Ongwediva
The Konrad Adenauer Foundation in partnership with Women’s Action for Development (WAD) recently launched a special initiative, ‘For One World – Without Hunger 2 project’.
The project is aimed at strengthening communal land ownership and communal land use rights of women in sub-Saharan Africa and supports secure and fair access to communal land and its resources for women in the region so as to increase food security.
According to project manager Stefani Braun, the overall objective of the project is to improve secure and fair access to resources and land use rights for women in the Omusati, Oshana, Ohangwena and Oshikoto regions of Namibia.
Braun said the awareness raining aspect focuses mainly on women (particularly widows and single women or single mothers), traditional authorities – male and female, as well as political decision makers at the local level and the media as a multiplier.
“Three main goals of the project are for women in the project regions to be informed about their rights and the context of traditional and codified law and the possible means of legal redress and to begin to apply these rights,” said Braun.
She says the traditional authorities are to be sensitised to consider codified law in arbitrating land questions and strengthen the position of women in matters of land use and ownership.
Political decision-makers are also sensitised to the basic interests and needs of women in land reform initiatives and the effects of the associated legislation.
She says this is necessary to ensure Namibia is a fair, gender responsive, caring and committed country, in which all citizens are able to realise their full potential in a safe and decent living environment.
The aim is to ensure a healthy, food-secured and breastfeeding nation, in which all preventable, infectious and parasitic diseases are under control, and in which people enjoy a high standard of living, with access to quality education, health and other vital services in an atmosphere of sustainable population growth and all-round socio-economic development.