AASL and CAFOD in Partnership to: ‘Improving women’s Access to Land in Rural Communities in Bombali District’

Land is one of the most fundamental resources to women’s living conditions in Sierra Leone, economic empowerment and to some extent, their struggle for equity, political power and equality. However, due to economic, legal, social and cultural factors, their rights to access, control and transfer of land are weaker as compared to those of men.

AASL intend to mainstream and strengthen women‘s empowerment through the women land rights project in four chiefdoms (Bombali Shebora, Gbanti Kamaranka, Safroko Limba, Makarie Gbanti) in the Bombali District: for this purpose, Through the assistance of CAFOD, Funds have been secured to undertake a project that will  increase Women’s Land Rights in the four chiefdom's in the district. Awareness raising and capacity building/training for women, chiefs, government functionaries, and the men from these four chiefdoms will be done; mainstreaming and strengthening of women‘s land rights through policy dialogue and lobbying at country and chiefdom level ; participatory research and analysis at district and chiefdom level; piloting and documenting of appropriate methodologies which will strengthen women‘s land rights; and, sharing of lessons learn at country, regional and chiefdom level will be core focus of the project.

This project is framed within the key strategic and policy tenets on land access and aims to contribute to their application and implementation. AA SL’s increased interest in women‘s access to land is reflected in their Strategic Framework for Gender Mainstreaming in AA SL‘s Operations as well as CAFOD corporate policy on creating a just world where every will be equal in terms of dignity and access to natural resources. AA SL first strategic objective for this project is to help ―ensure that, at the Chiefdom level, poor rural women have better and sustainable access to land), which they will utilized without hindrance to improve their socio-economic conditions. AASL believes that to improve on women’s status in the project area special attention must be given to gender differences and empower the women, who account for a disproportionate number of the district‘s extreme poor and are usually the most disadvantaged.