 Good afternoon everybody. It is my pleasure to welcome you to this timely and important webinar on gender imperative of land reforms in Kenya, which is co-hosted by the European Union, the Government of Kenya and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Land Portal Foundation. My name is Hussnambarak and I work on land and natural research issues for FAO Kenya, and I am also the gender focal point. Land reforms in Kenya over the past decade provide for women and land rights, yet women have not benefited from these reforms totally. The constitutional provision promoting gender equity and equality have not been implemented, and this is why we are organizing this webinar today. Today we will hear from three panelists who are key experts involved in promoting and working towards the gender imperatives of land in Kenya. Allow me to introduce our esteemed panelists, Dr. Fibian Lukalo, who is a gender expert and a researcher, and she has a wide experience around the same, especially within land and natural resources. Philip Killonzo works for Action Aid Kenya and he has been in the forefront in promoting and advocacy, lobbying and advocacy for women land rights in Kenya. Rachel Dinda, who works for the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning as the main duty bearer, and she works as a gender focal point in the ministry. So in the next one hour, these three panelists will be asked about the status of gender and land rights in Kenya. Their thoughts about bridging the policy and implementation divide for gender and land rights and the critical aspects of access to use and ownership of land surrounding gender. We will also discuss the implication of the inclusion of gender issues in community land governance and who is responsible for advocating for gender land rights. After the hour, we will also open the discussion and give room to all of you to be able to ask any questions and any comments. Please use the question feature to pose questions to the panelists. I'm sure everybody can see that. We will ensure that your question are addressed in time during the open discussion that follows. So welcome, all of you to begin the conversation. Dr. Fibian Lukalo, what is the status of gender and land rights in Kenya, and especially look into the aspects of policy and the implementation or the actualization of those policies. Welcome, Dr. Fibian. Thank you, Husna, and thank you for the question and for this session. I'll begin by saying that Kenya has a relatively young history and the question of gender and land rights still remains peripheral to the mainstream academic debate. And especially when you look at the prioritization of land management principles. There are many legislations in Kenya that have been enacted to guarantee women's property and inheritance rights, which are included in the constitution of 2010. And this constitution also includes the principles of land management, which favor marginalized groups, women and youth. There is also recognition of the importance amongst grassroots organizations working in land, groups in and around the lands, and policy makers like the Ministry of Lands and other land-related agencies. We see today women can buy land through the state, family, and markets. However, around 95% of the land is state-titled to men. To men, sorry, in general, agrarian transition has been slow and highly gendered. More women are living in rural areas and working on land directly than men. This increased form of feminization of agriculture and issues of food sustainability continue to be a critical question. Lastly, inviting to the question of improved land rights, we see that notable differences have been created in women's bargaining power in households and communities. Different groups of women are affected differently, for instance widows, single mothers, and therefore from a research perspective, household data is important and oftentimes this data is missing. Gender inequality increases as we move to pastoralist areas. We ask our regions and the community, thank you. Thank you very much Dr. Phibian. Philip, what are your thoughts on the same question on status of gender and land rights in Kenya? Thank you so much Woosna and I have to thank Dr. Phibian for laying the ground. Of course, in terms of responding to the question on the status, I will begin by asking myself a simple question. How would women, rural women, respond to that question if it was their chance? And with that, of course, begin by saying that what we are seeing is basically a case of new wine in an old scheme. We've got very progressive laws, progressive policies, but the gap is still there, manifesting particularly around implementation. And this, again, scenario is informed by our culture, our patriarchal culture in land administration, where we are seeing not only culture being manifested and exhibited by cultural traditional institutions, but also people in land administrative agencies also behaving like traditional elders. So the culture itself has actually tied us back and pulled us back in terms of really making a significant progress. I should say within the status itself, I think there is broader realization that change is imperative and therefore you can see quite a number of actors working both on the charter to look at what would an ideal change look like, but also working on an implementation framework for realising this particular change. The MOUD's agency efforts, particularly around this change, is quite notable and of course it ensures it's a demonstration that much more work has to be done in terms of ensuring that the reform that are necessary takes place. I think in terms of responding to the status, the litmus test is basically trying to understand how the government, all the land administrative agencies have been handling the settlement scheme question. How community land has been handled and how the broader question of evictions and resettlements. Of course, noting that the three elements affect women and again is where the road meets the rubber. We really need to look at how those three elements are handled because they are the most critical element that point to the actual status and again that speaks to whether women are accessing land or not. I think there is still fundamental challenge, particularly around the accessibility of services to women, particularly those in rural areas and more so not only land-related services but also justice system on land issues. So there are questions around whether the institutions broadly have embraced the shift that has been envisaged within the policies and laws that we have in the country. Thank you. Thank you very much Philip. Now we go to Rachel and it is very important now you're coming from, we call it every time, the main duty bearer for Kenya. What is your take on the status of gender and land rights in Kenya? Thank you very much Usna and indeed our listeners for this golden opportunity to share on the status of gender and women land rights in Kenya. You know the numbers, the data and numbers don't lie and as Dr Phibian has said women own just a negligible amount of land in Kenya right now, standing at probably 5%. Although gains have been made by the passing of the constitution 2010 and the matrimonial property act, the truth is that our communities are quite patriarchal and this has negatively affected the ownership of land by women. Again, I would also like to talk about the understanding by women, general understanding surrounding joint registration, more sensitization and knowledge distribution needs to be heightened to bring the numbers up. Essentially, we are just looking at ways to upscale the numbers to go to close the gap. We also know that women generally are more inclined to affection of the family and this leaves them in a position where they are not able to claim for their rights with authority. Although much has been done with the implementation of national land policy, the main principle is about equity and fairness in land distribution, but we still have to do more to ensure that implementation of the policies support women and actually leads to increasing the numbers. Thank you very much. Rachel, I have a full on question for you. Do you think it will be good actually if you look into the policy implementation. Could you say something a little bit about the