Ghana’s Land Reform Paradox: Stronger Laws, Persistent Inequality

Ghana's land reforms were designed to modernise administration, improve tenure security and make land governance fairer. However, for many rural women, legal equality has not translated into ownership, control or the confidence that the land they cultivate will still be available next season.

The study "Ghana's Land Reform Agenda and Local Realities of Women's Land Access for Irrigation Farming in Garu," published in the journal Africa Spectrum, examines this gap between statutory reform and everyday land governance. Authors Millicent Awialie Akaateba and Agumah Sebastian Mbabugri of Ghana's University of Business and Integrated Development Studies combine an analysis of the Land Act, 2020 with interviews and focus-group discussions in Garu, a patrilineal farming community in the Upper East Region.

The findings reveal what they describe as a reform paradox. Ghanaian law prohibits gender discrimination in customary land decisions and recognises protections connected to jointly acquired marital property. In practice, however, women's access to irrigable land remains temporary, conditional and mediated by male relatives.

The Law Changed, but Local Power Did Not

The Land Act contains provisions that could strengthen women's tenure security. Section 11 declares discriminatory customary land decisions invalid, including those based on gender. Other provisions call for gender considerations in Customary Land Secretariats and protect interests in jointly acquired marital property through spousal consent and registration requirements.

These measures are important because customary authorities remain central to land administration in Ghana. Chiefs, elders and family heads continue to shape allocation, inheritance and dispute resolution. The law therefore attempts to place limits on local practices that privilege men.

But the study identifies a major implementation gap. The Act establishes non-discrimination as a legal principle without providing sufficiently clear systems for monitoring compliance, challenging discriminatory decisions or securing remedies. Rural women may not know how to invoke the law, may lack documents proving their claims and may be reluctant to confront powerful family or customary authorities.

This weakness is rooted in a wider tension within Ghana's reform model. The state has sought to modernise land administration while also strengthening customary governance. That hybrid approach may improve local legitimacy, but it can also preserve unequal power structures when customary institutions remain patriarchal.

In Garu, land normally passes through the male line. Sons inherit from fathers, while daughters are often excluded because they are expected to marry into another family. The stated aim is to keep land within the lineage, but the effect is to deny women permanent rights in both their natal and marital homes.

Women Produce the Harvest but Cannot Secure the Ground

Women in Garu continue to farm despite their exclusion from inheritance. The study finds that they commonly rely on borrowed plots, temporary family allocations and rental agreements to participate in dry-season irrigation. Borrowing land reduces upfront costs, but it creates severe insecurity. Owners can reclaim plots when they want to farm, transfer the land or respond to a dispute. Some women also reported having to perform additional work for landowners as an informal condition of continued access.

Renting offers greater independence because the arrangement is based on payment rather than goodwill. Yet rental costs compete with expenditure on seeds, fertiliser, irrigation, transport and labour. Women with limited savings or credit may be unable to secure land for long enough to justify major investment.

This insecurity has consequences beyond individual hardship. Farmers who fear losing a plot are less likely to improve soil, install irrigation equipment or adopt practices whose returns take several seasons. Temporary access can therefore keep women in short-term, low-security production even when they have the skills and motivation to expand.

The issue is particularly significant in Garu, where dry-season farming depends on scarce irrigable land. The Tamde irrigation dam was designed to irrigate 3,250 acres, but the study reports that only 815.31 acres were irrigable as of 2026, with around 300 farmers operating in the project area.

Scarcity increases the value of land and competition over it. Where no transparent allocation system exists, customary authority becomes the gateway to the benefits created by public investment. A dam may bring water to a community while leaving women dependent on the same male-controlled arrangements that previously limited their access.

Irrigation projects cannot be judged only by acreage, yields or farmer numbers. Governments and development agencies must also ask who controls the land around new infrastructure, how long access lasts and whether women can invest without fear of dispossession.

Daughter, Wife, Widow: Different Routes to the Same Insecurity

The study doesn't treat rural women as a single category. Age and marital status shape both the route to land and the form of exclusion. Unmarried young women are often treated as temporary members of their birth families. Their farming ambitions may be dismissed because they are expected to marry and leave. While young men may receive land to prepare for future roles as household heads, young women are more likely to receive small, revocable plots.

Marriage can improve access but usually not ownership. A wife may farm her husband's land because her production contributes to household welfare, yet the husband retains authority over registration, transfer and inheritance.

The Land Act's protections for jointly acquired marital property could improve women's position. However, male respondents in the study resisted joint registration, citing tradition and the complications of polygynous households. Such arguments turn administrative complexity into a reason for preserving male ownership.

The evidentiary burden creates another obstacle. Women often contribute through unpaid farm labour, caregiving and household management rather than direct financial payments. Without written agreements or registration records, proving that land was jointly acquired can be difficult. Widows face the sharpest risks. Some retain access through sons recognised as heirs. Those without sons may depend on the goodwill of their husband's relatives or on levirate arrangements. Widowhood therefore exposes how little independent tenure a woman may have accumulated during marriage.

These differences demand targeted responses. Young women may need supported leasing schemes; married women need practical assistance with joint registration and recognition of non-financial contributions; widows need rapid legal protection against dispossession.

Reform Must Reach the Village Gate

The study does not suggest that Ghana's Land Act is irrelevant. Its non-discrimination provisions provide a legal foundation for change. But rights become meaningful only when women can understand, document and enforce them.

• Customary Land Secretariats could serve as bridges between national law and local practice. Their role should go beyond symbolic female representation. They need transparent records, accessible complaints systems, clear allocation procedures and regular monitoring of outcomes for women.
• Legal literacy is equally important. Traditional authorities, family heads, women farmers and local officials need practical information about what the Act permits and prohibits. Community radio, local-language campaigns, theatre and intergenerational dialogue may be more effective than relying on legal texts alone.
• Registration must also become cheaper and easier. Mobile services, reduced fees and documentation support could help women formalise claims that would otherwise remain informal. Guidance is especially necessary for polygynous households, where complexity should not become a permanent justification for excluding wives.
• Irrigation projects should include gender-responsive land allocation from the design stage. Public agencies should define who receives plots, how long rights last and how disputes are resolved before infrastructure raises land values. Women's cooperatives could also negotiate group leases, pool costs and invest collectively in irrigation and farm inputs.

The authors also caution that the study's qualitative evidence comes from one patrilineal community and cannot represent all of Ghana, particularly matrilineal or urban settings. Its 36 participants reveal how exclusion works but do not establish national prevalence.

Still, the mechanisms identified in Garu have relevance well beyond one district. Across the Global South, legal reforms often coexist with customary, religious or family systems that determine who can actually control resources. The passage of a progressive law may therefore represent the beginning of reform rather than its completion.

Ghana's experience also connects land governance to the Sustainable Development Goals, especially SDG 5 on gender equality, SDG 1 on poverty, SDG 2 on food security, SDG 10 on inequality and SDG 16 on accountable institutions. Women's land rights are not a narrow property issue; they shape agricultural investment, climate resilience, household bargaining power and rural economic transformation.