Land ownership in The Gambia is a complicated issue. It lives at the intersection of traditional customs, legal processes, competing needs, and momentum from the public sector and local NGOs towards more equitable governance. 

Many women face significant disadvantages in owning land due to long-standing customs that govern land distribution within Indigenous communities. As such, the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) is collaborating with a consortium of partners on an International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)-led project to help enhance rural women’s land rights and gender equality in the country.

Traditionally in The Gambia, village leaders (known as Alkalou) allocate land to the (usually male) heads of individual families, who in turn parcel this out between their members. This often results in women being assigned small, unproductive plots – and risking having these allocated to other family members, too. Reallocation often happens when another family member wishes to use a productive parcel of land, and since women have limited decision-making power at both the household and community levels, they have little to no input in the outcome. This discourages women from investing in long-term, higher-value crops such as agroforestry to increase their income, as it could lead to the loss of their land once these plantings become productive.

The Resilience of Organizations for Transformative Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ROOTS) is an IFAD-led initiative implementing the Gender Action Learning Systems (GALS) methodology to facilitate joint household decision-making along rice and horticulture value chains in The Gambia. Participants create joint ‘vision journeys’ within their households and receive support while they carry out the necessary steps to reach their goals. ROOTS also supports food and livelihood initiatives in the project communities by supporting the implementation of women’s gardens, which are legally registered in the name of the garden groups. Each member is allotted several plots to grow food for sale at local markets.