apart from the constitution which you've mentioned and has been mentioned by Dr. Phoebe and Philip, probably add into the other policy frameworks we have around which guide the aspects of realizing the gender balance around land. Thank you, Usna. I've talked about the national land policy briefly and the matrimonial property and succession. These are gains that have been made generally and the provisions are quite good, but I think this need for follow up on the implementation and even to, I don't know how to call it. But more needs to be done to ensure that there is realignment with the constitution and also to teach women to understand for the implementation. I don't know whether that that will suffice or you wanted more. We can bring out those issues. Let me go to the next question and I will start again with Dr. Phoebe and Lucalo. And these are quite critical issues we want to discuss and it brings around the broad discussion around access use and ownership of land. And I would really need to hear from all of you, especially the three panelists we have on board, what are the issues surrounding gender around the aspects of access use and ownership. I will start with again, Dr. Phoebe and Lucalo. Thank you, Usna, for that question. And I think for me, I look at that question tied to what Phillip asked earlier. What would rural women want when we are dealing with the three aspects of access use and ownership? And I think in answering that question, it speaks to the heart of this webinar session that we are having. And just to also emphasize something small is that there are pre-Lanterner systems in Kenya that is private, public, and community. So in answering my answering to the question of access use and ownership, I'm mainly restricting myself to the area of private and probably the school for this particular time. So when we are dealing with access, research has shown that there is a correlation between the risk of poverty of rural, urban poverty, and land access. Where land access does not exist for women is the tendency for them to experience or risk more poverty in whichever area they are living in. And also further that there are many women out of many years of living in poor areas without access to land. They become elderly and they continue to live in poverty without social and housing welfare. And these tend to be intergenerational in nature. And women tend to experience more intergenerational poverty when access is denied of them on land. This is because land continues to be in Kenya, the sole basis of livelihood. Land has so much premium that we are talking about not just poverty but the risk of food insecurity. And therefore there is need when we are looking at access in land, further to engage in research that examines the relationship between access, use, and ownership. And this depends on different counties as we are in a devolved system of governance. And when I look at the issue of use, I will specifically narrow down to the use of a home garden. Something basic as a home garden, research studies have proved the cultivation of a home garden needs to improve children's nutrition. It's not just about nutrition but in some communities we have what we call the traditional medicines where women are able to plant given that they have a place they can use for that. And we've seen through studies in Kenya that children attend school and receive medical care and attention when a mother is able to utilize her land optimally. And when we are talking about children here we are saying, I'm saying that there are more girls who are able to attend school. And therefore lastly when we think about use is the decision making levels for women. I am able to make decisions on my land because I am able to demarcate my land and know exactly what is being used. But this is only in the short term. In the long term these are other questions that come about because normally there is, there tends to be more restriction on long term use of land for women. And I think lastly let me make a brief comment on ownership. Women's land ownership in this country is limited and it often fails to address all the challenges faced by them. Particularly rural women in relation to land governance. We've seen through research done that not everyone can own land in Kenya. There are increased cases of landlessness. And where landlessness is in certain counties we see quite a majority, a larger number of those who are landless as being women. And with those the elderly tend to really experience a lot of issues and challenges around the question of ownership. And therefore the children, when we talk about intergenerational poverty, we are also talking about intergenerational welfare at the issue of ownership. Children tend to look after their elderly parents better if they have that ownership to the land. In other words ownership to land is tied in a sense to secure land rights. Thank you. Thank you very much Dr. Fibian Lucalo. And I think you've brought in a good aspects of ownership and when we talk of ownership in Kenya we talk of registration. I see there is the latest report which actually changed the percentage. For a long time Kenya has been talking of 1% of women on land. But the latest report which, a study which was done by Kenya Land Alliance. Really kind of change the percentage to 2%. And I think it's important now we also look into that and you've mentioned it well to say that for increase in productivity, we might want to look into tenure security, which amounts to ownership at one level. Rachel, I think I would really need to have your views on these aspects of access, use and ownership surrounding gender and land in this country. Thank you very much Osuna and our listeners. I also want to make a contribution on the issue of access, use and control of land to women. Number one, I like to say that women in Kenya generally may just have some user rights, but they don't have land security. What I mean here is that women or we definitely know that they are the ones who work in the farms, the rural women. Therefore, as daughters or as married women, they are the one who work on the farm, but they don't have, they only have user rights but they don't own the land. So I think that's a major problem in Kenya. Therefore, we need to work to enable women to access and to control the land that they are working on because they are entitled and it is their right as the constitution ascribed to it. Number two, women independent of land rights is an issue as they have only indirect access through their spouses and their relatives and it's so much related to number one. This is an impediment to food security and therefore something needs to be done on the implementation of our land administration. Philip mentioned in his opening remarks that land administrators are acting as gatekeepers. I just like to share on a light note that land administrators also come from our communities and there are no exception from the patriarchal systems that have really worked negatively towards our main agenda. Therefore, all of us actually are together in this and when we're talking about empowerment, it should be from at all levels, not leaving anybody behind, including the land administrators. Number three, I also want to say that rural women contribute almost half of the world food security, yet a very, very little control over land. This is putting our country and indeed the globe in a very dire food shortage. Therefore, we need all to work to support women to own land. Recently, in Kericho, we were happy to give some title to six women. This is a very small fraction, but these women took a bold step to really follow their rights to be able to get their land from their father. With the support of Kenya Land Alliance and FIDA and other civil society, of course with the support of the government, I think this should be the trend across the country and in not long time we should be able to increase the numbers. My next point is that I think it's repeated lack of access, control and only having some user rights. The next one is that women face serious under employment, which is further aggravated by the fact that they don't really own the land. Usually the situation is made more serious when they lose their spouses or in cases of divorce. We all also understand that our land policies sometimes are not very clear on the contribution. For example, when we talk about succession and it becomes very complicated even for women to understand the meaning of contribution and even to a portion and be able to come with some fair judgments. Another very important and critical aspect is on the limited justice sector capacities to deliver justice for women land rights. Legal issues are complicated and usually very expensive, particularly for rural women and this is a big impediments. We agree that there's been some pockets of support from individuals or from the civil society or from FIDA and well wishes, but this is not sufficient to enable women to have the capacity and get their rights. