1. Women’s access to irrigated land in a patrilineal customary area: Baare Community Irrigation Project.
E. O. Akrofi
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

2. Outline of Presentation
Introduction
Access to land, Irrigation and women land rights
Methodology
Case study area, Data collection
Findings
Development , Management and Assessing land at BCI
Benefits to community
Conclusion and recommendations
Acknowledgement

3. Introduction Customary tenure dominate in most of rural Africa
Access to land is linked to gender
Inheritance (matrilineal or patrilineal) favour men
Women have user-right most often of degraded land
Climate change is worsening the plight of women

4. Irrigation Irrigation can improve the returns on land
Household food security, improve income and reduce poverty
However, there is fierce competition for irrigated land
Irrigation infrastructure may also displace vulnerable groups

5. Women loose out, because they are neither recognised land right holders nor family heads
Irrigation may therefore perpetuate poverty
Women may resort to distress sales their use rights as a result of rising land values
The objective of this presentation is to discuss an irrigation project that favors women in a patrilineal customary area in the Upper East Region of Ghana

6. Baare Community Irrigation
Talensi District in UE Region
Subsistence Farmers
Patrilineal Inheritance
Raining season May–Oct
Dry season Nov.-April

7. Data collection Secondary data - existing literature Primary data
key informants consultation
focus group discussions and
questionnaires

8. Findings The objectives for establishment
reducing youth migration,
poverty alleviation and
enhance food security
Ghana Irrigation Development Authority (GIDA) under the Small Scale Irrigation Projects (SSIP).
IFAD and African Development Bank insists of equal access to land for men and women

9. Findings
The Chief of Baare volunteered land for the construction of the dam
Individual families along the dam leased their land to GIDA for 99 years during the dry season
Land owners do not receive any payment for the lease.

10. Findings
GIDA’s right to use the land is only limited to the dry season, the land revert to the rightful owners during the raining season
The leased land is consolidated and subdivided to interested farmers during the dry season.
Approximate farm size is about 15m by 15m

11. Management Water users Association (WUA)
Land allocation committee (LAC)
Water distribution committee (WDC)
Finance committee (FC)
No women in any of the committees and they did not see anything wrong!

12. Accessing land at BCI
All members of the WUA are eligible to access land
Allocation is on a first come first serve basis upon the payment of a fee (Irrigation Service Charge – GHC 203/hectare as at 2014)
As at 2014 there were 185 farmers, out of which 104 women (56.2%).

13. Benefits

14. Benefits
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15. Benefits Equity in accessing land in the dry season
Enhance food production in the community
Reduced poverty of the people
Peaceful and happy community

16. Conclusions
Customary tenure is flexible and may be adapted to suite changing conditions
Public private partnerships (GIDA and Community) are useful in meeting the needs of the vulnerable
Community participation in projects can ensures sustainability

17. Recommendations
Need for further research to ascertain whether the composition of the farmers is not as a result of the small farm sizes and the type of crops being cultivated.

18. Acknowledgement
I am grateful to all key stakeholders who provided valuable data for this work
Mutaru Fuseini Ada and Ziblim Alhassan who assisted in the field data collection.

19. Thank you for your attention.