Source: https://consortium.resourceequity.org/subtopic/titling-registration-land-certification/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 16:55:56+00:00

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Land titling formalizes and documents a person’s or persons’ legal right(s) in the land. In the process, a land title or similar document, such as a land certiﬁcate, is issued. When that right is recorded in an oﬃcial database, it is considered “registered.” Documenting rights generally makes them more secure. However, if more than one person has an interest in the land, and one or more people with an interest do not have those interests documented at the time of titling, then those with undocumented interests lose their rights to the land. Women’s interests in land are often not considered “rights” or are considered “secondary” and thus are not documented, leaving them more insecure.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) provided technical and financial support to the Government of Benin to develop Rural Land Use Plans (Plans Fonciers Ruraux, PFR), which were developed as part of large-scale land formalization. As part of the program, all PFR villages were selected through district-level lotteries that provided a public and transparent identification of program and comparison communities.
This study uses administrative monitoring and evaluation data from the MCC and Millennium Challenge Account-Benin to document the village-level eligibility for the PFR, the outcome of the program assignment lottery, and the implementation schedule across treated villages. In addition, the study uses the 2006 national EMICoV survey data to establish pre-intervention balance between treatment and control communities. This survey was conducted by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Analysis (INSAE), and its sample covers 3900 households in 160 villages (91 treated and 69 control) of the experimental sample. Third, the researchers conducted a rural household follow-up survey in March/April 2011. That sample covered the sub-sample of 2010 rural EMICoV villages: 160 villages from the original 2006 EMICoV sample were revisited, and an additional 129 villages were randomly selected to complement the 2006 sample. The 2011 survey sample covers 289 villages: 191 treated and 98 control. The selection of villages was done randomly and stratified at the level of the commune, with on average 7 villages surveyed per commune. Overall, 3507 households were interviewed (approximately 12 per village), with detailed information on 6572 parcels used by these households.
What is the impact of land demarcation (prior to the issuance of land certificates) on parcel-level measures of tenure security, cultivation and investment decisions, and agricultural production? What are the differences between male-headed households and female-headed households?
The PFR program focused on the formalization of existing customary rights of individual landholders. The program formalized customary rights of rural households through two main steps. First, the program demarcated all land parcels in a community and assigned property boundaries, and, second, the program issued land use certificates. The land use certificates were not issued at the time of the study.
Arable land is held communally and under customary tenure but farmed by households. Men have ownership-like rights under customary law. The default marital property regime is separate property.
Female-headed households have weak customary property rights. Female-headed households’ landholdings are on average 1.56 ha smaller, and are more likely to have been obtained on the rental market than through bequests or land clearing, a more customary way of gaining rights to land. In the presence of weaker tenure security, investment in long-term crops such as perennials is lower among female-headed households.
The presence of clear borders (demarcated by stones, for example) serves as a proxy for tenure security, because the landholder feels confident to identify a visible marker of security from encroachment and expropriation. Male-headed households were more likely to mark borders after the demarcation than female-headed households (difference significant at the 10% level). Although significant, this gender difference is attenuated by the higher propensity of female-headed households to have clear borders, regardless of program assignment, which aligns with the assumption that women have weaker initial tenure security and expend more effort to stake their claim to their land.
In relation to gender differences in the impact of land demarcation on cultivation and investment decisions, the study estimates suggest that assignment to the PFR increases the likelihood of fallowing land exclusively among women-headed households. This finding suggests that PFR land demarcation activities disproportionately increased the probability of fallowing among those with weaker initial property rights—leading them to undertake an investment in soil fertility.
Female-headed households were more responsive than males to an external change in their relative tenure security. The demarcation process lead female-headed households to shift their agricultural activities away from their relatively secure land (i.e., demarcated parcels within the village) and toward less secure land outside the village perimeter, allowing them to protect their claim to that land and reduce the risk of expropriation.
What was the effect of demarcation on women within male headed households? Did their tenure security increase or decrease or neither?
Why does the study observe a widening of the gender yield gap on treated parcels for female headed households? The study detects a significant 26% decline in output and a 36% drop in yields on within-village parcels following demarcation activities. Though imprecise, the yields on parcels outside of treated villages, meanwhile, are more than twice the size of those within treated villages. In contrast, the study observes no significant differences in treatment impact by parcel location for male-headed households.
The study finds nearly two-thirds of a hectare drop on within-village parcel size for female-headed households. Why does this occur?
Goldstein, M.; Houngbedji, K.; Kondylis, F.; O'Sullivan, M.; Selod, H. 2018. Formalization without certification? Experimental evidence on property rights and investment. Journal of Development Economics 132 (2018) 57–74.
Goldstein, M.; Houngbedji, K.; Kondylis, F.; O'Sullivan, M.; Selod, H. 2016. Securing Property Rights for Women and Men in Rural Benin. Gender Innovation Lab Policy Brief; No. 14. World Bank, Washington, DC.
This study uses land registry data from the First and Second Stage Land Registration Reforms that took place in 1998 and 2016 in sampled districts and communities in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
There are few studies that have looked at land ownership distribution within male-headed and female-headed households. This is the first such study in Africa. The authors use the SSLR (Second Stage Land Registration) data for gender disaggregated analysis after aggregating parcel data by gender to the household level and categorizing households in male- and female-headed households. Data from 11 municipalities (tabias) in four districts (woredas) were used, covering 78,700 parcels in the SSLR database allocated to 31,500 households.
What is the measure of inequality of land access and how has this changed from 1998 to 2016 within and across communities?
How reliable is the FSLR (First Stage Land Registration) data and to what extent were there measurement errors, and did this bias land distribution measures when comparing FSLR and SSLR data?
Our focus will be questions one and two above.
Tigray was the first region to implement low-cost land registration and certification in Ethiopia and provided household level land certificates in the names of household heads. Second Stage Land Registration and Certification (SSLRC) has been scaled up since 2015 and provides households with parcel-based certificates with maps. The SSLRC lists all holders of parcels by name and gender.
Tigray is mostly highlands made up of small family farms. Both women and men fought for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front against the Derg regime, and under the Derg regime, land was collectivized. Within families, the law calls for both women and men’s names to be on land documents.
