Tabitha Siwale was born in Tukuyu in 1938, in what was then the Tanganyika Territory. She trained and later worked as a Teacher and Head Teacher at multiple schools in Tanzania. Her interest in politics began at a young age when she first attended meetings of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). In 1962, she was involved in the inaugural meeting of the Tanzanian national women’s organization Umoja Wa Wanawake Wa Tanzania. In November 1975, Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere appointed her as Minister of Land and Urban Settlement Development, becoming one of Tanzania’s first two women Ministers. She was also appointed a Member of the National Assembly where she served until 2000. After the 1980 election, she was transferred to Minister of Education, and two years later, she reassumed the Minister of Lands portfolio, which she held until 1984. While in Parliament, she worked to further women’s rights, particularly their right to own land.
Mama Siwale was also active in civil society and helped establish Women Advancement Trust (WAT) in July 1989 as a non-governmental, non-profit organization.
WAT promoted gender equality through training, education and advocacy with a focus on women’s equal rights to access land, housing and inheritance. This led to a name change to Women Advancement Trust Human Settlements Trust (WAT-HST) and increasing engagement in all aspects of housing development.
WAT-HST helped low-income women and communities collectively access land for incremental housing projects and played a key role in the earliest days of housing microfinance innovations in the Africa region. Mama Siwale was co-host of a major Housing Microfinance Workshop held in Dar es Salaam in 2008. She also helped establish the WAT Savings and Credit Cooperative Society in 1998 which continues the work of WAT-HST to this day. Her leadership contributed to steering Tanzanian land and housing polices and practices in more rights based and pro-poor directions.
Tabitha was also very active in regional and international human settlements work through her engagement with the Habitat International Coalition (HIC):
- Member of the HIC Board as Representative for Anglophone Africa from September 2009 to August 2013
- She headed the International Secretariat of the Women and Habitat Network, from the WAT organisation in Tanzania in early 1997, for a three-years term.
- She was named a HIC Wisdom Keeper in May 2009 and played an important role maintaining the organizational memory and advising on challenges HIC faced.
In 2000, she was awarded the Woman of the Century Award by an American Institution in recognition of her contribution to Tanzania.
Mama Siwale who left us on 13 March 2025, always advocated for women’s rights to land, housing and urban development, and was a strong supporter of community-based housing and low-cost land for low-income households. She has left a legacy in many sectors and will be remembered as a fighter for women’s rights in general and to land and housing in particular.
