**2. Land tenure in Cameroon**

Access to land can in part be defined by customary land rights and practices which are not often secured by law [18, 21]. Rooted in the colonial legacy that enhanced patriarchal norms and structures, land management structures in Cameroon in general and the North West Region in particular usually render women's access to land difficult by promoting men's access and control over land. This also defines the right to control and use land giving men more power and authority over land than women [22, 23]. Understanding women's access to and control over land requires an analysis of various land tenure systems in general and women's land tenure patterns in particular.

Land tenure according to [24] refers to the terms and conditions associated with holding, using and transacting land, while land rights refer to the right to occupy and use land for various purposes with the ability to make improvements on the piece of land. Land rights also give owners the right to give, lease, rent and/or donate a piece of land [19–21]. This indicates that having more rights to land can be associated with more sustainable livelihoods for those with more rights to land than the landless and those with limited rights to land. In addition to helping land owners build an asset base that may lead to sustainable livelihood, having land rights may provide a source of power, prestige and a basis to recover from shocks and stress, as well as a means of economic production and other activities for a living [14, 19, 21, 24]. Land rights for women increase their bargaining power within the household with a resulting increase to household welfare [15]. Thus, secure land rights are very instrumental to economic development and a catalyst for economic activity.

The formal and customary land tenure systems have been identified as two main frameworks and/or institutions governing ownership and access to land [15, 18, 21]. It is important to note that because of the importance attached to customs, civil law protections are often not respected. Even though many laws recognize and protect the rights of women to land (property and land ownership rights, equal inheritance rights and marital property rights), enforcement of these laws is quite irregular and difficult. For example, Cameroon's 1996 Constitution gives all citizens the right to own property individually or in association with others, where ownership is defined by the right to use, enjoy and transfer property. On the other hand local restrictions and customary practices against women's ownership of land most often supersedes written law and therefore determine which rights to land can or cannot be exercised. The difficulty in implementing these laws could be as a result of conflicting legislation, institutional weaknesses and gender bias. The interest of this research is to note the convergence of customary laws and practices, institutions and traditional structures and formal laws to entrench and reinforce the already unequal balance of gender power relations and gender inequality within the community.

As observed by [25], land in Cameroon can be considered as a community resource in terms of space inherited from the ancestors. As a community resource, land is

managed by community representatives who can either be chiefs or traditional rulers and it is commonplace for land (community) to be inherited and transmitted from one generation to the other. Based on the pre-colonial conception of the ownership of means of production, land was conceived during this period as collective property for collective use and management. This however changed with the advent of colonialism that adopted a Eurocentric view of land as individual resource and thus the infiltration of individual property rights, highlighting the colonialist intension to control and manage land. Thus, it is important to note that the Cameroonian land law is a derivative of this European principle of individual ownership of land [21]. Based on this principle, the land ordinance of 1974 supports and promotes private ownership and the commercialization of land. According to this law, it is imperative for privately owned land to be registered and titled, without which such untitled and unregistered land is classified as national land [25, 26]. It is only when land is registered and titled that the land holder can be associated with ownership rights Rural communities can also title their customary land, and titles are the only protection against state appropriation. Given the difficult, long and expensive process registering land, it is difficult for customary land owners to register and secure communal land. Thus, such communities enjoy only usufruct rights to their land. This reinforces insecure tenure for most communities and individuals as a greater majority of farmland and communal land held under customary law is classified as national land. Generally, while land in rural areas is predominantly subject to customary law where traditional leaders (Fons, chiefs or Lamidos) administer and manage these lands, individual families may receive the rights to use land which are heritable through male kin [19, 21, 26, 27].

Cameroon's land tenure regime is therefore based on this and subsequent laws, emphasizing land registration and titling. Nonetheless, most land is still managed informally through local arrangements, whose flexible rules may create uncertainty, foster land conflicts, and hamper local development. Even though land reforms in 2005 simplified land titling by reducing the number of steps and departments involved, and cut the time needed to obtain a land title from several years to less than one, it failed to address significant hurdles including contradictory laws, poor record keeping, and reliance on traditional authorities to allocate land rights [19, 21].

Land registration seems to be more of an urban phenomenon given that rural communal land is more agricultural and is hardly registered. Notwithstanding, an estimated 80% of plots in urban and peri-urban areas are held under customary law. Plots are obtained through renting or purchase on the informal market [28–31]. The gaps in the land administration processes and infrastructure account in part to the slow transition from customary property rights to private ownership of property, increasing rather than diminishing land tenure insecurity. Cases of multiple sales of the same land, false land certificates, and inaccuracies in boundary definitions are commonplace, giving rise to frequent conflicts and disputes, also demonstrating that the registration process does not improve tenure security.
