In Zambia, the wildlife and conservation sector is male dominated. A number of factors account for this, including structural barriers in recruitment and training and gender norms that see the public sphere as a male domain. Yet evidence suggests that women’s involvement in natural resource management leads to better conservation outcomes, as well as increased wellbeing and economic opportunities for women, their families, and communities.
To help address this gap, USAID facilitated a Women’s Leadership and Empowerment course, a training-of-trainers approach to strengthen the capacity of conservation leaders to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment within their own organizations and the communities they serve. USAID facilitated four cohorts of 100 non-governmental organization professionals from 25 conservation and land organizations, as well as one session for staff from the Department of National Parks and Wildlife. Post-training, these cohorts remain connected via an active WhatsApp group, serving as a community of practice for gender champions in the conservation space in Zambia.
In a follow up survey, participants reported that they are using the skills gained to: reach out to over 22,000 community members (8,000 women, 14,000 men) to increase their awareness on women’s land and resource rights and their role in natural resource governance; hold sensitization meetings with 300+ traditional leaders to promote greater gender inclusion in the chiefdoms; and train government employees from Department of National Parks and Wildlife and Forestry Department, as well as wildlife police officers and community scouts, on the importance of women’s empowerment in the wildlife space.
Below, learn how four champions are advancing women’s empowerment within their organizations!
“At an individual level, I am more confident and certain about the things I want to do with the women’s mentorship project I implement. The training helped me believe in myself and realize that I have the skills to work on women’s empowerment and I can and am learning more every day!”
Maina Malaya, is a Communication Officer for Wildlife Crime Prevention, where she manages a mentoring program for young women joining the conservation world. Maina had no gender training before the USAID course, but now has become the gender equality resource person for her organization, working to refine the gender strategy and expand gender-responsive programming. “The [gender] intervention is growing and causing us to invest more. Four more Wildlife Crime Prevention staff are undergoing the Women’s Leadership and Empowerment training soon,” said Maina. She notes the organization has started up a new partnership with Department of National Parks and Wildlife and Chunga Training Centre to help train wildlife police officers and community scouts on gender equality and gender-based violence (GBV) mitigation.
“The Women’s Leadership and Empowerment training deepened my understanding of factors that keep women out of natural resource management and how to address these challenges and increase impacts of our programs. I am now able to adapt my work and reach out to the vulnerable groups, which is allowing our program to have a broader reach.”
Sara Banda, is a Lead Community Officer for We Forest, responsible for promoting inclusive community forest management in the Muchinga landscape. After Sara attended the USAID training in 2022 with three other colleagues from We Forest, the organization has worked to reform its programming approach to make it more inclusive. “The training made me realize there were missing dots in the way we delivered our work, which is why less women were involved. Unless attention is paid to gender equality, the participation of women in community forest decisions is missed.” We Forest has also made changes to their reporting system to better capture gender and age disaggregation. What’s more, all projects are now required to complete a GBV assessment to help the organization better understand local dynamics and tailor programming to address these needs.
“Through the training, I gained insights into the specific risks and challenges that women face in relation to land ownership and access. This knowledge enabled the National Land Titling Program to design and implement targeted strategies to mitigate these risks, such as information packages on GBV for radio and community meetings, GBV sensitization to community leaders and referral support.”
Miyoba Masinja, is the Field Director for Medici Land Governance, a private company partnering with the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources to implement the National Land Titling Program. Miyoba leads a team of 12 USAID-trained women’s land rights champions working in different departments to ensure the land titling process is inclusive. “The training equipped us with an understanding of Zambia’s legal and policy framework on women’s land rights that empowered our team to implement gender integration activities in the program. The advocacy techniques we learned have helped us to increase the buy-in [for gender] internally and with our stakeholders.” Her team meets monthly to discuss progress on gender integration and so far, has seen an increase in joint titling compared to previous efforts.
“Before I came on the training, my challenge was how to deal with negative social norms. We saw men in uniform abuse power, which in some cases negatively affected our work, but it was difficult to find the entry points. The training was timely. It gave me the skills to engage law enforcement officers and navigate the social norms to bring in more women in our work.”
Frackson Sakala, a Senior Human Wildlife Co- Existence Officer for Conservation South Luangwa, works with communities to increase awareness on wildlife safety and promote effective engagement in conservation activities in areas surrounding South Luangwa National Park. Since joining the Women’s Leadership and Empowerment course in 2022 with two other staff from his organization, GBV mitigation has been a large focus of his work. “As a man I challenge my fellow men on issues of masculinity and norms, they open up and are able to listen to me. I present myself as a role model.” Frackson notes that addressing social norms and creating GBV awareness among the men in law enforcement helps to create an environment that is more friendly towards women. He notes that he has seen family relations among law enforcement officers improve post-training.
These champions are leading the charge to make Zambia’s conservation sector more inclusive, participatory, and sustainable, reducing risks for those involved.
USAID’s 
At IGAC we have a legal responsibility to know the current and allowed land uses, we have to know what each piece of land is good for and how we need to protect it. The cadaster is the map of landowners who have secure tenure rights to their property. The cadaster generates knowledge and detailed information about our rural territories and provides us with inputs that are fundamental to administer land and property in a way that is socially responsible and promotes sustainable land use and production.
Before, the community was not actively involved and that was a problem. That is why our logic is that the cadaster is made for the people and with the people. This is advantageous, because we can explain to the public why the cadaster is useful. People say “they update the cadaster and then my taxes increase, so I will have to pay more”, but they forget that they are also supporting land formalization and will receive a property title. And without a title they cannot access loans or subsidies.
