A new report has revealed that ownership of land by indigenous women remains very low.

The report released by Rights Resource Initiative this month analysed land ownership by indigenous women across 35 countries, among them Kenya.

The report also studied land ownership by women who depend on communal lands and those who claim ancestral lands in the forests.

It shows that ownership of land among indigenous women remains low despite the adoption of the most comprehensive roadmap for women’s rights.

“Nearly a decade of progress in international law and national legislative reform, a mere 5 per cent of legal frameworks regulating community forest tenure adequately protect women’s community-level leadership rights,” the report notes.

The report recognised Kenya among a few African countries that have registered community lands.

“As per a 2017 regulation to the Community Land Act, community women’s leadership rights are now recognised through a quota requirement,” it notes.

Despite this milestone, the report says indigenous women still face a great challenge with land rights and limited inclusion in climate policies as well as persistent gender-based violence.

Examined countries, including Kenya, have adopted the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

However, the report reveals that no country is remotely close to meeting their legal obligations to protect women’s community-based rights to membership, governance, inheritance, and dispute resolution rights.

“With less than five years to achieve the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the limited progress observed between 2016 and 2024 underscores that governments are unlikely to meet gender equality objectives by 2030 without swift, gender-transformative action to ensure compliance with international human rights standards,” the report notes.

The analysis revealed that all the 35 countries featured in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are far from meeting their goals, with weak legal protections for women’s land rights.