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Rachel. Rachel is bringing out a very important discussion. If you cannot have it, if you cannot have your right automatically you need to claim it and that's the, and that's the example is giving us from Kericho where where daughters had to really claim their right. Thank you all of you for those, for the response to that question. Now we really want us to look into the discussion around community land governance. I say it's a little new dispensation legally or within the legal framework of Kenya because the constitution of Kenya 2010 has recognized the customary tenure and the aspects of policy are being put in place. Now we want to really also look into the implementation of those or the actualization of those, those policies. Again, with a special attention to women. I know from the beginning we are all discussing gender, but I think the panelists have really brought out the aspects of where it has been missing and one of the gender which has been missing in the whole discussion is, is women. Probably from our panelists and I would like to start with Phillip to look into the implication of inclusion of gender issues within community land governance. Having that to say that 62 between 62 and 63% of the country Kenya falls under community land, but also in the in the in the understanding that community comes before private and public. Phillip, would you tell us the implication of that inclusion of women and considering the aspects of culture and how we do think, but there is a policy called there is a legal call to it with special attention to women land rights. Thank you so much. I think if there is any brilliant piece of law that has been enacted in this country in advancement of women land rights is a community land act. But of course it's intent was angered in our constitution of Kenya 2010. That's where the intent was angered. And I can remember myself doing civic education on the constitution and at one point refusing to do civic education on the question of land. And the reason was because men felt fundamentally threatened by the constitution of Kenya, because it began to anger equal rights. And so is the Community Land Act, which angers equal rights to both men and women in communities actually to dismantles the order of governance of community land, where again members of communities were defined in exclusion of women, they were defined purely as as men. And again, when it came to decision making around land governance, it was men in authority men in position of leadership would limit all those decision on behalf of the community when it came to natural resources and lands. And we've got a number of communities that have been Kenya, where that decision is done that way. So the Community Land Act number one provides a platform for inclusion, achieving gender parity in terms of ownership of community lands. And it sort of takes away the discrimination that used to exist in terms of access use control and ownership of community land and the best the ownership of community land to any member of the community who is above 18 years of age, regardless of gender. And that means men and women become part and part and parcel of that particular particular community for purposes of registration for community land ownership. And that is a very strong, strong safeguard, particularly when it comes to communities that are virtually discriminated. Indeed, the Community Land Act provides social protection safeguards, such that if a member of that community is married out, and again the marriage ceases to exist, they've got a recourse in their initial community, and they are entitled again to the share of land within the same same community. So again, that recourse is again very useful in this particular regard. I think more fundamentally for us to see is how this particular law breaks the culture of barriers that used to exist that limited women access and the control of a community lands and resources. And again, more so particularly beginning now to empower women to see them as equal shareholders and also to begin by taking in the share of natural resources on the land and using those natural resources and land itself to increase the agricultural production and use that agricultural protection to advance their rights. That is the context of the law in terms of structures to implement it, there has been a lag and that is where we feel much more quicker actions needs to be placed if again the law is going to confer the benefits that is meant to deliver. Thank you. Thank you, Philip. Don't run away so fast, because I think we really needed to get your critical thinking or what is your thinking around access use and ownership. I know you've discussed the issue of community land governance and the aspects of women and how the law is yet to really been actualized. But also can you can you add some little thoughts in terms of the aspects of access use and ownership of land. Thank you. I think in terms of access use and control, I like approaching it from control because control has some certain direct implications. And we've of course been doing assessment of what we call the nine domains of women empowerment, particularly from an agricultural land perspective. And when you do that assessment, then you realize control is an important aspect to deal with it. Land is controlled by men, that's a fact, but we are also seeing even in female-edited households, we are seeing instances of men acting as proxies from outside the union and again beginning to control our land is managed within a family. We are also seeing patriarch rearing its head, even in female-edited households, and where again you see women in men body, women are more or less behaving and advancing narratives that men would ordinarily advance in terms of access to land. And we've also seen cases where women, where sons have actually taken up the control, the decision making around land from their mothers and their mothers cannot make that decision, even though the land was left with them. So these are the challenges that we really see when it comes to control, but what is useful is to note that the control of land has a direct implication in terms of short-term, medium and long-term investment strategies and livelihood strategies for women. And again, it defines and determines their level of vulnerability to disasters. So when it comes to vulnerabilities to disaster is linked to the investment options that women are able to explore that is again linked to the land use. And what we've seen in most of the cases is that even in scenario where women are given access to land, given the right to use a particular piece of land, that access becomes basis of bondage. They are sort of bonded to their spouses, but beyond being bonded, we've also seen women losing on the gains from their labor where they are unable to control end production from that piece of land. So at the end of the day, women are being bonded to provide labor to men. Thank you. Thank you very much, Philip. That was well thought of and I like the thing is when we look into it, you look at the aspects of control, which has in so many ways hindered productivity within our societies. We're having one gender controlling the other gender being more of providing the work or the manual work or the labor part of it. Rachel, we've discussed a little bit on the community land governance and how it's new and what the law has already stated in terms of inclusions of gender, especially in the management and the governance on that land. We've already stated also clearly that the aspects of that particular law community land act is to