The SSLRC has been scaled to other regions.
The authors found that from the total sample of SSLR data, which represents an area of 30,000 ha, female ownership shares for the land was as high as 48.8%.
The Gini-coefficient for land distribution among women is lower than that among men (0.45 versus 0.57) (less skewed).
In looking at the gender distribution within households, the share of male-headed households with no female landowners varied from 25% to 60% across communities. Close to 45% of male-headed households have zero female land ownership while close to 35% have 50-50 female and male land ownership. Close to 15% have a female share between zero and 50%, and about 5% have a female share between 50 and 100%. For female-headed households the female share is 100% for more than 90% of the households.
Male-headed households had on average 34% more land than female-headed households but this difference was reduced to less than 10% in terms of land per capita (after correcting for differences in family size between male-headed and female-headed households).
There is a clear trend towards smaller farm sizes from the FSLR in 1998 to the SSLR in 2016. The share of farms below one ha varies from 0.50 to 0.90 across communities in the SSLR data.
Thus, while almost 50% of the land is held by women, almost 45% of male headed households do not share ownership with women.
What is different about the communities or households where women share ownership of land with their husbands vs. the communities or households where women have no land ownership rights within the male headed household?
The study presents the results of a USAID-funded impact evaluation of the Ethiopia Land Tenure Administration Program (ELTAP) and the Ethiopia Land Administration Program (ELAP). Using panel data collected from 4,319 households that were surveyed across 284 kebeles (village clusters) in Amhara, Oromia,Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNP), and Tigray regions. The evaluation employed a Difference-in-Difference design coupled with matching to examine the impact of second-level certification relative to first-level certification across a range of household-level outcomes.
In addition to average impacts, the study also examines how impacts of second-level certification vary for a set of seven program-relevant characteristics of households or villages that could be important modifiers of program effect: gender of household head; marital status of household head; program round (i.e., ELTAP vs. ELAP); household total landholdings; wealth status; age of household head; and distance to regional capital.
Increase household access to credit?
Reduce the number of land related disputes and dispute resolution time?
Increases the likelihood that households engage in land rental and sharecropping activities?
Encourage households to invest more in soil and water conservation?
Result in stronger perceived tenure security for women and men?
Increase women’s involvement in land management and decision-making activities?
This paper presents the results of an impact evaluation of the ELTAP/ELAP second-level certification work. The evaluation focuses on the marginal impact of second-level certification relative to first-level certification across a range of household-level outcomes. Second-level certification was digitized and included surveying and mapping.
First-level certification (local level distribution of paper land certificates) did not map individual plots or provide a sufficient level of spatial detail around boundary documentation to allow for the development of cadastral maps for improved land use management and administration. To address these limitations, beginning in 2005, the USAID-supported Ethiopia Strengthening Land Tenure Administration Program (ELTAP) worked with woreda-level (district) land administration agencies to pilot a second-level land certification process. ELTAP was implemented in Tigray, Amhara, Oromia and SNNP from 2005 to 2008. USAID support for second-level certification continued under the Ethiopia Land Administration Program (ELAP), which ran from August 2008 to February 2013.
A 10% additional increase in the likelihood of households in the treatment group taking out any credit for farming purposes, and a small increase in the average amount of credit obtained. The evaluation finds little evidence for a significant impact of second-level certification on whether a household uses a land certificate as collateral to obtain credit.
Moderate impacts on certain indicators for land tenure security, including an 11% increase in the likelihood of the household believing they have a heritable right to bequeath their land, relative to households with no certification or first-level certification only.
An 11% increase in the likelihood of a wife possessing land in her name, and a 0.32 hectare increase in land held jointly by husband and wife or by female-headed households, as a result of second-level certification.
A 44% increase in a wife deciding which crops to grow on land in her possession. The magnitude of these impacts is fairly large, and results are moderately robust. However, the sub-group results suggest that second-level certification leads to a significant and substantial improvement for female-headed households or widow-headed households across some measures of land tenure security and female empowerment. This includes an 11% average increase in the likelihood of female-headed households (and a 12% average increase in the likelihood of widows) feeling more secure about entering into credit-based business transactions when the transactions occur with a holder of a land certificate. There is a positive and statistically significant impact of second-level certification on credit access for female-headed households, however the magnitude of this positive impact from second-level certification is not as large for female-headed households as it is for male-headed households.
The evaluation did not find a significant effect from second-level certification on land rental activity or household investment in soil and water conservation measures, relative to first-level certification. It also did not find a significant impact on land disputes, although the overall very low frequency of land disputes experienced by surveyed households meant that the evaluation was not able to detect small changes in dispute activity if it existed.
The 11% increase in the likelihood of a wife possessing land in her name is only true when the comparison is between unregistered land and second registration. Between the first and second registration, the increase is not statistically significant. Is there a greater increase in the likelihood of a wife possessing land in her name between no registration and first registration?
Persha, Lauren, Greif, Adi, and Huntington, Heather. "Assessing the Impact of Second-Level Land Certification in Ethiopia," Paper prepared for presentation at the “2017 World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty” The World Bank, Washington DC, March 20-24, 2017.
This study tests the assumptions that allow causal inference to the extent possible by employing several approaches and quality indicators. The study combines data collected using survey and field experiment approaches, and uses propensity score matching to study the impact of the Ethiopian joint land registration and certification programme on women’s empowerment. Data are collected using surveys and a field experiment, enabling construction of complementary indices for empowerment.
The study collected cross-sectional data in Amhara region, in the districts of Womberma, Bure, and Jabitehinan. Overall, 325 households were randomly sampled from five certified and seven uncertified kebeles (village clusters), of which 141 households had certificates. All households with titles were from certified kebeles, and all uncertified households were from uncertified kebeles. The survey contained different modules on household issues, including general information, marriage history, household assets, and modules on the different empowerment indicators. Men and women were interviewed separately. Data on community conditions were also collected.
What are the effects of the Ethiopian joint land certification programme on women’s empowerment within the household?
The study focuses on the Amhara region and on first-level certification vs. non-certified households.
