By Godfrey Massay, Landesa Tanzania Program Director
If you were a woman in Tanzania in 1997, your right to inherit land was severely constricted. Under the National Land Policy, you could acquire land on your own through purchase or allocation, but inheriting clan land was subject to customs and traditions (provided they did not contradict Tanzania’s Constitution and principles of natural justice). Moreover, ownership of land between you and your husband was decreed not to be subject to legislation.
Today, land inheritance for women is much more accessible. Tanzania’s President Her Excellency Samia Suluhu Hassan launched the New Edition (2023) of the 1995 National Land Policy of Tanzania on March 17, which removes some of the most pervasive barriers to women enjoying full rights to land.
The New Edition underwent review and approval rounds from 2016 to 2025, including a public consultation window in 2018. Landesa, among other stakeholders, submitted policy recommendations aiming to safeguard women’s land rights.
In a large step forward for Tanzania’s more than 33 million women, the revised National Land Policy ensures equal gender rights in terms of access to land rights and specifically guarantees women equal opportunity to access land rights. State-led public awareness around gender equality in land rights and use, along with balanced representation of women and men in land governance and administration, are components of the policy integral to advancing gender equality.
The new policy no longer subjects women’s inheritance of clan land to customs and traditions, which have long discriminated against women, stunting their social status and economic development.
Though promising, Tanzania’s Revised National Land Policy does fall short of comprehensively protecting women’s rights to inherit land. Women in Tanzania continue to experience discrimination in both law and practice when it comes to inheritance rights, and certain key inheritance laws that perpetuate such discrimination were not listed as slated for amendment in this revised policy.
The new policy does remove the provision for customs and tradition to be in line with Tanzania’s Constitution and principles of natural justice—standards recognized as a global indicator of the best laws and policies which guarantee women’s land rights. This removal may also reduce recognition of Tanzania’s customary land tenure system, which in turn constrains the rights of women smallholder farmers and pastoralists.
Ultimately, there is space beyond the Revised National Land Policy to further strengthen women’s rights to land. Civil society must engage in greater policy advocacy to reform other laws and policies which uphold legislative barriers to women’s land rights. We celebrate this truly monumental progress, and simultaneously continue pushing for gender-equal rights to the world’s most foundational resource.