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Tanzania – Smartphones Help Tanzanian Women Secure Land Rights
Jacqueline Nyantalima, a resident of Ilalasimba village in
Tanzania, is one of a group of young people running a new land mapping process.
TRF/Kizito Makoye
By Kizito Makoye
ILALASIMBA, Tanzania, August 25 (Thomson
Reuters Foundation) - Yolanda Ngunda has every reason to smile now she holds a
title deed recognising her as sole owner of a disputed plot of rugged farmland
in Tanzania's remote southern highlands.
For the past decade, the 51-year-old widow, who lives in Ilalasimba village in the rural district of Iringa, was embroiled in a family feud as her brothers-in-law tried to grab her land and kick her out of a brick house she built with her late husband who died after a short illness.
Ngunda said her brothers-in-law had even
threatened to set her house on fire. "But I stood firm to defend my
children's property," she said proudly.
Iringa is one of many areas in Tanzania where
there are cases of property grabs involving widows, rights activists say.
The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the region has
made many widows susceptible to losing their property as family members who
know little about the disease accuse them of killing their husbands to inherit
property.
Tanzanian law grants women the same rights as
men to access, own and control land, and allows them to participate in
decision-making on land matters. But only 20 percent of women possess land in
their own names, according to USAID.
Customary norms have made it hard for women to
obtain land in their own right. Instead many access it through their spouses or
male relatives, meaning they often end up losing it if those men die.
In an effort to help Tanzania's authorities
secure village land rights, USAID launched a project to map geographic and
demographic data using mobile phone technology, with the aim of speeding up
land rights registration.
The "Mobile Application to Secure Tenure (MAST)" project
enables villagers to identify property boundaries and gather the information
officials need to issue land ownership documents.
TECH-SAVVY MAPPERS
Launched in 2014, the $1 million project,
implemented by the Cloudburst Group, a U.S.-based consulting firm, has
simplified the process of documenting land rights while making it more
transparent and effective, USAID officials said.
Land registration in Tanzania is a cumbersome
process, riddled by corruption and mismanagement, which is why most people lack
formal rights to their land, according to Transparency International's 2013
Global Corruption Barometer.
Karol Boudreaux, a land tenure expert with the
Cloudburst Group, said the MAST project is designed to be participatory so that
it raises awareness among women about their right to own and inherit land,
while equipping village leaders with skills to resolve disputes.
"We have recognised that these rights have
not been well understood in some places," Boudreaux told the Thomson
Reuters Foundation, noting that widows in particular face barriers to owning
and inheriting land.
The project trains a small group of young
villagers to use a mobile application on Android-based smartphones to document
land rights.
"We needed to work with people who are
literate and comfortable using smartphones to map and document land
parcels," Boudreaux said.
To avoid conflicts, the tech-savvy mappers must
ensure that land owners or their representatives and neighbors are present
during the process. The information is then uploaded to an online database
where officials can access and validate it to issue title deeds.
"I am very happy to ... get the
opportunity to learn how to resolve land-related conflicts," said
23-year-old Ilalasimba resident Jacqueline Nyantalima. "This is a very
important exercise since it helps women secure their land rights."
According to USAID, the young people, who work
jointly with village leaders, have registered land parcels and helped issue
titles for 940 people. Plans are underway to expand the project to two other
villages soon.
CONFIDENCE BOOST
Women in Ilalasimba now have greater security
for their property, as 30 percent of land has been registered in their names,
USAID officials said. Another 40 percent has been registered jointly to men and
women, and 30 percent to men alone.
"I was inferior, but I am now very
confident after getting my title deed," said Ngunda. "I know my
children's future is bright since nobody will ever dare take this land
away."
Deadly conflicts over land have raged for
decades in Tanzania as farmers and livestock herders jostle to use water
resources that are dwindling due to recurring drought and poor management.
Adam Nyaruhuma, coordinator of the land tenure
support programme at Tanzania's Ministry of Land, said mapping land rights with
modern technology had the potential to diffuse land disputes while widening
chances for rural communities to use their land productively.
"The advantage of this programme is that once the land is formalised, it opens up a lot of opportunities for villagers who might be able to use their title deeds as collateral to secure bank loans," Nyaruhuma said.