Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille will on Thursday host a Women’s Month Land Reform webinar.
“Women are the invisible workforce, the unacknowledged backbone of the family, who play a vital role in meeting the food and nutritional needs of families through food production, economic access to food and ensuring nutrition security of family members,” the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure said in a statement.
Despite this bedrock role, women are constrained by poverty, lack of access to land, and the inherent difficulties of discrimination that perpetuate gender inequalities.
“The empowerment of women is crucial to provide them with the means to voice their needs and desires and to take action so that they can influence agricultural development for the improvement of nutrition and food security and participate effectively in our society,” the department said.
De Lille will address the role of the State in land reform, highlight successes and engage a range of experts on the way forward and what needs to be done to empower more women under the banner of land reform.
The webinar will also enable attendees to hear from a female farmer who benefitted from government’s land reform programme.
The panellists at the webinar will be:
- Minister De Lille.
- Professor Ruth Hall – Professor at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape and member of the Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform.
- Advocate Bulelwa Mabasa – Director and Head of the Land Reform Restitution & Tenure practice at Werksmans Attorneys and member of the Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform.
- Christo van der Rheede – Executive Director of AgriSA.
- Grace Dinkwanyane – Tafelkop farmers, winner of Female farmer of the year and beneficiary of government’s land reform/redistribution programme.
- Dr Dimakatso Malwela – President of Women of Value Africa and businesswomen
