Buganda roots for women rights at World Bank conference in Washington DC FRIDAY MARCH 29 2019

This assurance was echoed on Friday by BLB’s product and business development manager, Cissy Kiyaga (C) while delivering a presentation on behalf of the women caucus at the closing session of this year’s four-day World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty which started on March 25 in Washington DC.

The Buganda Land Board (BLB) has welcomed the World Banks #standforherland campaign 2019 aimed at empowering all women to have secure tenancy on land wherever they are and whenever they want. This assurance was echoed on Friday by BLB’s business activation manager, Cissy Kiyaga while delivering a presentation on behalf of the women caucus at the closing session of this year’s four-day World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty which started on March 25 in Washington DC.

Ms Kiyaga noted that over years, women have faced cultural, financial and societal challenges to secure land rights. She, however, applauded organisers of the conference for giving more attention and space to the women cause which facilitated the discussion on women land rights. “Continuing with the #standforherland momentum, we have the following asks: For the next conference, may we kindly organize a high level plenary for securing women’s land rights so that we can have an exclusive discussion particular to women? We also ask for inclusion of gender implication clauses in all World Bank panels, presentations and sessions so that we clearly see the implication of gender in the land sector,” she noted. “We request the World Bank to put forward a facility to unable a sponsorship for innovative female participants that were unable to make it for the conference.”

The 20th of this kind, the World Bank conference on Land and Poverty is organised by Klaus Deninger, a lead economist in the World Bank. It attract world leaders to discuss pertinent issues on the relationship between land and poverty and this year the focus was innovation They also discussed forestry, security of tenure, new technology, fit-for-purpose land administration, new methods of land registration, land reforms, security of tenure and social transformation, land and the Sustainable Development Goals and gender issues on land, among others.

On behalf of Buganda Land Board, Ms Kiyaga presented a paper on financial inclusion and another on the Land Electronic Card. She noted that Buganda Kingdom are the leading champions in advocating women rights as exhibited in their consistent issuance of lease titles to both women and men. She also noted that they sensitise and encourage women to always register and secure their land interests if they don’t have money to obtain certificates of title. With leases issued by Buganda through BLB, women and men have an equal opportunity of getting a title as long as they meet the necessary requirement, she said.

“We also innovated the Land Electronic Card which uses the palm vein technology as a means of safeguarding people’s land documentation. This technology is very secure and we use it with both men and women, as long as they are the rightful owners of the land. It will go a long way in eliminating land fraud because the owner of the land is the only one who can sanction a transaction on a given piece of land by presenting their palm for scanning and confirmation,” she explained. The four-day conference was attended by Uganda’s land minister Betty Amongi, the P.S ministry of lands Ms Dorcas W. Okalany, the director land management Mr Richard Oput and other officials from the ministry. There were also lands ministers from Ethiopia and Malawi.