The Amhara region started the joint land certification programme in 2004 (Bezabih et al., 2016), emphasising equity and joint ownership. The programme was implemented in a decentralised, broad-based, high-speed and participatory approach, allowing the programme to adapt to local conditions (Deininger et al., 2008). The programme costs were low and affordable, and has been regarded as wealth neutral since poor households had the same probabilities of receiving land certificates as richer households (Deininger et al., 2008).
The main result was that joint land certification empowers women, but not equally across all dimensions. Specifically, the study found significant differences between certified and uncertified women in participation in household decisions, community participation, knowledge of land rights and legal provisions, the level of tenure security and willingness to protect rights, as well as in the measure of institutional inclusion. In contrast, there were only modest effects on indicators of physical mobility and autonomy.
Gender-disaggregated household panel data and indices for wives’ and husbands’ land rights attitudes and for wives’ involvement in land related decisions (600 households).
Does joint land certification strengthen wives’ awareness of their land rights?
Do wives’ attitudes towards women's land rights and husbands’ preferences for the traditional weak position of women affect wives’ intra-household bargaining power in land-related decisions?
Does certification in the community have an additional effect on the empowerment of wives related to family land?
Community based land certification and registration. In two regions in Southern Ethiopia (Oromio and SNNP), joint land certificates for husbands and wives were issued starting in 2005.
The study covers very diverse farming systems and different ethnic groups in Ethiopia, indicating that the findings are applicable to diverse socio-economic conditions. The findings may therefore be generalizable to other areas in Ethiopia and perhaps other parts of Africa.
By 2012, women had become more involved in farm management decisions, in particular, in crop choice decisions, and in land rental decisions.
The wives’ index for participation in land-related decisions increases with the share of households in the community having land certificates and is positively correlated with attendance in land reform meetings.
There is evidence that awareness, intra-household bargaining, and social process contributed to empowerment of wives in relation to land.
Note: The relatively large change in involvement of wives in land-related decisions seems to be a combined effect of joint certification and registration, participation in related information meetings, and changes in awareness and preferences of husbands and wives.
What level of engagement was required for women to perceive they understood their rights and how to document and implement them?
What activities supported changes in awareness and preferences of husbands and wives? Did this vary by ethnic group, farming systems, or socio-economic conditions?
Holden, S.T, and Bezu, S. “Joint Land Certification, Gendered Preferences, and Land-related Decisions: Are Wives Getting More Involved?” Centre for Land Tenure Studies/School of Economics and Business Norwegian University of Life Sciences, AS, Norway (October, 2014).
Holden, S. and Tefera, T., "From Being Property of Men to Becoming Equal Owners? Early Impacts of Land Regulation and Certification of Women in Southern Ethiopia," FINAL RESEARCH REPORT (UN-HABITAT and GLTN, January 2008).
Holden, S. and Tefera, T., "Land Registration in Ethiopia: Early Impacts on Women," UN-HABITAT REPORT (October 2008).
The Ethiopian Rural Household Survey (ERHS) is a panel data set using data from 7 rounds of data collection. This paper uses data from 2009. The land registration effort began in 2003. The ERHS sample consists of 1300 households in 15 villages across Ethiopia, with a particular focus on different agro-climates and agricultural systems.
What is the medium-term impact of land registration on investment behavior by households, particularly the adoption of soil conservation techniques and tree planting?
Do differences between men and women in resource control and knowledge lead to significant differences in the adoption of soil conservation technologies and tree planting?
Community based land certification and registration.
Male-and female-headed households differ in terms of human and physical assets, land owned and cultivated, and awareness of and participation in the land registration process. Female heads of household tend to be older, have fewer years of schooling, and have household members with fewer completed years of schooling than do male heads of household. Female-headed households have a larger share of dependent members but a smaller household size.
Male-headed households hold more land (have larger plot sizes), of which a larger proportion is cultivable, compared to female-headed households. Women in male-headed households operate only 1 percent of the land, but in female-headed households, men operate almost one-fifth of land area.
There is near universal certification of land rights for both women and men, but a large gap in knowledge of land rights.
Adoption of Soil Conservation Techniques (SCT) is a labor-intensive process that tends to be higher in households with more labor resources (household size) but can be lower in households with higher opportunity costs of labor (better-educated households, more livestock). Registration of land was not a determinant factor, but this is because there has been near universal registration of land.
Gender gaps in knowledge of land rights specifically has negative impacts on the adoption of some SCTs, whereas the general knowledge level of the household does not.
Paper suggests that closing the knowledge gap in legal rights is an important step to improving adoption of soil conservation technologies and sustainable farming techniques.
What is the most effective means of ensuring that women have knowledge of legal land rights?
Are the results the same for women in male-headed households?
Are women in female-headed households or women in male-headed households more likely to attend information meetings? Which group is more likely to have more information and why?
Quisumbing, A., & Kumar, N. (2014). Land Rights Knowledge and Conservation in Rural Ethiopia: Mind the Gender Gap. IFPRI.
The Ethiopian Rural Household Survey (ERHS) is a longitudinal panel data set using data from 7 rounds of data collection. This paper uses data from 1997, 2004 and 2009. The ERHS sample consists of 1300 households in 15 villages across Ethiopia, with a particular focus on different agro-climates and agricultural systems.
The paper looks at how two reforms—the changes in the Family Code implemented in 2000 and community-based land registration, undertaken since 2003—may have created conditions for gender-sensitive reforms to reinforce each other. It examines how household characteristics are correlated with changes in women’s perceptions regarding allocation of assets upon divorce, and knowledge of and participation in the land registration process.
This entry focuses on the findings from the land registration process.
Do male and female headed households differ in their awareness of and participation in the land registration process?
Do male and female headed households differ in terms of land owned and cultivated?
Does female membership on the Land Administration Committees (LAC), which oversee the land certification process, have an impact on women’s participation?
Study looked at Female Headed Households (FHH) and Male Headed Households (MHH) but not women within MHH. About 1/3 (32%) of sampled household heads are FHH.
Female heads of household on average have no education while male heads of household have at least two years of schooling. In addition, female heads of household on average have fewer assets and less land.
