Tanzania Leads African Campaign to Grant Rural Women 30% of Arable Land

Tanzanian Minister of Community Development, Gender, Women, and Special Groups Dorothy Gwajima has been named matron of the African Rural Women Assembly and will champion rural women’s land rights across the continent. She proposed forming a coalition of regional ministers with support from the East African Community. The African Union set a 2025 target for women farmers to own at least 30% of the continent’s arable land, but Oxfam International’s Naomi Shadrack Mwaiponya said it has not yet been achieved. Launched in 2016, the Kilimanjaro Initiative Campaign brought women from more than 22 countries to Arusha to review its decade of efforts against land inequality and land grabbing.