A decade after global pledges to advance gender equality, Africa’s legal frameworks regulating community forest tenure remain overwhelmingly hostile to the rights of Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and rural women, a new Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) report reveals.
Despite leading the Global South in land tenure reforms since 2016, none of the 13 African nations analyzed—including Kenya, Ghana, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—guarantee women’s voting rights in community forest governance, with protections stagnating or regressing in critical areas.
The report, Resilience and Resistance, scrutinizes 44 legal frameworks across Africa, finding that 77% of countries fail to recognize women’s inheritance rights to community forests, while just 5% of laws adequately protect leadership roles for women. Even in nations like Kenya, where a 2017 quota system mandates women’s inclusion in community land boards, implementation remains spotty. “Legal reforms are stacking empty promises,” said Dr. Solange Bandlaky-Badji, RRI Coordinator. “Women sustain these ecosystems but are locked out of deciding their fate.”
Africa’s paradox lies in its legislative activity versus outcomes. While the continent established 9 of 11 new community-based tenure regimes (CBTRs) globally since 2016, over one-third of reforms either ignored gender equity or actively eroded protections. Mali’s 2024 revision of forest laws, for instance, stripped gender-specific membership rights, while Madagascar’s 2017 decree on protected areas omitted women’s membership safeguards entirely. The Republic of Congo, despite banning economic discrimination against women in 2019, still lacks dispute resolution mechanisms for community forest conflicts.
This stagnation clashes with Africa’s climate imperatives. Community-managed forests, where women often lead conservation efforts, store up to 37% of global forest carbon. Yet exclusion from governance fuels deforestation—rates in the Congo Basin have doubled since 2020. “When loggers negotiate, they meet men. Our knowledge is dismissed,” said Leonie Mputu Ngaluia of DRC’s Indigenous rights group DGPA.
The report spotlights grassroots resistance. In Cameroon’s Maribele forest, women formed a cooperative to bypass legal voids, managing resources despite lacking statutory rights. Yet such efforts face systemic hurdles: Mali’s Family Code still mandates wives’ obedience to husbands, stifling dissent in community votes.
With the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals deadline looming, RRI warns that Africa’s gender-blind reforms risk derailing climate and biodiversity targets. Only 2% of legal frameworks protect women’s voting rights—a figure unchanged since 2016. “Constitutional equality means nothing if customary laws silence women daily,” said Dr. Omaira Bolafios, RRI’s Gender Justice Director.
The findings demand urgent action. Kenya’s pending amendments to its Community Land Act could set a precedent with enforceable quotas, while Lesotho’s recent land policy dialogues offer templates for inclusive reform. But without binding safeguards, Africa’s legal strides remain parchment promises. As Bandlaky-Badji notes, “Women grow forests. It’s time laws grow their power.”