Male-headed households were more informed about initial public information meetings, more likely to have attended more meetings, and more likely to have received written information about the process of registration. Variations across regions regarding the gender gap in awareness with FHH in Oromia equally likely to be informed about the meetings as their male counterparts.
Female heads of household who believed they had some ability to affect or change their circumstances were more likely to attend the meetings than those who felt powerless.
Education and plot size had a differential effect on MHH’s and FHH’s awareness of the land registration process. While education did not improve men’s knowledge of the land registration process, it had a positive effect on women’s awareness of the process. FHH with smaller plots were more likely to have heard of the land registration process.
There was a link between women’s awareness of and attendance at land registration meetings, and their memberships in Iddirs (women’s traditional social network). As well, representation of women in the LAC had a positive effect on the participation of female heads of households without having an adverse effect on the participation of MHH.
Were women in MHH aware of and participate in the land registration process?
What types of characteristics affected FHH and women within MHH differently?
Kumar, N. and Quisumbing, A. (2015). “Policy Reform toward Gender Equality in Ethiopia: Little by Little the Egg Begins to Walk.” World Development 67, 406-23.
Between 2008 and 2010, fifteen months of fieldwork were carried out to collect data using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. In total, 105 households (274 male and female respondents) engaged in in-depth semi-structured interviews, and four focus group discussions were conducted in six Bhil tribal villages in Banswara district.
The study area covers six tribal villages from two sub-districts, Kushalgarh and Bagidora, of Banswara tribal district located in the southernmost part of Rajasthan. Forest in this semi-arid region is highly degraded. The communal grazing land is either degraded or encroached upon.
What are the current implications of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) on tribal households' claim to individual forest tenure rights?
How does the FRA affect tribal households’ citizenship rights?
What are the underlying reasons for conflicts at the household level?
The intervention involved law and policy. The “Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers’ (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act of 2006” (FRA), is an effort to correct historical discrimination against forest dwellers. This discrimination has included excluding traditional forest dwellers from living in forests and from using forests for non-timber forest products. The FRA increases the authority of local communities over forest resources, and is an attempt by the government of India (GOI) to decentralize forest resource management through regulations and directives to the states.
The FRA gives forest-dwellers rights to access, own, and manage forests and other traditionally accessed natural resources. In addition, individual rights to forest plots are granted for forestland being cultivated for agriculture, and community rights are given over larger areas of forest for cultural practices, bona fide livelihood needs, grazing, fisheries, water bodies, and management of forest resources. The individual rights are documented and therefore formalized by the State government, not by the local communities.
Most state forest land in India is inhabited by Scheduled Tribes, who use the forest under customary arrangements, but has been state controlled.
Of the total 105 Bhil households interviewed, about 40% have property rights to an average of one hectare of agricultural land. Except for one household that has property under joint ownership (with the man as primary and the woman as the secondary owner), all the remaining households’ property was owned by men.
About 52 households claimed that they had used forest land without tenure rights before the Forest Rights Act. With its implementation, between 2008 and 2010, the number of households claiming individual tenure rights almost doubled to 97 households. Many families paid bribes to get the proof of having used land for three generations so their claim could be approved by the village committee established to implement the Forest Rights Act.
Unexpectedly, the Bhil saw a linkage between individual tenure rights and political recognition. The focus group discussions indicated that the main reason for getting individual tenure rights was to acquire recognition of their belonging to the forest land as well as citizenship rights.
Out of 133 Bhil women respondents, 89 were of the opinion that claiming forest land (of on average less than 1 hectare) would improve their household’s social status. However, only 12 women mentioned that an increase in the household’s citizenship status directly benefitted them in addition to benefitting the household. Without tenure rights the women are not directly involved in political representation at the community level.
Intra-household conflicts are mainly between men (and rarely between men and women). About 90% of women interviewed said their ability to use land was dependent on their belonging to the household. Overall, the findings indicated that the women and younger generation of the tribal household were not likely to gain individual rights to use the forest.
Have women been harmed by having their household land titled in the name of men only?
How has that changed the household or community dynamic?
This is a cross-section data analysis of similar communities with and without titled plots that exist side by side within the same district. The cross-section comparison between households in titled communities vs. untitled communities is not distorted by simultaneity bias due to an exogenous election process arising from the land reform of the 1960-70s. This research measures influence on decision-making in 1,280 rural households, interviewing men and women both together and separately. Research was conducted in 2010.
Does joint titling of land empower women within the household (i.e. the degree to which women participate in household decision-making)?
The intervention was called the Special Land Titling and Cadaster Project (PETT), a rural land titling effort funded by The Inter-American Development Bank in 1996.
Peru has implemented joint property rights between spouses and cohabitants on 57% of 1.5 million formalized agricultural plots.
Women in households with plots titled jointly under the names of the husband and the wife participated in more household decisions. The effect is strongest for agricultural decision-making and land related investment decisions.
What steps were taken to ensure women who did receive a joint title knew their rights?
Wiig, H. (2013). Joint Titling in Rural Peru: Impact on Women’s Participation in Household Decision Making. World Development, 52, 104-119.
The study was done in Musanze District between November 2012 and February 2013 using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The quantitative study targeted 480 women from agricultural households. The households each had a female over the age of 18, and there was an attempt to interview women with differing marital status. Qualitative data were collected at the district and sector level through semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions.
What are women’s experiences of their land rights in Rwanda post-land certification?
The land registration and titling program was piloted in 2006. Between 2010 and 2013, 10.3 million land parcels were registered.
Rwanda has a fairly new progressive and gender sensitive legal framework. The rate of female-headed households is high, varying between 27.7% and 34% in the literature.
A large majority of women had land titles, independently or jointly with their husbands. However, although 96% of the respondents came from households having land certificates, only 87% of the women were registered on that land.
Women had limited knowledge about land related laws even if they had participated in regular local meetings. Only one out of five respondents had heard about the new laws, which were more favorable to women’s land rights. Attending information meetings and being part of a women’s association greatly increased the number of women with knowledge of the laws. Of the 82 women who knew about the laws (17.2%), 43 were members of women’s associations and 56 had attended information meetings about land registration and land laws.
