Women suffer disproportionately from ravages of drought, desertification

Women’s land rights are in the spotlight ahead of the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, observed on 17 June, at events around the world, from Kenya to Viet Nam, including a high-level event at UN Headquarters in New York on Friday.

“Equal land rights both protect land and advance gender equality,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, in a video message, urging all governments to eliminate legal barriers to women owning land, and to involve them in policy making.

“We depend on land for our survival, yet we treat it like dirt,” the UN chief added, emphasizing the need for action.

Women make up nearly half of the world’s agricultural workforce, yet discriminatory practices related to land tenure, credit access, equal pay, and decision-making often impede their active participation in sustaining land health.

Today, less than one in five landholders worldwide are women, according to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

Women have ‘least control’

“Unsustainable farming is eroding soil 100 times faster than natural process can restore them, and up to 40 per cent of our planet’s land is now degraded, imperiling food production, threatening biodiversity, and compounding the climate crisis,” the UN chief said.

“This hits women and girls the hardest,” he said. “They suffer disproportionately from the lack of food, water scarcity, and forced migration that result from our mistreatment of land, yet they have the least control.”

Calling for support for women and girls to play their part in protecting “our most precious resource”, he said “together let’s stop land degradation by 2030”.