#6 POLICY LESSONS ON WOMEN’S LAND TITLING GENDER INNOVATION LAB FEDERATION EVIDENCE SERIES GENDER INNOVATION LAB FEDERATION The Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) Federation is a World Bank community of practice coordinated by the Gender Group that brings together the Bank’s five regional GILs: Africa (AFR), East Asia and Pacific (EAP), Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), Middle East and North Africa (MNA), and South Asia (SAR). Together, they are conducting impact evaluations of development interventions to generate evidence and lessons on how to close gender gaps in human capital, earnings, productivity, assets, voice and agency. With over 188 impact evaluations in 66 countries completed to date, the GIL Federation is building the evidence base for governments, development organizations, and the private sector to increase uptake of effective policies that address the underlying causes of gender inequality. Land is a key productive asset for rural households. Three studies by the Africa GIL in Rwanda, Benin, and Property rights play a critical role in determining who Ghana document positive impacts for women from land can own and access this fundamental resource. More formalization programs. In some cases, the programs than 70 percent of women across 53 developing led to increases in agricultural investments, but in countries do not own any land.1,2 Customary norms others, they fostered structural shifts to higher-value confer disproportionately weaker land rights to women, activities. feeding into a cycle that limits their access to credit and other economic opportunities.3 The study in Rwanda used a geographic discontinuity design with spatial fixed effects to evaluate the pilot Empowering women through stronger land rights can version of the National Land Tenure Regularization play a central role in the process of economic Program.4 This was a nationwide, low-cost land development. However, overturning existing cultural adjudication and registration program, which norms and power structures in the context of traditional demarcated land parcels in the presence of land (patriarchal) customary land tenure systems can be owners and neighbors and then mapped them. It was challenging. There are also concerns that such policy implemented in a context where daughters and sons efforts could formalize, even exacerbate, existing are granted equal rights to inherit parental property and gender gaps in land rights. The GIL Federation is women in legally registered marriages are guaranteed their property rights. generating rigorous evidence around the world to understand what works, and what does not, in Findings indicate the program improved land access for increasing access to land titles for women and its legally married women and boosted investment and effects on women’s empowerment. This note presents maintenance of soil conservation measures for evidence on three key findings. households headed by women. Additional analysis also finds a reallocation of work from farm activities to off- farm employment, which led to higher household food FINDING 1. LAND FORMALIZATION security for both men-headed and women-headed households. The lack of effects for informally married PROGRAMS CAN IMPROVE WOMEN’S women in Rwanda implies that, when designing PROPERTY RIGHTS AND HELP THEM MOVE formalization programs, it is important to consider the TO HIGHER-VALUE ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES differential situation of women living in common law unions or other arrangements. A similar conclusion is obtained from an ongoing evaluation in Côte d’Ivoire, where the costs of entering a civil marriage (e.g., fees, the title. The study randomized whether the two documentation, and government bureaucracy) are interventions were targeted to both spouses versus large.5 husbands alone. Results show that when the intervention was targeted to husbands alone, only half The study in Benin presents evidence from a large- of the households choose to add the wives’ name on the scale randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a land title. The video encouraged 73 percent of the husbands formalization program.6 Each community identified and to add the wives’ names on the titles. When the demarcated land parcels, mapped out customary information is targeted to both husband and wives, 68 rights, and laid cornerstones to mark boundaries. Land percent of the households choose to include wives’ ownership was formally documented through land names on the titles under both treatments. Imposing the certificates delivered to individual landholders. The condition that titles must include the wives’ names did study shows that the program led to significant not cause a reduction in overall demand for titling. increases in long-term investments on treated parcels, including an expansion of cash crops and tree planting. The Africa GIL is also examining different strategies to In treated villages, women-managed plots were more increase women’s land ownership with a pilot that likely to be left fallow fully closing the gender gap in studied men’s uptake of three different interventions in fallowing and representing an important investment in rural Côte d’Ivoire. Men were given the option to either soil fertility. The program did not significantly affect 1) enter a lottery for a motorcycle if they offered part of land-holding for women, but it created more secure their land to their wife to be certified during an property rights. As a result, women were more likely upcoming land certification program, 2) receive help to than men to shift their investments away from switch from a customary marriage to a civil marriage, or demarcated land to less secure land outside the village, 3) watch an emotionally resonant informational video on which might have allowed them to protect their claim the benefits of women’s land ownership for family against the risk of expropriation. harmony, economic efficiency, and security.9 The monetary incentive had the highest uptake among the Finally, the study in Ghana used a regression three interventions. While 75 percent of men decided to discontinuity design to evaluate a pilot land titling offer part of their land to their wife to participate in the intervention in an urbanizing area that demarcated, lottery, only 44 percent accepted help to switch to a civil registered, and provided