March 2020 TOP POLICY LESSONS IN GENDER WOMEN’S PROPERTY RIGHTS INNOVATION LAB The Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) conducts impact evaluations of WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO IMPROVE WOMEN’S LAND development interventions in RIGHTS? Sub-Saharan Africa, seeking to generate evidence on Land is a key productive asset for rural households in Africa—and property how to close gender gaps in rights thus play a critical role in determining who can own and access this earnings, productivity, assets, and agency. The GIL team is fundamental resource. Reflecting underlying gender inequality in the society, currently working on over 70 however, customary norms confer disproportionately weaker land rights to impact evaluations in more than 25 countries with the aim of women, feeding into a cycle that limits their economic opportunities. Weaker building an evidence base with land rights have tangible effects for African women, who are less likely to report lessons for the region. owning land, or to have documented ownership of it. With lower security, women The impact objective of GIL is must spend more time guarding their property, which leads to inefficient use of increasing take-up of effective their time and labor. Overall, these factors can keep women from investing in policies by governments, development organizations, their land and its productivity, and keep women from capitalizing on their land’s and the private sector potential as collateral. The World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab has to address the underlying causes of gender inequality been working to generate rigorous impact evaluation evidence to in Africa, particularly in terms determine how stronger land rights can improve women’s economic of women’s economic and empowerment across Sub-Saharan Africa. social empowerment. The Lab aims to do this by producing and delivering a new body LAND FORMALIZATION of evidence and developing a compelling narrative, geared Large-scale land formalization programs, which specify ownership and towards policymakers, on what usage rights, can resolve some of the issues exacerbated by insecure works and what does not work in promoting gender equality. land tenure for women. Typically, land formalization programs involve a http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/africa-gender-innovation-lab systematic land demarcation process and provide investments and farm labor effort, without reducing formal evidence of land rights. GIL evidence has agricultural yields, and an increase in off-farm documented positive impacts for women from employment, wage income, and household food land formalization programs. While effects on security. These effects do not vary by gender, which investment have varied in different contexts, suggests that women and men equally benefited results from these programs indicate large from the program. shifts in labor. Individuals move from their farms to higher-value activities—suggesting Ghana: Registration in Peri-Urban Areas that stronger land rights can act as seeds of In Ghana, the Lab is evaluating a pilot Land Titling structural transformation. The different effects program funded by the Millennium Challenge on investment or lack of effects on credit Corporation (MCC) and implemented by the however, point to a need for further research Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) that into policy to correct these market issues. demarcates, registers, and titles land plots in a peri-urban areas. Rwanda: Default Joint Titling Results show that while the program was In Rwanda, GIL evaluated the effects of the Land successful in registering land in the target areas, Tenure Regularization program: a nationwide, low- the registration did not translate into increased cost systematic land adjudication and registration agricultural investment or credit-taking. Instead, program. Supported by DFID and the World Bank, households did less agricultural labor—which led land parcels were demarcated in the field by locally to a small reduction in agricultural production, trained surveyors, in the presence of land owners but no changes to productivity. In general, people and neighbors—and then mapped. GIL found that shifted to economic activity off-the-farm. For the pilot version of the Land Tenure Regularization women in particular, there is a considerable boost program increased women’s land investment by in business profits. 19%—roughly two times the effect registered for male-headed households. The evaluation also Benin: Community Demarcation uncovered the need for the inclusion of non-formally In Benin, GIL is evaluating the Plans Fonciers married women, such as those with common-law Ruraux (PFR) program. Funded by the Millennium unions, when designing a formalization program to Challenge Corporation, each community identified ensure that no groups are left behind. and demarcated all land parcels, mapped out Informed by this finding, the Government adjusted customary rights, and laid cornerstones to explicitly the design of the program before it was scaled up mark boundaries. Land ownership was formally nationally. Preliminary evidence from this shows documented through land certificates, delivered that the program has increased rural households’ to the individual landholders. Results showed that welfare by freeing up farm labor for more productive households that underwent this program increased uses. The program has led to a reduction in farm long-term investments in cash crops, such as oil palm and teak, by 39%. Tree planting also increased ENCOURAGING CO-TITLING by 43%. Female-headed households were more For women who have few legal claims over their land, likely to fallow their land, a critical element of soil formal recognition of their land assets could help fertility. However, women moved their agricultural to increase their land tenure insecurity. However, production from land that had been demarcated social norms may prevent men from co-titling to less secure, non-demarcated land outside the their land with their spouses. GIL evidence village—presumably to guard the land that was has found that small nudges can be effective now less secure. Thus, when designing these types in encouraging men to include their wives in of programs, it is critical to conduct thorough land registration and co-title their land in the names of use investigations. both spouses. This provides another potential route A second, ongoing study shows that even five to more secure land rights for women. years after the demarcation program, long-term crop investment has increased. Further, women Uganda: Nudging through Educational from beneficiary communities are more likely to Videos and Conditional Subsidies remain in the longitudinal survey, indicating that GIL evidence from Uganda suggests that a they are more likely to retain their land following conditional subsidy and an educational video can the intervention. This result is driven by households be effective tools to increase women’s documented of widowed women, suggesting that the program land rights. In the program, one group was offered enabled them to remain in their original dwelling. a fully subsidized title for one of their land parcels GIL’s analysis also reveals that the land intervention after being shown an educational video clip about leads to shifts in planned inheritance patterns— the general benefits of titling. In a second group, away from sons, and towards daughters and wives. some households were shown an enhanced version of the video containing information about the benefits of female-co titling. For a third group, the land title offer was conditional on registering the wife as a co-owner of the land. Results show that even in the absence of any particular incentive to do so, about 62% of households were willing to co-title. Providing a subsidy for the title, conditional on the wife’s name being included, raised the demand for co-titling by 50% without any negative impacts on the overall titling rate. Providing the educational video raised the demand for co-titling by 25%. Both instruments can thus be useful ways to get more women formally registered. The next stage of the research will examine the gender-differentiated impact of titling, co-titling, and credit on household investments, productivity, and welfare. FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT Alison Decker adecker@worldbank.org 1818 H St NW Photo credit: Arne Hoel/World Bank, John Hogg, Simone D. McCourtie/World Bank, Stephan Gladieu/World Bank Washington, DC 20433 USA www.worldbank.org/africa/gil This work has been funded in part by the Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality (UFGE), which is a multi-donor trust fund administered by the World Bank to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment through experimentation and knowledge creation to help governments and the private sector focus policy and programs on scalable solutions with sustainable outcomes. The UFGE is supported with generous contributions from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.