Bayisenge, J. (2018). "From male to joint land ownership: Women's experiences of the land tenure reform programme in Rwanda." Journal of Agrarian Change, 18(3), 588-605.
The study looked at the impacts of the Rwandan land tenure regularization pilot. A key methodological challenge for a rigorous socio-economic assessment of the pilots was the lack of baseline data. To deal with this, this study conducted in Rwanda adopted a spatial discontinuity design and administered a short survey containing some questions that ask for recall at the start of the program. A survey administered in April–May 2010, about 2.5 years after the start of land tenure regularization, was used to obtain information for 3554 households with some 6330 parcels. The sample was to be distributed equally on both sides of the pilot cell boundary to create a treatment group (within the titled cell) and control group (those just across the border in non-program cells).
In the land regularization areas, is there evidence of an increase in land-related investment, intergenerational impacts (inheritance), and/or the frequency of land transactions and credit access?
Land regularization pilot (clarified rights, but did not register) in 4 cells covering 14,908 parcels with an area of 3448 ha, owned by 3513 households.
Study was done 2.5 years after completion of rights certification in the pilot area. Looked at female-headed households and male-headed households with some focus on women within male-headed households. During the pilot, the land rights of women in informal marriages were not overtly protected by law, as informal marriages are not addressed by law at all. Thus, women in informal marriages did not have their land rights documented. This was remedied in the roll out.
For the sub-sample of married couples (with and without marriage certificates), the finding points towards a negative effect of Land Tenure Regulation (LTR) by itself.
This is because for women not legally married (i.e., without a marriage certificate), LTR resulted in a statistically significant reduction of the probability of having documented land ownership. However, women in a union with a marriage certificate (76% in this sample) experienced a strong positive program effect and were more likely to be regarded as joint land owners after LTR than before.
Individuals whose parcels had been certified doubled their investment in soil conservation, and female-headed households almost tripled their investment.
The LTR required heirs to be listed on the document and there was virtually no gender bias in who was listed. Exception: female heads of household followed the tradition of male heirs.
Why did female heads of household show gender bias and choose male heirs?
Ali, D.A., Deininger, K., and Goldstein, M. (2014). “Environmental and gender impacts of land tenure regularization in Africa: pilot evidence from Rwanda.” Journal of Development Economics, vol. 110, 2014, 262-275.
The experiment was implemented by Associates Research Trust (ART), in collaboration with the Government of Uganda’s Ministry of Lands, Housing, and Urban Development. ART is an applied research and implementation organization in Uganda with extensive experience in land rights and gender. The intervention started in 2017, targeting about 1,090 households from 253 villages across four districts (Mbarara, Sheema, Buhweju, and Isingiro) in the Western Region of Uganda. Within each village, an average of 4 eligible households were randomly selected for the intervention. Those households with a married (or cohabitating) couple owning at least one unregistered parcel of land were deemed eligible for the intervention.
What is the effectiveness of price subsidies for registering women on titles and information about registration and the value of registering women, in isolation or jointly, in improving women’s access to formal land?
The core intervention offered fully-subsidized land titles to rural households in Uganda. It entailed four door-to-door household visits. During the first visit, households were provided with information about costs and benefits of titling, and offered the opportunity to receive a fully-subsidized title for one parcel of land (randomly selected for households with multiple parcels). At the end of this visit, households were asked whether they accept the offer, and if so which names they want to be listed on the title. During the second visit, parcel boundaries were defined for households that accepted the offer in the presence of neighbors and local government officials, and the households were assisted with filling out the land title application forms. On this visit, households had the option to revise their original decisions made during the first visit. During the third visit, the core land demarcation and surveying activities took place. During the fourth visit, the freehold land titles were delivered to the households after being processed by the Government of Uganda.
The goal of the experiment was to assess the effectiveness of conditional price subsidies and information, in isolation or jointly, in improving women’s access to formal land. To do so, the 253 study villages were randomized into the following two treatments, fully crossed with each other and stratified by parish.
All households were offered a fully-subsidized title for an eligible parcel of land. They varied the conditionality of the subsidy as follows: (i) half of the households received the subsidy conditional on registering the wife as a co-owner of the land; and (ii) the other half received the subsidy unconditionally. This allowed them to isolate the impact of the gender conditionality over and above the impact of the subsidy.
All households were shown a short educational video clip. They varied the content of the video clip as follows: (i) half of the households were shown general information about titling (such as benefits, legal implications, prices); and (ii) the other half were additionally shown information on the benefits of female co-titling.
The study took place in Uganda where there is an ongoing land titling intervention. The titling and registration was focused on freehold land held by households and not community held land.
The conditionality and the information did not affect overall household demand for titling, but they did substitute each other in increasing demand for co-titling.
Imposing the conditionality significantly raised the co-titling probability by 31 percentage points among the gender uninformed households, and by 14 percentage points among the informed households.
Providing information significantly raised the co-titling probability by 16 percentage points among households offered titles unconditionally, and had no impact among the households offered titles conditionally.
The intervention, which offered fully-subsidized land titles, successfully generated high overall demand for titling, as well as for co-titling.
Imposing the gender conditionality on the subsidy in isolation further raised demand for co-titling, without dampening overall demand for titling.
Providing additional gender information in isolation also further raises demand for co-titling, though not as much as the conditionality, and has no impact on demand for titling.
There was a reduction in overall demand for titling between visits.
Why was there a reduction in overall demand for titling as time went on? Did the co-titling promotion have any impact on this?
Cherchi, Ludovica; Goldstein, Markus; Habyarimana, James; Montalvao, Joao; O’Sullivan, Michael; and Udry, Chris, “Incentives for Joint Land Titling: Experimental Evidence from Uganda,” 2018 World Bank Conference On Land And Poverty, The World Bank - Washington DC, March 19-23, 2018.
Matched household sample from Vietnam’s 2004 and 2008 Household Living Standards Survey. Looks at land specifically rather than assets generally and the effect of women’s land rights on children’s human capital.
Did land titling for women lead to improvements in child health and education?
Distribution of land use certificates in Vietnam.
