to write it in the agreement that it is a gift that is given to me that I can use forever. But then we have to use other systems that are other practices within the certain sector to show to them that even men do seed land to their wives and it is documented and so documenting a piece of land and seeding it to your wife is not a myth. It's not a mystery. It's not something that will make you less manly. And so with all these discussions on the table, the men sometimes they try to understand if I understand and changes are taking place. When we started this program, like Mary said, women don't even enter the cheese palace, except on rare occasions. But then when we started, when the program started going on, we started talking to them and we told them there was need for women to be around the table for discussion. Women could even call for a meeting in the cheese palace. So these are some of the changes and we hope that if these discussions continue, we are likely to change all these negative practices that affects women and whether women need to negotiate their rights. It depends on the level of the woman's understanding of her own rights. The fear is that some people might not even understand the premise of their own right and could begin an advocacy that could backfire on them. It is very, very important for us to continue with the education, sensitizing, creating awareness in our communities on women's rights generally. And then we condense zero, it's down to land governance and ensuring that women also got themselves involved in the decisions around land. Thank you very much. Mary, would you like to respond to either or both of those two questions? Really, I think party have responded quite well, but I think I would like to say in bridging the gap between the law and practice in order to realize gender equality, especially in issues related to land governance and village or local communities governance in general. We should facilitate development of local solutions which will enable the local community to do away with the challenges related to gender inequality. We should also understand that communities are not homogeneous. That means the case we should work in each community in a way and propose a facilitated development of tools or solutions which will fit in their context. And we should also facilitate consultations and dialogues or sustainability of any developed tools or solutions to enhance women voices and control over their livelihood options. Because we understand with the men dominated communities, our work should not at the end of the day make these women more vulnerable, but we should facilitate an environment where these women gradually will be able to participate in this kind of initiatives which we are talking about. Thank you. Amadou, can you enlighten us from your Senegalese experience with regards to the diversity of traditional land governance and also the rights that people have to change customer practices? The key or the most relevant answer regarding that for the Senegalese perspective is the lack of training and information because the new land law sitting in 1964 tried to eliminate all the customary land law. But this kind of practice continues to be there and to drive the process of land governance. I talk about the lack of training and information because it is very important, it is very relevant when we talk about the land law. The deficiency in training and education concerns both the woman and the rural counselor. And even though women are aware of the existence of law, the fact remains that this knowledge is still superficial. It cannot be otherwise when one knows that over 18% of these women are illiterate. For example, during the process, none of the most important women met knew that the law entitles them to attend rural concentration deliberation. They don't know the way to access to land, they just consider the fact that they must access to land through their family, through heritage or by purchase. But the lack of resource don't allow them to purchase land, so they just access to land by rural concentration deliberation. And in general, women are not aware of the importance of rural concentration. Women don't know the prerogative, especially within the framework of decentralization. And it's maybe for this major reason that rural concentration is not considered by them as a very important body. So maybe they justified it by the low, not representative, but a low leadership of women present in the decision making process or in the decision making body. And the woman interviewed it during this process did not take any action to fight evil, the better representative of rural concentration, or to see to the implementation of the provision of the low relative to the national domain. So that is maybe one one answer point, which could be maybe improve the knowledge of low and the implementation of the modern law because we have the modern law as a customary land law. At the very few present and at the local level, but not recognized by state. And during the last land reform, people worked to take into account the customary land rule. But it was very difficult to bring the decision maker to take into account the customary land law because we could see some practice, which will not allow women to be comfortable with the land access. So that is a reflection that I have with these two kinds of low, the customary land law and the modern land law. Thank you. Thank you very much. You do have a couple of questions in the that have been posted. One is from Josephine Robin it person is asking about examples from the experiences of the presenters where whereby women have gained access to land and have grown products that they have them they themselves have them been able to sell or to trade. And asking particularly whether the women producers are able to set the terms of trade and the conditions of sale in terms of the fair to them. So perhaps if the presenters and if you have experiences where women have gained land and then been able to achieve fair trade of the products of that land. Maybe I would like to start responding to the question from Josephine. I would like to say for the case of Kisarawa we have I have mentioned that some of women have