Okuna encouraged women who are economically empowered and independent to start buying their own land so that they can use, develop, manage, and also transfer ownership, if they so wish.
Several women in Acholi sub-region are struggling to implement their agenda
on reforestation due to limited access to land.
Acholi sub-region has
registered extensive tree cutting mainly for commercial charcoal production and
agriculture over the past 10 years, leaving huge chunks of land bare, barren,
and prone to soil erosion.
For this reason, several women in the eight districts of Acholi have embarked on tree growing
to restore the lost forest cover while recruiting other women to do the same.
However, with limited land access, insecure land use and rights, their efforts
are greatly affected.
Florence Akidi started
growing trees in 2020 after getting training from a group of women growing
indigenous trees. However, five years later, she has planted only about half an
acre of trees.
Akidi, a resident of
Coo Rom in Nwoya district, is one of the people who were displaced by the
Lord’s Resistance Army war. On returning to Nwoya from Gulu, she found that
brothers and uncles had taken a huge chunk of her father’s land, and divided the
land among themselves.
Her situation worsened
when her husband died in 2015, nine years after the displaced people began
returning to their homes from the camps and left her with eight children.
According to Akidi, her
family only gave her the little piece of land, after seeing the challenges she
faced as a widow in her matrimonial home.
//Cue in: “Jo ma gucito…
Cue out: …ni atii
iye.”//
Akidi, the chairperson
of Tii
ki Kwokki Women’s Group, which
has 38 women engaged in tree-growing, noted that the issue of land access is
rampant among the women in the group, and those considered to be better off
mainly have not more than an acre of land.
Akidi now plans to buy
her land, which in her area goes for a minimum of UGX 2 million per acre, if she
is to meet her target of planting 10 acres of trees.
//Cue in: “Dong atye ki…
Cue out: …kombedi dong
obino.”//
Akidi is one of the more than 2000 women who have
embarked on replanting the lost forest cover with Indigenous trees, as well as
growing other fruit trees to improve their livelihood, get wood fuel as an
alternative to the now expensive charcoal, as well as shade and windbreaks for
their homes.
In Acholi, the land is
mainly owned in common, with men overseeing its use and distribution. Oftentimes,
even women with great ideas for development such as reforestation struggle to
gain permission to use land and are always restricted to small plots.
These restrictions are faced both in their natal and matrimonial
homes. Some face eviction after reclaiming barren land, which affects their
efforts for long-term conservation.
Pamela Akech, a 50-year-old
mother of six in Omoro district, has faced the latter problem firsthand.
The two-acre piece of
land her father left lost fertility, so
she started planting various fruit and
indigenous trees, which helped to revive the land, making her food crops
flourish. But for the past two years, Akech’s only brother, who had abandoned
the land due to its infertility has been disturbing her that he now has plans
for it.
“I planted the trees to
support me pay my bills. I know planting trees will revive this land to help my
grandchildren. But with this wrangle, my efforts will not pay,” Akech said.
Geoffrey Okello Okuna,
the spokesperson of Acholi Cultural Institution, acknowledged the challenges
women face in accessing land in the sub-region, mainly because the land is
owned communally and most times does not come with land use rights.
Okuna encouraged women
who are economically empowered and independent to start buying their land
so that they can use, develop, manage, and also transfer ownership if they so
wish.
//Cue in: “Women or the…
Cue out: …to the
core.”//
Okuna explained that
the council of chiefs has always sat in meetings and urged the community that
the women or girl child should not be marginalized when it comes to issues of
access to land.
//Cue in: “And we have…
Cue out: …they were
born.”//
Okuna revealed that now,
the paramount chief of Acholi, Rwot David Onen Acana II, is on a production
tour of the sub-region to sensitise the community on the need to grant women access to
land, given that they are the ones who do subsistence farming that sustain the
households.
//Cue in: “We have been…
Cue out: …on the
move.”//
According to Okuna, the
percentage of women who own land in Acholi is unknown. However, the 2024
National Housing and Population Census results by the Uganda Bureau of
Statistics show that only 6% of the 53% population of women in Uganda own land,
yet 77% of them are engaged in agriculture.
This finding indicates
the gender gap in land ownership among women and men and the economic
development and independence effects it has on women, not only in the
sub-region, but countrywide.