State owns all land but use rights for household plots were titled at the household level beginning in 1993 (mostly in the name of men only) and at the plot level beginning in 2001 (land law reform).
Female-only held land-use rights decreased the incidence of illness among children, increased their health insurance coverage, raised school enrollment, and reallocated household expenditures toward food (higher proportion of the household budget to food, an increase of 1% point) and away from alcohol and tobacco (lower proportion of household budget to tobacco and alcohol (a decrease of 1% point). These effects were almost all stronger than in households with male-only or jointly-held land-use rights.
Under what circumstances were women only receiving land certificates as opposed to male-only or jointly held land use rights?
Menon, N., van der Meulen Rodgers, Y., and Nguyen, H. (2014). “Women’s Land Rights and Children’s Human Capital in Vietnam.” World Development, 54, 18-31.
Over 2,000 households in 12 provinces in rural Vietnam were surveyed in 2006, 2008, and 2010 as part of the Vietnamese Access to Resources Household Survey. Along with demographic information on household members, the researchers gathered detailed information on access to and use of productive resources such as land, labor, and other inputs. Information on the characteristics of land and agricultural production were collected at the plot level.
What effect does land titling have on agricultural productivity (specifically looked at rice yields)?
To what extent do individual or jointly held titles affect agricultural productivity?
Individual and joint titling of land use rights.
Identifies a positive association between land titling and agricultural productivity. The results show that obtaining a land title is associated with higher yields, for both individually and jointly held titles, but they do not ﬁnd evidence that joint titling has greater effects on productivity than individually held titles. However, there is also no tradeoff between joint titling and productivity. Thus, joint-titling improved women’s bargaining power within the household with no associated efficiency losses.
Are the same results found for crops other than rice?
Newman, C., Tarp, F., and Broek, K. (2015). “Property Rights and Productivity: The Case of Joint Land Titling in Vietnam.” Vol.91(1), pp.91-105.
The head of the family household is the representative of the household in civil transactions for the common interests of the household; the father, mother, or another adult may be the head of household (Civil Code, Art. 107(1)(2)).
Family members use common property by agreement and disposal of common property of great value must be agreed upon by all members of the household aged 15 years or older (Civil Code, Art. 109).
Spouses jointly administer common property and agreement of both spouses is required for sale, rent, and mortgages (FC, Art. 66-68).
Revised Family Code Proclamation No. 213/2000.
The Law No. 22/1999 of 12/11/1999 to supplement book one of the civil code and to institute part five regarding matrimonial regimes, liberalities and successions, Art. 17: The management of the patrimony shall include powers to administer, to enjoy, and to dispose, subject to exceptions provided by law. The spouses shall choose who shall be responsible for the management of the common patrimony. However, the agreement of both spouses is required for immovable property and any other property in community.
Vietnam’s Civil Code is gender neutral, but customarily the head of the household is male. Given that marital property is held jointly, the head of household has the right to control and make decisions over all of the land (for the benefit of his family) per the Civil Code.
The protections required by the law, “transactions related to property must be discussed and agreed upon” do not require written proof, and it would be easy for the head of household to say the transaction was discussed and agreed upon. In addition, there is no definition of “great value” and no requirement for written proof of agreement for property of great value.
While women have joint ownership of property, in practice they are likely to have limited control or power over that property given this provision on representation by the head of household.
The law could be much clearer on the limits to the power (does not apply to land, for example) and on requirements for what constitutes agreement.
The Ethiopian provision is specific and clear. It would be good if the agreement were required to be in writing.
The Rwandan law provides special protection for immovable property, even if the marital property regime is separate property.
The rural land lease agreement to be concluded in accordance with Sub-Article (1) of this Article shall secure the consent of all the members who have the right to use the land and be approved and registered by the competent authorities Fed LALU, Art. 8 (2)).
Ethiopia requires consent of all users before land can be leased out, which provides protection to all users, whether or not they are listed on the land certificate.
Only marriages formalized by a registrar have legal effect (Art. 126).
Marriages must be registered, and cohabitation between a man and woman as husband and wife is not recognized as a marriage (Art. 11).
If the irregular union lasts three years or more, property acquired during the irregular union is common property (Family Code, Art. 102 (1)).
Matters related to administration of common property, payment of debts, and liquidation of common property and maintenance of children are the same as those of a married couple (FC, Art. 103).
To establish an irregular union, the behavior of the man and the woman need be analogous to that of married people (FC, Art. 99).
Article 169 of the Civil Code states that only a monogamous, civil marriage is legally recognized.
Early marriages (younger than 18) and polygamous marriages, which are both illegal in Benin, will not be registered. This means that the marital protections in the law will not apply to those who have entered into these types of marriages.
The Ethiopian law provides some alternatives to excluding couples who are not formally married from legal protection. For people who behave as though they are married and do so for three years, the marital property provisions apply. One issue, however, is establishing the beginning of the three-year period.
A broader legal definition for marital property, which includes informal marriage or consensual unions, will protect many more women than a requirement for formal marriage. Many rural men and women do not marry formally because they do not see the benefit (usually because they do not know the law) and it costs time and money.
Note: Even if the law does not presume co-ownership of property for informal unions, in most cases the law does not forbid co-ownership of property for any two or more consulting adults. While women would not, by law, have co-ownership rights to the land used by her and her husband, she could claim a right to the land on other grounds, e.g. they are both using the land and depending on it for their livelihood, etc. In Rwanda, women and men in consensual unions were able to register their land as co-owners, and they did not have to prove their marriage (by producing a marriage certificate), but still many fewer women had their names documented if they did not have a marriage certificate.
The state is obligated to issue Land Use Rights Certificates for all land that has been assigned (Land Law, Art. 49). Where land use rights are common property of husband and wife, the LURCs must be inscribed clearly with both of their full names. Likewise, LURCs must be inscribed with the names of all individuals in cases of joint land use rights between many individuals (Art. 48(3)).
Partial community property rights is the default marriage regime in the Peruvian Civil Code (exception for inherited and inter-vivo transferred assets from parents, which remain the individual property of the heir). However, regulations arising from the land titling laws require land to be jointly titled between a man and a woman who share their life in a nuclear family. Only plots of land already registered as individual property are exempted.