bring in the aspects of recognition, protection and registration of community lands in Kenya. Being now again the main duty bearer of land administration and in management, what can you say on what is happening around the community land governance and the gender imperative, especially the consideration of women. Thank you very much, Uzna and indeed our listeners. Community land act really guarantees inclusion of all people. And with the mantra no one should be left behind. It is true but this works only for cases where everybody has been in an in a fair level ground but you see in the case of women they've been left behind since time immemorial. And therefore something has to be done differently to bring to bring women up to be able to compete fairly with men. I think the only way here is affirmative action on on land governance deliberately ensuring that women are included in the various lunch land management boards in the in the counties and indeed everywhere so that they can advocate for their rights of course with the support of all willing stakeholders. Therefore, community land act is a big opportunity, I think, for the government to to to bridge the gap and to to bring them the women up. Definitely by affirmative action as I've said, I also want to talk about the day on the on the implementation. I think we're right now, there is the the amendment of a national land policy that's going on and is with the physical planning already drawn from from National Land Commission, and indeed we welcome all stakeholders to get in touch with us so that we can bring up something that the women land rights and that is loud enough and also very implementable. I think these are some of the opportunities that we have as a country and as governments with our stakeholders to ensure that women come to a good playing ground. We talk about 63% of the of of land in Kenya being community land. Really, I'm not very sure about that was not that we need our landed judicators to to confirm that and to make that that's that data very clear some of the things that are just here see I think not all of them are validated. You'd realize that maybe the the data or the figures are so different. I think government has a lot of opportunities, even in in public land, indeed, not only community land, even in public land to ensure affirmative action to to women. Thank you very much, Rachel, you're you're you're actually you're making you're making a call that we are now reviewing our national land policy that is session of paper number. Five of 2009, which is due for for that review and I'm glad that the, the file through the EU funded land governance program has initiated some discussion both technically and financially to do that. You're putting out a very important information, the 63, 62 to 63% of the alleged 62 to 63% of of land under community land might not be true. It needs to be confirmed. And I think, as a main duty bearer, you really need to give us that because you've been having you've been recorded you have records. So you need to be out there for people to understand what is happening and what land is there available and I might want to agree with you. Maybe that 62 or 63% is not there due to the so many discussion around and then plannings initiated in various fields, which are amounting to use of land. I will really need to have your view now you have, you have a lot of experience, both at community level and you have a lot of experience around and expertise around the customer retrain your in this country. Can, can you respond to that question around the community land governance and the, and the women land rights in, in, in general, in that focus. Thank you, Rosena. It's, it's worth noting that where community land is currently laid in Kenya geographically tends to be the area where we have unexploited natural resources and tends to be the area where we can say that insecure land tenant has been experienced the most. And in most of these areas, let me take the example of probably like the Turkana region where Turkana County where customary land rights were customary procedures of land ownership and land use particularly not ownership or in place. We find out that their traditional systems that already accommodate decision making, but in those systems women still are still isolated or marginalized in the decisions. And so even with the enactment of the community land right land act from a research perspective, the question is, I hope that this will not be a repetition of what has been happening in terms of the women's in terms of them being on the table and discussing the issues that are there. The other thing is when you look at particularly the discussion we've had before, we are talking about ownership of land and in Kenya ownership has been seen through documents that is titled, you know, title did their documents that show that we are part and parcel of this land. However, when you look at community where this customary land or large trucks of community land, we see that they are really no title documents. And a good example from what we were we've looked at in the commission is the Lamu Port, you know the Lamu Port South Sudan, an Ethiopia transport corridor project where the land is being purchased by the investors is that Zetment or forests and ranches. But there's also the other question of the communities that are living in those areas and the threat of eviction that exists. And we talk about the threat of eviction in areas that are community communal land. We are really thinking through the lives of women and how they continue to be marginalized or sidelined. However, there is also an area of hope in the sense that women have been included in decision making processes. And we see this with the work that has been done by groups Kenya in Lykepia, where women are beginning to form their community watch groups and are beginning to be interested in what is going around in the counties and the national government in terms of the debate in and around the whole issue of community land. However, we know we it would be fully of me just to talk about the existence of natural resources without mentioning the impending threat of climate change. Currently we're experiencing I think La Nina drought in Kenya at the same time rains. And because women tend to live in these areas, they are either the secondary or primary users of the land in these regions. We now think about what are we going to do ahead so that they are not just on the community land boards, but they are thinking about the impending threat, impending climate threat that's coming to the management of these particular areas. So that's briefly what I would think through in terms of community land. Thank you. Thank you very much. Dr. Fibian look hello. And I think that's bringing out a very important component looking into the aspects of the natural resources within the community community lands and actually they even the aspects of large scale land acquisition around around the same. But I have one more follow up question on on the same. Do you think at the rate of the acquisition, especially the government projects in time, the development projects we have. Do you think that due process is is being a dear to and regards also looking into not only the documented benefits, but also the indirect use by by by by by women in those in those lands, putting into consideration the aspects of pastoralism. Thank you. I'll answer that question from by interestingly wrong thing, but by posing another question. Do we see the evidence of conflict has that evidence of conflict increased or decreased in areas of community land. Since we began, you know, projects that are here to vision 2030. And for me, the question is, yes, there have been cases where there's been increased conflict on the land, because of the various interests on land not been catered for. And in particular, the primary users of those land, who are women. And conflict can be can, you know, it comes out in different forms, because many areas of community land you see because he bus tracks of empty land. And therefore they claim because it's empty therefore belongs to no one, but without giving attention to the different land uses and land practices that are that are done on those particular land. When we have communities that are migratory in nature, it's a