One of the key guiding principles underlying the Government of Ghana’s land policy is the fact that land is considered as a common national or communal property resource held in trust for the people and which must be used in the long term interest of the people

Access to land is governed through the existing land tenure systems. Ghana maintains a plural land tenure system. Land tenure in the Ghanaian context is the relationship (legal and customarily defined) among people as individuals or as groups with respect to land. Rights to land are normally viewed as a bundle of rights this is because an individual can hold multiple rights to one piece of land. Rights to land can take the following forms:

- Use rights: The right to use the land;
- Control rights: Right to make decisions on how the land should be used and to benefit financially from the sale of the crops etc; and
- Transfer rights: The right to sell or mortgage the land to convey the land to others through intra-community re-allocations or to heirs and to reallocate use and control rights.

Very often the vulnerable in society especially women have only use rights to lands within their communities. Generally, it has been observed that women have limited access and use rights to land and other resources than their male counterparts. The situation is further complicated by the fact that there are geographical variations to the access that women have to land. There are more restrictions on women access to land in the northern regions of Ghana than in the south. This is in spite of the fact that women account for 70% of production of subsistence crops and form about 90% of the labour force in the marketing of farm produce.

The co-existence of many systems of law regulating land in Ghana presents special difficulties, particularly for the more vulnerable sections of society, including women and the rural and urban poor.

It is estimated that 80% of the land in Ghana is owned and governed by our traditional rulers. The dominance of the customary practices in these areas is associated with gender biases which affect the ability of women to assert their land rights. Under the customary land administration system, often women are not consulted and therefore are not involved in taking decisions that have a bearing on land administration in their communities. In other words decisions on land matters are taken by men and more often than not from a biased perspective.

Women in Ghana are generally poor; they rarely have access to formal legal procedures due to the complexity and cost of procedures involved and the lack of awareness of legal provisions. As a result they are incapable of taking steps to assert their land rights and they are placed in a position of considerable insecurity.

In the public or formal sphere, the procedures for ensuring security of tenure, including registration processes are often cumbersome, expensive and time-consuming. It has been suggested that women generally tend to have a lesser opportunity of complying with such formal processes because of their limited access to information, and lack of financial resources and time needed to comply with them. The restricted access of women to formal structures for land management has also been attributed to their higher rates of illiteracy, language barriers and societal perceptions on the role of women with regard to matters involving property.

Women’s land rights are significantly influenced by inheritance systems as well as tenurial arrangements and land use patterns. One of the most important ways in which women acquire land is through inheritance both as wives and as daughters or sisters. There are two systems of inheritance in Ghana, the patrilineal and the matrilineal systems. The former refers to a situation where family members and relatives inherit from the father and the latter refers to a situation where family members and relatives inherit from the mother. Unfortunately, the inheritance system is generally skewed against women and girls in favour of men and boys.

The common practice is for men to inherit family property. By granting males primary rights of inheritance of land and property, and granting women and girls user rights mediated through their relationship to men, a situation of unequal power relations, drawn along gender lines, is entrenched in land tenure and production relations.

Gender relations within marriages are clearly defined under customary law and statutory law and have significant implications for the property rights and economic empowerment of women in particular. In this regard one of the critical issues affecting women and land rights relates to the property rights of spouses during marriage and upon the dissolution of marriage through divorce.

As part of the government’s efforts to put in place an efficient and effective land administration system that ensures tenure security for all particularly women, the Land Administration Project Unit has undertaken a number of initiatives. The initiatives have focused on training and awareness creation among the staff of the Land Sector Agencies (LSAs) and the staff and the Traditional Authorities of the Project’s pilot Customary Land Secretariats. The most significant initiative however is the development of a gender strategy by the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) for the country’s land sector. The strategy is intended to enable the LAP formulate comprehensive development interventions that would mainstream as well as address gender related problems at the traditional and the LSA level.

The strategy is a result of the review of studies and relevant information from the project and other land related initiatives, an assessment of the aspirations of civil society, consultation, surveys and focus group discussions. The main objective of the strategy is to facilitate the mainstreaming of gender into the land sector. The strategy seeks to promote a coherent and sustained approach to addressing women and men’s concerns for equitable development in relation to land administration through gender sensitive data gathering, participation in the design, implementation and monitoring and evaluation processes of the project.

The strategy has five (5) strategic thrusts critical for accomplishing the LAP’s gender objectives. They include:

- Public Education;
- Capacity Building;
- Institutional Processes;
- Advocacy; and
- Collaboration and Networking

The LAPU has put in place an institutional arrangement that will ensure the smooth and efficient implementation and realization of the strategy’s objectives.

The process of mainstreaming gender will be led by the Project Director and the Social Development Specialist; other individuals and organizations with primary responsibility for the implementation of the strategy are the Legal, Institutional Reform and Communication Specialists, the Training Officer, the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit of the project, the Gender Focal Persons of the Land Sector Agencies, The Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs and the Civil Society Organizations.