Joint titling of land to spouses was adopted in large-scale rural titling in Peru by Legislative Decree N° 667. Married persons and those in de facto relationships are obliged to identify and include their spouses when registering property. Republic of Peru. 1991. Ley del Registro de Predios Rurales (Law on the registry of Rural Landed Property), Decreto Legislativo No. 667 (Legislative Decree No. 667).
Under the Forest Rights Act, the right to hold and live on forest land under individual or common occupation for habitation or for self-cultivation for livelihoods is vested in a member or members of a forest dwelling Scheduled Tribe (Art. 3 (a)). If a title is given for that right, it must be registered jointly in the name of both spouses in the case of married persons and in the name of the single head in case of a single member household (Art. 4 (5) (2)).
If land is jointly owned and not registered in the name of both the husband and wife, the spouse whose name is not registered still has a legal right to the land but would need to go to court to claim that right. The law should require joint ownership, where appropriate, and simultaneously mandatory certification or registration of both parties.
When land is distributed or redistributed by the government, the government can always require that the land must be registered in the names of both husband and wife. Government distributed land is not ancestral land, thus does not have the same customary or emotional attachment as ancestral land would. As a condition of distribution of government land, joint titling should always be required as was required in West Bengal.
Under the Marriage and Family Law, both spouses have the right to their own personal property and common property (MFL, Art. 32).
Personal property is property that either person owned prior to marriage, property inherited or gifted separately during the marriage period, personal belongings, and jewelry (MFL, Art. 32).
However, if the personal property has been put to common use and the profits or yields of that property constitute the family’s sole means of livelihood, the disposition of that property must be agreed upon by both spouses (MFL, Art. 33(5)).
Property possessed prior to marriage, or acquired after marriage by succession or donation remains personal property (FC, Art. 57).
The provision in the Marriage and Family Law from Vietnam provides some protection for a spouse whose land and property belonged to her spouse before marriage as his separate property. But the provision is very narrow and only applies if it is put to common use and the profits constitute the family’s sole livelihood, and even then the spouse who does not have the rights to the property is only able to have input into its disposition.
Given the custom in most countries of women moving to the husband’s home and land, laws that allow the rights to that land to remain with the husband no matter how much money and effort is shared with his spouse, do not provide women with equal rights to the land they depend on. Some provision should be made for the land to become common property if it is used by both spouses for the benefit of the family or if the non-owning spouse adds value to the property, including through her labor.
The Code of Persons and Family (2004) states that only monogamous marriage will be legally recognized (Art. 143), a change from earlier law which recognized polygamous marriages.
Art. 11 of the Revised Family Codes states: A pre-existing marriage invalidates subsequent marriages.
Whether against the law or not, polygamy is common in many countries. The issue for titling and registration is whose name is captured on the title(s)? What about for multiple plots? When polygamy is practiced, legislating against it can mean that one or more wives has no marital rights or property rights in the marriage.
In Benin, prior to 2004, polygamous marriages were legal. The status of these marriages after the law outlawing polygamy was passed in 2004 is unclear, leaving women in these relationships with an unclear marital status, which can, and often does, result in insecure land tenure. In 2006, two years after polygamy was made illegal, according to the DHS, 42.3% of women aged 15-49 reported that they were in a polygamous relationship.
As a starting place, if polygamy is outlawed, the law needs to state clearly that it does not apply to polygamous marriages that occurred prior to passage of the law (when it would have been lawful).
In Rwanda and Ethiopia, polygamous marriages created difficulties during the land certification process. In Rwanda, subsequent wives were registered separately on their separate plots. Similarly, in Oromia, Ethiopia, wives were registered on separate plots, but in that case the husband was registered on each of his wives’ plots as well. Both of these examples are positive for women’s property rights.
Where marriage is concluded after the certificate is given in the name of a spouse, they may agree to make the land common holding. Where the spouse converts the land that was individual holding to common holding, the holding certificate may be renewed freely, without any payment (Amhara LALU, Art. 24(3)).
Once systematic registration is completed, changing the registration can be cumbersome and expensive. The Ethiopia provision that allows for spouses to be added for free provides some incentive to make the land a common holding.
Under the Civil Code, marital property is presumed, by law, to be common ownership by integration, which means that each owner’s share is undetermined and each owner has rights and obligations to the whole (art. 217).Both common owners have equal rights to possess, use, and dispose of the whole of the property (art. 219).
All property and income acquired during the marriage is presumed to be common property (FC, Art 62, 63.
Couples in registered marriages can elect one of three marital property regimes: (1) a community property regime in which property is held jointly; (2) a limited community of acquests in which the couple designates property acquired during marriage as either community or separate property; or (3) a separate property regime. If no choice is made, the default marital property regime is community of property (Law No. 22/1999 of 12/11/1999, Art 2).
The presumption of joint ownership protects women because in most patrilineal/patrilocal societies, the presumption is that all land is held by the man in the household.
Note: While the presumption of joint ownership always applies to property acquired during marriage by both spouses, often there are exceptions for inheritance, gifts, and property brought into the marriage by one spouse. This exception can reduce wives’ protection because in cases where wives move to their husband’s land, they would not have a legal right to that land (if he inherits it or is given it or brings it into the relationship.
Under the Persons and Family Code, without a marriage contract, the default property regime is separate property (Art 185) meaning that the presumption in law is that both members of the couple have a separate right to land or property acquired during their union as opposed to a joint right.
A marriage certificate is required for a marriage to be legal, but a marriage contract is optional. For couples married with a legal marriage contract, the default property regime is community property (Art. 191), meaning that property acquired or earned during the marriage belongs equally to both partners.
Very few rural women will both be formally married and have a marriage contract (e.g. because of lack of knowledge, education, funds). For most rural marriages, separate property will be the norm and men will have rights to property and women will not.
Benin was made eligible for a Millennium Challenge Corporation Country Compact in 2005. The Compact entered into force in October 2006. The five-year, $307,298,040 Compact had four components: the Access to Markets Project, the Access to Financial Services Project, the Access to Land Project, and the Access to Justice Project.1 Together, they were designed to increase investment and private sector activity.2 The Compact close out date was October 2011.