In Colombia, the land administration trio of agencies includes IGAC, the National Land Agency (ANT) and the Superintendence of Notaries and Registers (SNR). IGAC is responsible for collecting and managing detailed information, and in areas that have been prioritized by the government, we receive support from the ANT as a cadastral operator. The ANT then administers the land that has been formalized or that will be redistributed and continues with the formalization and title delivery processes. The cycle then finishes with the SNR, which registers and issues the land titles.
I am a Project Management Specialist in USAID’s Democracy, Rights, Governance and Conflict Prevention office in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. I joined USAID in September 2021; however, my commitment to the Agency goes back nearly 10 years. Previously, I was involved as a consultant and later as an awardee under the USAID Office of Transition Initiatives, where I helped rebuild broken intercommunal relations after the 2011 post-electoral crisis. During this time, USAID produced a short 
In the last four years, the Municipal Land Office (MLO) of Santander de Quilichao has facilitated the titling of more than 700 parcels. Several of these are public parcels like parks or health centers, or have to do with improving the municipality’s roads. The land office has become a key tool for land use planning and property formalization, and with it, the administration has mobilized more than COP $50,000 million (USD $13.5 million) in public investments.
According to the latest reports, we can say that thanks to the MLO the municipality has mobilized more than COP $50,000 million (USD $13.5 million). We are talking about impactful projects such as building roads, like the Niza road, and communal spaces such as the Plaza de Toros and the Corona Real park. We also bought the parcels for the Santander de Quilichao Hospital, which has mobilized more than COP $35 million (USD $8,750), and the regional campus for the SENA, which resulted in COP $49 million (USD $12,250). The Villa Maria housing project has mobilized COP $10,000 million (USD $2.5 million) and will provide housing for 400 vulnerable families. For Villa Maria, the MLO helped us with the purchase and division of the parcel. In December we already delivered the first 100 property titles.
We are going to try to obtain as many titles as possible and meet our goal of 500 property titles. In addition, we have goals with two main roads: La Cañera and Calle Séptima. There are properties in the middle that now belong to private owners, and we are in the process of obtaining them and creating two-laned roads to join two large sectors of the municipality. We also have projects like the hospital and the marketplace. The land office also plays a role in the implementation of our municipal Land Management Plan.
Now, with the parcel sweep, land issues are being promoted. The land office has been a source of information for everybody, in terms of providing advice. The MLO is like our guide, and little by little, people understand better the culture of formal land ownership that we are promoting. People are not frustrated anymore with having to contact Bogotá or a lawyer to ask for information on land or property formalization. We have a population with more opportunities and knowledge, and the MLO has given our residents many solutions.
Nobody in Caldono’s Planning Department was surprised to learn that half of City Hall was sitting on a property with no land title. In the municipality of Caldono, six out of 10 parcels are informally owned, and this also applies to schools, health clinics, and municipal assets.
The end of the year brought good news for coffee growers in Northern Cauca. Seven families from Caldono received property titles to their coffee farms. Some of the families had initiated proceedings 10 years ago and had given up hope of ever obtaining a registered land title.
“The most important thing that we can do for our coffee growers is protect their property. My recommendation is to move forward with companies and the government, seeking policies that facilitate land formalization through taxes. Coffee growers pay taxes, with this strategy, we can find several actors that can help.”
In Caldono, 66 percent of parcels are informally owned, indicating that some 1,900 coffee-growing families do not have a property title. Alba Ituyán and Ameiro Mosquera are coffee growers who started the land titling process almost ten years ago. Thanks to USAID and the National Coffee Federation, in 2023, they received a joint land title to their coffee farm.
In each of the nine participating municipalities, USAID has trained public officials to give residents information about land titling and property issues. Jhojan Smith is an engineer working in La Macarena’s municipal administration, and when Meta’s regional team comes to work, he helps them reach the community.
Now that Raúl Moreno is the official owner of his property and has a registered land title backed by the government, he can support his family in other ways.
Since signing the 2016 Peace Accords, the government of Colombia has transformed rural land administration by adopting a model that puts the onus of formalizing rural property on government land agencies like the National Land Agency (ANT). With the support of USAID’s 
We have already used it, for example in the units that LFP delivered in Fuentedeoro and Puerto Lleras, we have already delivered land titles. In Santander de Quilichao we are going to identify the people and parcels that need to be formalized, that need land administration or legal tenure. We are going to make the processes quicker, more consistent, and especially produce results faster. What we aspire to is to avoid what happened to us in previous parcel sweeps, which were very long processes, too long for a single municipality, so we can gradually make progress.
Yes, we have implemented many changes, not only in the processes but also in simplifying forms, consolidating information collection tools, and issuing guidelines that are clear, not just for ANT employees but also for the parcel sweep operators. For example, before the ANT had 32 attention routes for land formalization, and we simplified the processes to 24 routes. Everything LFP has done to support the ANT with Rural Property and Land Use Planning translates to the possibility for a dignified life for rural Colombians.
Luz Mery Valdez is an iconic woman, who is defying gender stereotypes through her work as a cassava and yam farmer in the Montes de María region of Colombia. She works with the Association of United Women of San Isidro (AMUSI) in the municipality of El Carmen de Bolívar.
What have been the most visible changes since women have participated in farming activities?
What would you say to other women?