DAR ES SALAAM: THE Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development has intensified public awareness campaigns aimed at empowering women to understand and claim their land rights, a move that has significantly boosted female land ownership across the country.
Speaking in Dar es Salaam today, March 2, 2026, during the official launch of the ‘Samia Ardhi Clinic’ the minister said that latest figures show that women now hold an average of 28 percent of title deeds, a remarkable rise from below 10 percent recorded just a few years ago.
According to the minister, the ministry has made a major milestone in advancing gender equality in land ownership in the country.
The launched ‘Samia Ardhi Clinic’ is an initiative organised by the Ministry of Lands to provide professional support on land issues and issue land titles to women who have reached the stage of land ownership in commemoration of International Women’s Day.
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Elaborating, the minister said that in Tanzania’s land sector, women are a vital pillar of wealth creation, particularly in agriculture, small-scale businesses, and housing development and it is in this course that the government has continued to take firm measures to ensure that women obtain equal rights to own and benefit from land resources.
He said that the government has achieved that through various measures, including the review of the National Land Policy of 1995 (2023 Edition), which establishes mechanisms to ensure women have equal opportunities to access land rights and guarantees balanced representation of men and women in land administration and management bodies, the Land Act, Cap. 113, and the Village Land Act, Cap. 114, which states that women have equal rights as men to acquire, own, and use land as well as requiring women’s participation in decision-making bodies.
Furthermore, he said that the laws protect women’s land rights by requiring a woman’s consent before matrimonial land can be mortgaged, sold, leased, gifted, or otherwise transferred.
Moreover, the minister said that despite the various achievements made by the government, there are still some challenges that require continued attention such as Customary systems in some communities, where the misconception persists that a woman is merely a “passerby” and therefore should not inherit or own land, limited awareness among women, particularly in rural areas, about their legal rights to own land and Women’s limited economic capacity to finance the process of acquiring land.
However, he said that they expect that, through this clinic, as they meet most of the women directly, they will be able to solve their challenges, give them legal advice, and reduce their challenges to some extent.