The $33.7 million Access to Land (ATL) Project aimed to create secure land tenure and to create effective and transparent governance of land and property. It had five subcomponents: Policy and Legal Reform; Achieving Formal Property Rights to Land; Improving Land Registration Services and Land Information Management; Information, Education and Communication; and Support Land Program Coordination.
The PFR Program and project activities of parcel surveying, citizen landholder census and household member interviews, displaying the maps and landholder lists for public witness and comment, recording of rights, and issuing certificates had the purpose of accurately recording the rights and obligations of the villagers from their point of view. The PFR documented customary rights and obligations and then transformed this record into three instruments – a village map with parcel boundaries; a list of landholders (named only as the villagers indicated); and certificates of landholding to be issued upon application by each landholder and based on the mayor’s authority to confirm and verify landholdings.
The project recognized mid-stream that three important groups—migrant farmers, transient pastoralists, and women—were not having their secondary rights recorded. At that time, the project developed a supplementary form for the census, a checklist of the rights that were not being documented. The project also increased awareness-raising efforts and oversight by project managers. However, because this was recognized and implemented late and only in some communities, it was difficult to completely accomplish objectives within the given timeframe.12 A few women took advantage of the Rural Land Plan activities to ask for their legal share of inheritance, or to ask that their names are recorded on land that they had purchased. However, these actions were not responded to positively by their families. Thus, women in male-headed households, who purchased their own land, lost their right to that land in the process of certification. Under the law, this land belongs to the purchaser as her separate property, but under custom all land belongs to the male head of household.
Women who moved to land outside of where the Rural Land Plan was developed, may be those women who lost rights to land within the plan area. Understanding this group of women is very important to assessing how the project impacted women.
Millennium Challenge Account Benin. 2009. Program Summary.
Elbow, K., A. Zogo, K. Zongo, and A. Diouf. 2012. Emerging Lessons from MCC/MCA-Sponsored Initiatives to Formalize Customary Land Rights and Local Land Management Practices in Benin, Burkina Faso and Senegal.
Valletta, W. 2013. Lesotho/Benin Memo.
Elbow, K. 2013. Interview with Renee Giovarelli.
Benin Consulting Group. Gougounou Report.
There were three separate projects involved in Rwanda’s titling and registration: (1) a pilot project in 2008 that was carried out in four Cells selected from different Districts identified from four regions of Rwanda: (Musanze District, Karongi District, Gasabo District, and Kirehe District) and funded by DFID; (2) the roll out of the National Land Tenure Regularization Project (LTR), also funded by DFID; and (3) the Land Dispute Management Program (LDMP), which operated in conjunction with the pilot project and was carried out by an international NGO, Rural Development Institute (now Landesa), and RISD, a local NGO and funded by USAID. The Government of Rwanda (GOR) was a partner in all three projects.
The Land Tenure Regularization (LTR) program in Rwanda was rolled out in 2009.1 Titles were issued through a low-cost community-based process, securing land assets and facilitating investment to 90 percent of predominantly poor households that own some farming land.
The basic steps included: an area was declared subject to adjudication and stakeholder sensitization programs were conducted; locally trained para-surveyors conducted land demarcation in the field to identify parcel boundaries in the presence of land owners and all adjoining neighbors; the parcels were marked on an aerial photo to create a graphical record; and, for undisputed parcels, a claim receipt was issued and signed by all adjoining neighbors.
Information from this receipt, in particular the names of all persons, including women and minors, with a claim or interest on the property, was then transferred to a registry book, digitized, and displayed publicly. If no objections were raised within a period of public display of at least 2 weeks, the information was formally registered, creating the precondition for award of a formal certificate upon payment of a nominal fee.
Non-governmental, governmental, and international actors implemented education and training programs aimed at dispute resolution actors and advocates as well as beneficiaries of the reforms, with a focus on women. Local dispute resolution processes were supported by the Land Dispute Management Project (LDMP), developed and managed by USAID in partnership with the government of Rwanda. Field trainings were conducted to educate dispute resolution actors, including the abunzi (traditional, local dispute resolution bodies), land committees, and land adjudication committees, as well as advocates for women, such as the National Women’s Council, about the new laws.
Awareness activities aimed at the general population were carried out by a variety of groups. As an example, Haguruka, a Rwandan NGO, has been educating the general population on women’s rights, especially their rights to property and inheritance. Since 1995, these efforts have been supported by the UN Refugee Agency. Haguruka’s campaign included using posters and legal education booklets to educate the population about women’s new rights. In addition, the organization provides legal aid to women attempting to secure their rights, and trains paralegals to give basic advice to women regarding dispute settlement. These activities are directed towards local authorities and women’s organizations, but some services are also directly provided to women. LDMP also conducted education and awareness campaigns in the pilot areas. To ensure that the message being perceived was the same as the message intended to be delivered, LDMP assembled focus groups including single and married adult males, single and married adult women, women legally married in polygamous relationships, widows, and orphans. Awareness activities appear to have been sustained and widespread, although knowledge of the new rights varied with respect to the specific area of rights and from region to region.
The most important lesson learned from the Rwandan case study is this: even in countries where customary law is the most powerful law in many communities, the formal law matters, and understanding it completely and then informing land holders of their rights is critical to women’s land rights. Each country may define marital property differently. Even community property may only include property purchased by a husband and wife (or cohabitates) and not property inherited or gifted either before or after the marriage. If marriage does not provide protection by law, the law may still provide protection for property acquired by two people together—co-ownership of property is allowed in virtually every country, and if property is purchased by two people or given to two people, that property is co-owned by law, whether they are married or not.
Gillingham, P. and Buckle, F., "Rwanda Land Tenure Regularisation Case Study", Evidence on Demand (March 2014).

References: Art. 107
 Art. 109
 Art. 66
 Art. 17
 Art. 8
 Art. 102
 Art. 103
 Art. 99
 Art. 49
 Art. 32
 Art. 32
 Art. 33
 Art. 57

Art. 11
 Art. 24
 Art 62
 Art 2