Land tenure regimes for women in Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) in Northern Ghana: Opportunities and threats
Frank Akowuge Dugasseh, Clement Aapengnuo, Marianne Zandersen
Abstract
This paper analyses women’s access and security to land under customary land governance in Community<br/>Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) in Northern Ghana through document analyses and surveys of 312 land<br/>right holders and tenants from 13 communities. The key interest is to investigate the potential for combining<br/>customary land practices with land title registration and education in improving women’s economic empowerment<br/>and social development in the Dorimon and Zukpiri CREMAs. The paper focuses on the motivation of<br/>land right holders to grant land rights to women through land use agreements and reasons for terminating such<br/>agreements, and provides critical perspectives and data to support the development of tenure security indicators<br/>for community protected agro-ecological areas. The study also assesses the position of women in anticipation of<br/>forest carbon credits as against their current land holding rights and concludes that despite inherent weaknesses<br/>of customary land governance in protected areas, opportunities exist to scale up and expand the formalisation of<br/>land use rights through CREMAs, education and the use of Voluntary Savings and Loans Association to enable<br/>women gain access to sufficient land. This could significantly help improve women smallholder farmers’ tenure<br/>security to land, provide livelihood options, enhance food security and ensure their participation and profit from<br/>entering into result based ecosystem payment scheme such as REDD+.