been allocated land by the village government and that allocation has been made to them as individuals. They are using that land to produce crops for to sustain themselves and for for for economic gain, but in any case if they would like to transfer those properties. They are under the load in a position to transfer the property and negotiate the sale and the transfer the process. However, the transferring process is under is provided under under under the landlord. So after being allocated you have a right to transfer the land is in a manner which you prefer as long as you are within the ambit of the of the law. Thank you. I think the question was both referring to the land as a resource that was that asset and women but also the prod the products from that land. So perhaps Fatih or Mamadou you have examples where where that that chain of positive events land transfer or land access and then production and trading on on fair terms. Do you have examples that you can you can tell us about of those. I would like to respond to Josephine's listen about women's right land land rights how where women have gained access to land and whether they have been able to sell the products that they produce themselves. Yes. In our, in our way, our women have been able to access land from the traditional authority. Some of them have been given land as group as a group to protect the woman from any other man coming to pick the land or to cultivate the land on behalf of his wife and claim the land is his. The land is given to the woman as a group would be a group name and everything on that can I see agreement. There are women who also have access land from their husbands from their brothers from their families from their siblings, or from other sources. These women are able to produce and they are able to use the resources that they get from the produce on their land to maintain their families. In fact, we all know, most of the times when women have any incomes, it goes into family support. And this is how the women actually use their resources. They have the right to sell the land. They produce themselves. They do their own marketing. They have their own prices depending on the market at that given time, and they are able to sell it themselves and make money. And so, for getting the land is just if you have to transfer the land to another person, it will depend on the contract that you had or the agreement that you had with the person who gave you the land. If you take a 10 acre land and you cannot cultivate the whole 10 acre land and you have to pass that land to someone, then you will need to get back to the landlord or to the land owner and let the person understand that there's going to be a new person working on two more on the two acres or the three acres that you are not able to cultivate to prevent any misunderstandings and any assumption that you want to take control totally of the land irrespective of the presence of the land owner. I'm happy to make a general comment on the question, which is a very important one, which is the link between women's formal access to land and women's economic empowerment. The question of course goes sort of beyond the scope of this project. So although I don't have any sort of hard, we haven't been focusing on that and there hasn't been any sort of rigorous research done on that and I think this is very much something that should be looked into. My understanding is that there is anecdotal evidence that I'm thinking, but I think potentially in Yonah and Senegal, there is anecdotal evidence that women are more likely to get the proceeds of the crops that they're cultivating and selling when they have formal access to land through whether it's an individual title or a group title or a joint title with their husband rather than when their access lands informally through their husband. But I think this is something that should be looked into more rigorously and I would be really interested to see a study on that. Thank you, Philippine. Mamadou, would you like to add an example that illustrates this issue of access to land and then a fairer terms of trade for women? Yeah, I just would like to share the fact that normally, who shares the land is forbidden by the law. But women, yes, they go through the purchase for access to land because they don't have the possibility to access to land when we use right. They have the right to access to the land regarding the law, but in practice when you go to the field, it is difficult for them to access to the land because the cultural process or the customer land role don't give them enough space for them to access to the land. They are just a member of a family and it's a consent for them, but now they try to organize themselves through their own organization to access to the land. Local governments could give them the land if there are numerous women organizing has an interesting group. In this case, they could access to the land, but individually it is really it is still difficult for them to access to the land. If they would like to work themselves for them, except if there are a chief of family, the woman who lost their husband could be access to land because they are just considering how the chief of family. They are easy for them to access to the land, but if they just come as a member of the family to submit a demand for land, it is still difficult for them to access to land. And that's why they try to purchase land, good land for them to implement their activity or to develop their own activity. But now we try to assist to the development of paralegals regarding the issues of land. A lot of women would like to be trained as a paralegals in order to sensitize the other women and to organize themselves to be a very strong group of actual who could engage the conversation with men and with decision makers. And they try to bring some change. And in this framework of this experience, we are working, we are setting up a national platform, bringing all the NGO working on the land issues in order to have a very strong alliance which will end all of the advocacy at the national level. For brain change, and in the law, but also in the practice of at the local level for land access to the woman. Thank you. Thank you