matter of moving from one area to another looking for the fastest. So at that particular time, it's not necessarily empty land. And therefore when government marks out specific areas, the intention is noble. The intention is to provide services. However, there are various other aspects of interests and rights on the land that probably need to be looked at much, much further than what we may be looking at. Thank you very much, Dr. Fibian probably allow Rachel and Philip to say a word on the same after you answer this question. And I think probably most people will want to run away from this question, but I'm sure we have something to say around around the same. And the question is, who is responsible and holds a duty to advocate for gender and land rights in Kenya. And with you, Dr. Fibian, look hello again. Thank you. Thank you, Usna. And as I said earlier, much of the work that I look at is from a research perspective. So I see that there are various parameters of women empowerment. And these are complex and multi dimensional. Because of this background, it means that there are various government groups that would be responsible. And there are various agencies that would be responsible. And there are also various groups of women themselves who would be responsible. For instance, Rachel has talked about the whole issue of data and not just data, but up to date data. I believe that research agencies have a right to begin to explore and scratch the surface of what it means for women to access, to own land and the relationship between those three aspects. Research agencies by that I mean like the National Land Commission, the Ministry of Lands, there is KIPRA, there is Kenya National Bureau of Statistics and other agencies. There is also the National Government's agencies like the Ministry of Lands, which is the custodian daily of the data on the use, utilization of land. This should not just be left to the Ministry of Lands alone, because when we talk about rural women, pastoral women, we have ministries like agriculture, ministries like health, transport, education, gender and youth. All those are dealing in directly or directly on aspects to do with land, and therefore they too have their own store of data that can be used to influence policy direction. Within that, we also have communities and families and government agencies and various government structures. For instance, as you talked about land registration, has there been a movement in land registration and in which parcels of land and how many women have been able to do that? And then lastly, I'll talk about what I call the local traditional authorities, the chiefs or the headmen or the gatekeepers of clans and communities who hold and hold information on certain aspects on this land. And then let me make a brief comment about families. I've done a lot of work around Delveret and I've seen that there are very many families which have given land to their daughters, but sometimes they want to shy away from presenting this information to the general public because the father would seem to be weak. So whereas there's been a lot of improvement in terms of ownership of land, it is within what I call the silent domain of the family. We do not want it let out so that people know that very many have been given, daughters have been given land. Generally, that's what I would say. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr Fibian. Philip, now coming and representing the civil society organizations in Kenya. What do you think who should take the responsibility of advocating for gender land rights in in Kenya? Thanks, Susan and I think Dr Fibian has covered quite a useful ground. Of course, the societies will continue with their role as part of their mandate, but I think within the government agencies, and in this particular case, it's about all the ministries that have a stake, including other state agencies, then what we need to see being much more activated is internal advocacy because we've got converts within these institutions and they just need to advance the agenda internally and see spaces that are quite critical. And I think from the political class is time duty bearers took up their responsibility because we elect duty bearers to advance rights, not just to sit and make laws that do not represent us. We like to see from the parliamentary committee is a Senate committee and even committees are the county assembly, what kind of progressive measures are they putting in place to advance women land rights. And some of the progressive measures could even entail something like location of resources towards an adjudication settlement or even making regulations that get some certain elements within the process or even having strong oversight on some of those processes. There are human rights committees again over these institutions. And again, they go to play their rightful role. We've got lots of dispossession, lots of displacement of communities where majority are women, and again, them playing their role will in essence mean that they are passing the realization of women land rights. I don't see any big arm, if we can have big people stepping in this big responsibility. First ladies, presidents, and I think, ideally, if the president is keen in terms of improving the well being of all the Kenyans, then the women land agenda that frees a number of women to access lands, and also utilize the land to increase their productivity must be an agenda that the president must embrace. So I stop there. Thank you very much, Philip. Rachel, coming from that background of understanding that whenever there is a right, there is a responsibility. Who do you think has the responsibility of making sure we advocate for gender run rights in Kenya? Thank you very much, Usna. And our listeners, I think this is a tough question. But the truth of the matter is that government is responsible for her people. And therefore, it's the one that the women demand their rights from. And therefore, it's the sole high level responsibility when it comes to women land rights. I also want to support what my colleagues have talked about research organizations and other agencies and their contribution towards this very important course. Yeah, but I still also support most definitely the support of individual big names, but essentially the whole responsibility and the person that is responsible is the government of Kenya. We goal goal five of the of the SDGs is a standalone gender goal, which the government of Kenya has really worked on to bring the gap on the commitment to discriminate to remove all forms of discrimination across board and indeed to get everybody included. We appreciate the all the work that we are doing with FAO on target five. That is the this target that is the FAO is the designated custodian agency which aims to undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, access to ownership and control over land and property. And indeed to remove all forms of discrimination against women. It also goes because when women are empowered and on land and are able to make a decision on whatever they do on land, it will definitely remove violence against women or reduce it to some substantial level and also to remove harmful practices and recognize and paid leave among other things. Therefore, this this question on who is responsible in as much as the government is responsible. I think it involves all of us. And it involves a high level of coordinated partnership, which the government must play an important role together with all the agencies to ensure that the women's rights is achieved. