Resilience-building planning in drylands requires a participatory, integrated approach that incorporates issues of scale (often large scale) and the interconnectedness of dryland ecological and social systems. In an often political environment that supports small, “manageable” administrative units and the decentralisation of power and resources to them, planning at large scale is particularly challenging; development agents in particular may find it difficult to work across administrative boundaries and/or collaboratively.

Productive land is a critical natural asset for rural communities in developing nations, providing them with a wide range of ecosystem resources, such as water, fertile soils, plant and genetic diversity – on which they depend daily for survival. For many communities, the land is also an integral part of their cultural identity, helping to maintain social cohesion and stability, in addition to building resilience to socio-ecological shocks and risks such as those caused by climate change. But land is a vulnerable resource that must be managed and restored to ensure a sustainable future.

The paper focused on the need to document impacts of the global climate discourses at the local levels. In addition, it sought to fill the lacuna on the translation of discourses insofar as pastoralists land rights’ and adaptation are concerned, while looking at translation and implementation of these discourses. Theoretically, the paper employed the Actor-Network-Theory where civil society organizations are hinged around key actors in formulating Kenya climate law.

This article discusses different issues pertaining gender and land governance with focus to access and control of land by rural women and how this affects their resilience in G5-Sahel region- Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Mauritania. Findings show that land remains the property of men, customary chiefs, male members of the family who have the full control of land use; women continue to serve as servants of their husbands in the farming activities.