titles for land plots.7 Results marriage, and 66 percent agreed to watch the video. show that while the program was successful in The authors are planning an RCT to test the effects of registering land in the target areas for both men and these interventions more rigorously. women, the registration did not translate into increased agricultural investment or credit-taking. Instead, households did less agricultural labor, which led to a FINDING 3. LEGAL PROVISIONS FOR small reduction in agricultural production (without CONJUGAL PROPERTY ARE INSUFFICIENT TO changing agricultural productivity) and increased off- farm activities. This shift led to increased business INCREASE WOMEN’S DECISION MAKING profits for women. POWER OVER LAND Land in the Philippines, including land redistributed through the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program FINDING 2. MONETARY INCENTIVES AND (CARP), is mandated by law to be conjugal property. INFORMATION CAN ENCOURAGE JOINT However, an impact evaluation by the EAP GIL shows TITLING that this legal provision is insufficient to promote women’s decision-making authority over the land.10 The Africa GIL conducted an RCT in Uganda to test different strategies that could increase demand for To increase the pace of land reform, land was gender equality in formal land ownership among redistributed under CARP using collective land titles, married couples.8 The experiment was conducted in the even though most farmers were not collectively farming context of a land titling intervention offering households the land. The study analyzed the impact of the free land titles. The first strategy to encourage joint subdivision of collective land titles by comparing a titling exposed the husband to a video that made salient group of randomly selected farmers whose land was the benefits of adding the wife’s name to the title as joint prioritized for subdivision with a randomly selected owner of the land. The second strategy made the land control group of farmers whose land was not subdivided title offer conditional on the wife’s name being added to during the study period. This sheds light on an intermediate stage in the process—after the subdivision The study also demonstrates that the subdivision survey survey but prior to issuance of individual titles— but not decreased tenure security, trust in government, on the impacts of formal, individual titles. The subjective wellbeing, and investment in the land for both subdivision survey decreased the decision-making men and women beneficiaries, likely due to authority of wives of male beneficiaries. Despite the land implementation challenges, including the long duration being conjugal property, information about the of the process and the lack of transparent information. intervention was only targeted to the main beneficiary, two-thirds of whom were male. This may have reinforced gender norms regarding control over assets. FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT Diego Ubfal dubfal@worldbank.org 1818 H St NW Washington, DC 20433 USA https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/gender ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This brief is a product of collaboration between the World Bank Gender Group and the Gender Innovation Labs. It was prepared by Daniel Halim, Diego Ubfal, and Rigzom Wangchuk with key inputs from Diana Arango, Elizaveta Perova, and Rachael Pierotti. It was copy-edited by Leslie Ashby. Other contributors include Lourdes Rodriguez Chamussy, Maria Emilia Cucagna, Isis Gaddis, Markus Goldstein, Jacobus Joost De Hoop, Forest Brach Jarvis, Hillary C. Johnson, Lili Mottaghi, Michael B. O'Sullivan, Laura B. Rawlings, Javier Romero, Jayati Sethi, and Emcet Tas. The World Bank GILs and the GIL Federation are supported by the Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality (UFGE), a multi-donor trust fund administered by the World Bank and supported with generous contributions from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund. ENDNOTES 1 Source: Gender Data Portal, which uses data from Demographic and Health Surveys. 2 Gaddis, Isis, Rahul Lahoti, and Hema Swaminathan. 2020. Women's Legal Rights and Gender Gaps in Property Ownership in Developing Countries. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 9444. 3 Decker, Alison. 2020. Top Policy Lessons in Women’s Property Rights. Africa Gender Innovation Lab, World Bank. 4 Ali, Daniel, Klaus Deininger, and Markus Goldstein. 2014. Environmental and gender impacts of land tenure regularization in Africa: Pilot evidence from Rwanda. Journal of Development Economics 110: 262-275. 5 Donald, Aletheia, Markus Goldstein, Alexandra Hartman, Eliana La Ferrara, Michael O'Sullivan, and Mercedes Stickler. 2020. What’s Mine is Yours: Pilot Evidence from a Randomized Impact Evaluation on Property Rights and Women’s Empowerment in Côte d’Ivoire. Africa Gender Innovation Lab Policy Brief, World Bank. 6 Goldstein, Markus, Kenneth Houngbedji, Florence Kondylis, Michael O'Sullivan, and Harris Selod, Harris. 2018. Formalization without certification? Experimental evidence on property rights and investment. Journal of Development Economics 132: 57-74. 7 Agyei-Holmes, Andrew, Niklas Buehren, Markus Goldstein, Robert Osei, Isaac Osei-Akoto, and Christopher Udry. 2020. The Effects of Land Title Registration on Tenure Security, Investment and the Allocation of Productive Resources: Evidence from Ghana. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 9376. 8 Cherchi, Ludovica, Markus Goldstein, James Habyarimana, Joao Montalvao, Michael O'Sullivan and Christopher Udry. 2022. A Seat at the Table: The Role of Information, Conditions, and Voice in Redistributing Intra- Household Property Rights. 9 Donald, Aletheia, Markus Goldstein, Alexandra Hartman, Eliana La Ferrara, Michael O'Sullivan, and Mercedes Stickler. 2020. What’s Mine is Yours: Pilot Evidence from a Randomized Impact Evaluation on Property Rights and Women’s Empowerment in Côte d’Ivoire. Gender Innovation Lab Policy Brief, World Bank. 10 Castro Zarzur, Rosa, Prudenciano Gordoncillo, Snaebjorn Gunnsteinsson, Forest Jarvis, Hilary Johnson, Elizaveta Perova, and Peter Srouji. 2020. Land rights in transition: Preliminary experimental evidence on how changes in formal tenure affect agricultural outcomes, perceptions, and decision-making in the Philippines. Impact Evaluation Endline Report, World Bank.