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Rachel, Philip and Dr. Fibian for for quite a good and very elaborated discussion around the gender imperatives in land reforms in in in Kenya. I will, I would like to, to just to recap as questions are coming in. Before that, I think we've looked into the aspects of where the status are and I see we have quite a good milestone around policy. One of the aspects now is to really bring in the implementation and the actualizations of those of those policy. We've discussed access to use and and on ownership, looking into access is like, Oh, it's there is very available and it can be accessed and looking to use is being done but it's being controlled one way or the other. So there's always indirect use to it. And probably that is what the panelists have really spoke about. That is where you get the security of making sure you have it all. But in the country we are still crawling over a step, still step by step in the in the boundaries of making sure that ownership is at a balance or is is in a good way that brings around the aspects of productivity and looking into the new dispensation of the community land governance. So there's no discussion around who will be involved. The law is, as I said earlier, the law is is well stipulated, but the actualization of it is what we want to see, to see done, or to see happening in line with the cultural and the traditional in this in this country. And again, I insist that even from the discussion which comes out is that community comes fast for public and and and and private the aspects of managing of the natural resource and they use and the control of it also might bring around the aspects of conflict, which one with the other and we've mentioned in the discussion might be happening and probably from the lack of knowledge of what is happening, but also the aspects of inclusion to the discussion. One important element which is coming out also from this discussion is the aspects of research research, building into strategies and I would like to know what women have access to land in Kenya because in Mozambique, what we see is that women in access to land is different ways and many of which do not guarantee their position and security in relation to land. Are there programs in Kenya to ensure that land is owned by women? What challenges do women face in the process of land acquisition? I will really request Philip to respond to this question. Sorry, Uzna, I missed part of your question. If you can repeat briefly, I'll be in glad, but I missed part of it. Uzna. I'm saying a layer from Mozambique has raised a question on what wants to learn from what what is happening in Kenya is yes I'm learning they can they can get from Kenya in relation to the aspects of security of tenure and position and I'm sure from the discussion we've stated it but one of the main questions she's raising what what challenges do women face in the process of land acquisition in Kenya which could be a learning for Mozambique. Okay, thanks. I think what is useful and probably what Mozambique might learn from Kenya is about the two Tina regimes that of course explicitly provide an anger for women land rights and that is the private land ownership arrangement and the communal land tenure system because these are two explicit system that best or best rights women to own land. And of course within the private ownership is that element of honoring owning land alone owning with the spouse and owning with others which again applies to all women. And what is critical is the manner in which the law is implemented. The manner in terms of that institutions that are implementing the implementing the law first and foremost take into account the reality of that particular law that the law provides for ownership under those arrangements. Number two apart from the law providing explicitly for that is women being aware and conscious about it and organizing in a manner that enables them to pursue the implementation of that law. But what is useful for the two things that I've mentioned to happen is clarity around roles and responsibilities on duty bearers. Like for the case of Kenya what we've done is to take the women land rights charter to the next level which is to generate an implementation framework that is shared by both state agencies civil society and women movements and even UN agencies. And out of this particular implementation framework the way we've been rolling it out is through working with all the agencies to understand how best to synergize in processes that involve adjudication and allocation of land to community members because it's through the processes that actually allocate land that women are able to get land. In addition it's important we also begin to see how the judicial systems are working in advancing those rights because if the judicial systems are still operating within the patriarchal setup they will also make rulings that are available to women. So at that level it's important to bring these institutions to really support the cause. But in terms of the challenges that you see the first challenge is making the agencies work together. Government agencies, civil agencies, UN agencies and working with rural women and really understanding that rural women have a stake within it. The second challenge is patriarchy because patriarchy as I said at the onset cuts across is not just a box to the catcher of leaders it cuts across the whole fabric of the society including those holding offices that you expect to serve rights to women. So again really dismantling that becomes a very noble challenge. More fundamental than this is the third challenge is again how this work is coordinated and how it's financed. I think financing has been a huge challenge for the women land rights agenda. Not only in Kenya but Africa and globally. I think we need to have a kind of awakening, a kind of mobilizing to ensure that the agenda is well resourced because it has a spectrum of programming areas that have to be dealt with. Thank you. Thank you very much Philip and I think I like the idea of bringing out the aspects of coordination of the stakeholders around the same and I think that should be a good learning from Kenya. Question two which is from Gladys Warigia. Discussions on government commitment progress to ensure a smooth implementation of Community Land Act. I'm sure her question is on where are we, what is the government commitment in the realization of the Community Land Act. I will pose this question to Rachel being the duty bearer and actually she has a follow on issue in regards to the regulations of the Community Land Act saying that it's a gazette meant was kind of unclear. Usna would you repeat the question? It's talking about where are we, what is the commitment to all the progress within the Community Land Act realization? The realization of Community Land Act in Kenya. Where are we at? In a minute you can respond to that. Okay thank you very much Usna. I think there is good progress I can say but right now we are as I mentioned initially we are at review of the policy and I said that it's a long and tedious process engaging with all communities and getting everybody really to participate all the government departments and therefore it's going to take a process. It's a long procedure and indeed everybody is welcome to participate to ensure that what we write down, what we finally pass is something that we are all agreeable to but it's really in its initial stages. We just got the draft so yeah. Just to add in is I'm sure the government, the Ministry of Lands is in the process of putting up a curriculum and a program for awareness to be able to start actualizing the Community Land Act but also the counties are preparing their inventories which are due to be handed over and I'm told us but this hour some counties from the arid and semi arid areas have handed in their inventory to the ministry. The next question we like Dr. Fibian Lucalo to respond to it and this from Justice Wombay. The conflict experience in community land areas are they influenced by lack of secure tenure in general for the community or insecure women land rights. Dr. Fibian. Thank you. You know there's something to understand the whole array of land question in Kenya. We must appreciate that it's the political economy of land that exists in this country and that has been in place since independence, since independence. And we must say that this has been in place since independence. We must say that when it comes to conflict around community land it's not just left alone to the investors or the fact that the women have been aware. But the other conflicts that have taken place probably because of scarce resources, what I call they are already simmering conflicts on the land, inter-clan conflicts, probably intergroup conflicts, different types of conflicts, maybe pastoral conflicts such that when an investor or when the land is seen to be primed and is being bought by other agencies it simply exacerbates an existing conflict and therefore the conflict metamorphosis