very, thank you very much. And we wish you great success at the level of advocacy. One of our participants. I would want to respond to the second question on capacity building. Please do please do. Okay, thank you. For us in the tamale project. We have undertaken a series of capacity building exercises, both at the community level and bringing people other stakeholders around the issues of land rights to sensitize them on the current land laws. Recently, we had original consultative meeting where we shared the new gender provisions that we wanted to be included in our new land deal. Our new land bill. We're trying to get some of the provisions inside that to be so that they become the very sensitive to the issues of women's land rights. We brought these committees together. We shared these things with them. We make sure we always make sure that they understand the issues of land rights because land rights issues around land has been shrouded in some kind of secrecy. So many people don't take the trouble to even know what their rights are even within the community. How can the community participate within a particular land transaction. Sometimes they don't even know that that is even the space that they will need to make their voices heard. And so when we did the one we had the last capacity training on the land, the current land bill that we are trying to include certain gender sensitive provisions into. We also made them aware of their positions as community members, what their opportunities are within the community that they can use to get their voices heard during those those meetings and it was quite lively. We use other methods such as the drama, and we made them to identify their own things that sort of make it difficult for women to be included in land decisions. And they set up their own skits which they acted upon and they took their own decisions seeing the outcomes of what was happening in the drama that they themselves were undertaking. They made resolutions and when they go back, this is what they were going to do because either through they did not understand that they even had a place within the community to make their voices heard. Because communities also have a role when it comes to issues of large scale land based investments which is taking away most of the prime lands at a community level for commercial agriculture, virtually getting the women out of the system with no compensation whatsoever. Now we during this training we have made them to understand that they can seek redress for the destruction of their crops for they taken away of their livelihoods. And so they also need to be compensated usually when the compensation comes, it ends at a traditional council. So it means that it's only the chief and his elder that benefit from the, from the compensation. The woman who is utilizing that piece of land and has invested over a long period of time on that piece of land, working and cultivating on the piece of land does not benefit from any compensation. And so that capacity building built on several things other than the land rights or the laws that protected land rights for both men and women at a community level. Thank you. Thank you. Are there other experiences from Senegal or from Tanzania in terms of the impact that capacity building can have in terms of identifying and strengthening women's voices in land governments? Yeah, in Senegal we are the major impact of capacity building is improvement of leadership. Now with a space of dialogue creating and several conversations sitting by with between the women and the elected council. There are fostering to discuss with them and to to improve their concern to them to the decision maker. So they have the now the possibility to address some key challenge regarding the land issue. So now we try to understand several things to question the different process in the decision making process, but also to struggle with the different challenge at the local level. So it is a relevant chance it changes that we are noted during the period of implementation. And now I think even if we stop to to to work at the local level, we have to know some change regarding the leadership of women on land issues. And from Ghana, do you have you have an example of capacity building identify local solutions? Oh, on our part in Tanzania, we, our program was not developed, we didn't have a very specific capacity building sessions, but through the dialogues, in a way it is, it was a part of building the capacity of the local communities and the village council. And I mentioned earlier that now women and men have demonstrated an increased knowledge and understanding of land governance. And we, we, this was cemented by the word executive officer of one of the villages we worked in Kisarawi. And he said that the community conversations with tau la officers and district solicitors in the process of adopting the bylaws has played a major role in equipping the local community and the village council with the knowledge related to to to to land governance and women and women land right. So we have also some of the impact which you can really say we come out of this initiative. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Very rich set of experiences we have around this on this webinar table. I'm now going to pass on to Philippine who would like to say some concluding remarks. Before I do, as this will be the last you'll hear from me, can I thank Mary, Fadi and Mamadou for enriching this webinar. I've certainly learnt a lot from listening to you and I should be following up with each of you later on. And can I thank those that have participated and I just now hand over to Philippine to conclude this. Thank you very much. Thanks, Simon. And thanks again to all participants and presenters for for the work. Just to conclude, I mean, I wanted to mention that the project is coming to an end and in the past few months we've been working on a few publications, including a research report which we share. Each in-country work and sort of identify common lessons and learning. There will be also a long read which will be published on the IID website. So just to say please stay tuned if you want to know more about this project. And thanks again all.