The Women’s Land Rights Movement
Uganda Land Alliance (ULA) is a national civil society consortium of organizations and individuals working on land related matters. It was established in 1995, with a Mission “To enhance access, control and ownership of land by the poor women, men, children and marginalized groups through the promotion of fair land laws and policies for the protection of Land Rights”.
State Minister for Finance Ephraim Kamuntu presenting President Museveni's Speech at the Conference
The Alliance has over the past few years increased its activities around women’s land rights, by ensuring that in the National Land Policy and the review of other national laws on land, the issues of women stand out prominently. However, despite the successes and the acceptance of integration of these into policy and law, the practice has not changed. Women are still discriminated against in relation to land access, ownership and control; thus the need to address the issue from a practice change dimension.
It is against this realization that ULA invited a group of organizations and Government departments to rethink the women’s land rights question in Uganda in a bid to develop a common agenda and strategy to achieve practice change towards poverty reduction and improved household incomes and nutrition.
The Women’s Land Rights Movement was thus born on the 2nd June 2010 with four Government Ministries (Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development; Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries; and the Ministry of Justice), plus over 13 Civil Society Organizations working around women’s issues in Uganda. The first and major activity of the Movement was the National Women’s Land Rights Conference that took place in October 2010, attracting over 400 participants from across the country and beyond.
During the conference, the National Women’s Land Rights Movement-Uganda was officially launched by Uganda President, H.E Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, represented by then State Minister for Finance Ephraim Kamuntu