itself now to the group and the investor, the group coalesces under a common interest which is our land, it deserves them who are the investors. And this tends even when there's a metamorphosis of those conflicts into from the local level to the national level, then to isolate as it were women's interests on land. And I think a good example of the metamorphosis of a conflict and an agenda of land is the example of the Chukana County and the whole issue of the oil resources. First because people move in to speculate because they are new that the government is going to move into the area and buy the land and then later on communities are not aware. But when you look at all this the question that justice has asked for me also it raises a pertinent concern that is the access to information and adequate knowledge about the existing legal frameworks in land. And I'm glad that the Ministry of Land is coming up now with an advocacy tool on community land and it's really moving with and behind the counties to ensure that the communities have been empowered. The other thing also that is already in existence and which will come to play is the whole issue of consent. I think many land administrators and offices in the county you cannot transact on land unless the family, the wife, have given consent. So there's already what exists, what can be pushed forward so that it's safe. Thank you very much Dr. Fibian. I think we also have another question from Justice Wambai and Rachel, Justice is asking, we have all agreed that though the government has done most of its part on promotion of women access to land. Culture possesses a threat and actually the culture word and threat word is put in capital, but culture can be learned and be unlearned. Who will lead the learning and the learning of culture? Rachel. And indeed that's what we are working on right now. We are working on undoing and then learning culture. As you said, you know once you learn something it becomes permanent and it becomes part of you. The process of unlearning is going to be the most difficult, but we have our partners here. For our, we have action aid, we have penal underlines, we have FIDA, we have great team and we are currently working on a curriculum to first of all to empower women to know what their rights are. And also to besiege the communities, their communities to embrace women, land inheritance and land ownership. I just mentioned earlier what is going on across the country about encouraging women to talk to their brothers to give them their, I mean what is duly, what is duly theirs. And it is the responsibility of all of us, all of us in each to unlearn all cultures and to embrace the new culture of everybody must be included. Thank you. Thank you very much, Rachel. The next one I think is more of a comment. And this is how it goes is from Selena Kafute Awala. Maine should advocate for the inclusion of women in land governance, in land governance and women land rights are as a way of demonstration of acceptance for change. This is well noted. Thank you very much. The next question. Lelya has repeated her question several times. From Tapoji, from Tapoji, what kind of role does the forest produces play in ensuring livelihood opportunities to the indigenous population. Can I pose this question to Dr. Fibian Lucalo. Thank you, Usna, and thank you for the listener for asking that question. And I think when we look at the whole issue of the forest producers or indigenous populations living in forests goes back to various government agencies that are involved in this on one hand with the land, on the other hand is the water towers. That's the water tower agency. On the other hand, there is the Kenya wildlife forest. On the other hand, there is also wildlife which is living in those forests. So it is a multi-agency approach to dealing with the indigenous population living in the forest. And so far we do have various cases that have been given by the African court and we do have various pending matters that are going on in terms of taking the communities being given their legal rights to own and live in those spaces of forest. I do know that there is a specific county in Kenya called Nakuru County, which has a task force that is looking on how the indigenous forest people who live on the western side of the Mau Forest, how they will be able to access their livelihoods in and out of that forest. So for me that's the brief comment. Thank you very much, Dr. Fibian Luckello. Philip, there's a question for you from Zambio data. You find that in some community setups, there is adherence to the two third gender rule in their land management structures, but only as a means of ticking of boxes as the women in these positions don't really have a say in this decision. How can we work to ensure meaningful participation of such women in this position in a minute? Thank you for the question. I think abuse of constitutional provision is not acceptable. And one way to ensure that the abuse does not happen is through addressing the power symmetry. We need to recognize that in all societies we've been having a power differential between men and women, and therefore programs that we implement must in build that and must take into account the disadvantage, disadvantage position that women have held in terms of access to information regarding some certain matters and therefore have and deliberate efforts to reach women and power them and ensure that they participate within the spaces with full knowledge and full understanding of what should be done there. Thank you. Thank you very much, Philip. The next question is from Margarita Varone. Thank you. Do you have an idea of our documented approximation to the cost inherent to women claiming for their land rights by cost? I also mean culturally speaking. Probably Dr. Fibian, you'll be able to work with your vast to respond to this question with your vast experience in research. Hello. I didn't seem to get part of the question. The question is from Margarita Varone. Do you have an idea or a documented approximation to the cost inherent to women claiming for their land rights? Probably by cost. I also mean culturally speaking. Margarita's question is interesting and can be looked at from various perspective, but I will look at the cost in terms of the hidden or the missed costs of women not being able to inherit their lands. It's been widely documented about schooling, for instance. Many children miss school because of the mother not being able to have the inheritance rights to the land. And when I say many children in particular, the daughters do not access school. Neither do the sons have a secure livelihood in future. So if you look at that, you're talking about not just one generation of the mother, but also what I keep talking about the intergeneration, transmission of poverty to another generation. Also, when we talk about the costs, we are really talking about aspects like nutrition to the family, aspects like sleeping, you know, having a good night's sleep knowing that you'll wake up tomorrow and find your parcel of land. And then lastly, the cost in terms of decision making in the short term and in the long term. Can I be able to make good decisions for the future of my children? That's how I would begin to think about quantifying the costs or the loss of it all. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Fibian. There is a question from Kola Wole Banu. I'm sorry if I'm pronouncing your name wrongly. The Kenyan experience shows that laws themselves are not enough, but should be complemented by advocacy, campaigning, campaign for attitudinal change, mobilization and public interest litigation to enforce the laws. Do you, the panelists, agree? This is because in Nigeria, we are thinking of commencing a campaign. Rachel, do you want to respond to that? And actually, he's asking that do you agree that advocacy should not work by itself? And also, they're trying to pull up a campaign in Nigeria. Kola Wole, you are very right about that. By experience, by the numbers, it is so glaring, evident that not much is happening in terms of increasing the numbers of women owning land. That means that whatever the laws are good, they are progressive and our constitution is fantastic. We have all the laws that should have made the numbers go high. Therefore, I think I agree with you 100% that it needs to be collaborative and there needs to be other ways. We probably will follow Nigeria with the campaign. Just draw it and then we will learn from each other. But I think the laws alone is not enough. It has to be complementary by unlearning, of course, the old cultures and to support women to be able to own land. Which means that inclusion, inclusion, inclusion and the coordinated approach is very important. Inclusions of all stakeholders and coordinated approaches should be so as we have people moving towards one goal. There is a comment from Wipke Ot. I would like to translate your presentation to the context of Cameroon. Discriminatory customary practices continue to restrict women access to land in Cameroon. What do you think about the approach to advocate? In a first step that the law should make provision of separating tree strokro ownership from land ownership and that women at least become legal owner of their crops and trees. So what Wipke is talking about is saying that can we have ownership at a different level so as we look at land with a different owner, but the aspects of women having access to grow or to do agriculture, then the ownership of those crops should be at different level. What do you think, Philip? I think in my, that is an interesting view and I think it's a view angered on the multiple use of land in terms of thought process. But I think essentially the most important thing is to ensure some significant level of control by women. If again we are saying the land is owned by somebody else but the tree is owned by somebody else, then that must be quite clear because the tree will not grow in here, it will grow on land. But what is useful within our context in terms of moving the discussion forward is first angering the land rights as basis of production and then we move from there. When it comes to of course catch our leaders and of course the whole policy formulation process, then that country has much more work to do because slightly in Kenya we had fairly progressive pieces of law. So they've got to work with patriarchal leaders to change their attitude so that they can actually enact pieces of law that will definitely advance women land rights. The beginning point is beginning to transform the leaders to really embrace progressive policies, progressive laws that will anger women land rights. Thank you very much Philip and actually what is being brought out is more of a moral change, the understanding around policy and laws is well stipulated, but now we really need to change their attitude and I think that is a whole new process which has to be tackled with a lot of affirmative actions around it. There is a question from Stella Maris. My name is Stella Maris from Uganda. What is the status quo of feet for Papo's land administration for Kenya. I will take this question to Rachel having that they're looking into the aspects of administration and management of land. For Papo's, the feet for Papo's land administration for Kenya. It's a whole approach to look into the aspects of tenure around what is the, you look into, you know, you start from the end results towards the how of doing it. So what really fits our main goal, our main purpose around it could be within aspects of urban planning, could be aspects of, so what do we really need for us to. Thank you very much. I know it's an approach being, there's an approach being looked into now and I'm sure the government is trying to really adopt it and they're still learning on how to do it. Let me have, there's a question actually from Christopher Sawak. What options exist for women to realize sustainable benefits from large scale land acquisition investments projects on communal lands. May I request Dr Fibian to respond to this question. I didn't get part of the question I'm sorry. What option exists for women to realize sustainable benefits from large scale land acquisition investments projects on communal lands. I think, I think that also comes in the framework of Community Land Act. And I think that was a question that I think Philip answered it in part by saying that increasingly county governments are aware of what is going on in terms of the investment coming in the National Government is in place. And once the regulations come out to the Ministry of Lands, that is something that women need to be at the centre of it all. I think for now something for me is something that we need to think through and give it time for that particular, when the investment comes with the enactment of the regulations, that is something women will benefit from. Thank you very much Dr Fibian. Now that is that should be the last question. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody, especially our panelist Dr Fibian Lucalo, Philip Killonzo and Rachel Dinda for their participation and showing more lights on aspects of gender in paratives in the land reforms agenda in Kenya. I would like to invite each of the panelists to be able to say a last in 30 seconds, give a last word to the to the to the session. Can I start with Philip Killonzo? I think it's great to have these conversations and we need to nurture them more so that again we get to build collective understanding around issues that are relevant to advancing women land rights. And we will continue to provide as action aid our insights based on our community interactions in these platforms. Thanks a lot for everyone for participating in this particular space. Thank you very much Philip Dr Fibian Lucalo. Your last word. Thank you. The organization I work for the National Land Commission has a directorate of research, which is committed not just to investigate aspects to gender in paratives of land reform, but specifically to begin to explain and show to the country the progress that has been made on human land rights. Thank you to all the listeners and thank you to the program. Thank you very much Dr Fibian Lucalo, Rachel Dinda. Your last word. To ease in a bit because if women are empowered if we're women on land, they are also easily economically and they will spend less. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for all of you and I think one important recommendation we are getting from here or probably not even a recommendation but something we need to work on and tirelessly work on is the aspects of inclusion of all stakeholders in in realizing a gender balance within the within the country. Secondly, the aspects of coordinated approaches within, within all forms of action points taken, and having everything done to all stakeholders, I mean, especially the government being the main duty bearer and all players civil society play a very big role in regards to to advocacy, and they, we normally say they complement the government's duty bearers efforts in be to be able to have everybody on board into into the discussion. The aspects of research came out so strongly. And I'm glad that the National Land Commission has a whole directorate to look into into research in various aspects to inform policies and and and and and laws and actually to give out the real picture of what is happening on the ground versus the the laws. One important issue which we really need to to bring out is, I mean, which has been brought out is in Kenya, policies are quite beautifully done policies have have actually made a big strides in it. And one important part is the actualization of of those of this policy, we have it from the constitution from the national policy, the constitution, and also the, the subsidiary laws to be able to actualize the gender balancing in the aspects of access use and ownership of land. I would like to thank all of you who participated and also asked question in the in the discussion, we can continue, continue discussing. I know food agriculture organization has also been in the forefront to make sure that such such type principles are really implanted in whatever working we are doing and in partnership with the with the host to government. This webinar was brought in courtesy of the European Union, the government of Kenya, the file office in Kenya and the land portal of foundation. We are really thankful and hope we'll end up I mean we'll continue discussions around the same to be able to actualize security of tenure for both men and women in the world. Thank you very much. Have a blessed time.