44549 Gender Equity in the World Bank's Land Administration Projects Why Is It Important to Provide Women with Rights Pertaining to Land? One of the most serious impediments to increasing widowhood, women may continue to use the land the agricultural productivity and income of rural but do not inherit the control of the land. Most women is their lack of security of land tenure. women go back to their villages where they are Land tenure refers to a set of rights that a person dependent on a male kin for access to land. or entity holds in land. The rights can also exist in Although the number of female-headed house- a variety of forms such as leases on public land or holds has increased to almost a third in developing user rights to communal property. An important countries, women have clear ownership of only caveat in this context is that formal systems of about 5 percent of all land. For women farmers, property rights, which simply do not exist in responsible for 60 to 80 percent of food produc- many developing countries, are taken for granted tion in developing countries, access to land, man- in advanced nations. agement and control of land-based resources, and If tenure is secure, the holder can reasonably economic incentives that security of tenure pro- expect to use the land to its best advantage, and vides, are essential for their exit from poverty to make management decisions on how land-based sustainable livelihoods. resources will be used for immediate household Gender issues in land administration needs and as a long-term sustainable investment. Lack of title--often the problem of women farm- projects ers--typically implies lower productivity levels The Bank's land administration portfolio is quite and yields because of weak incentives for sustain- young. In Fiscal Years 1990­94 only three stand- able land management and soil conservation, little alone land projects were approved; this number interest in investing in permanent crops, and lack increased to nineteen (US$0.7 billion commit- of collateral for credit for farm inputs. ment) in FY1995­99 and 25 (US$1 billion com- From a social point of view, secured property rights mitment) in FY2000­2004. Integration of gender raise women's status in the household as well as the issues in the project designs and implementation, community, and this translates into greater bargain- is improving. In the more recent land administra- ing power within the family. Comparative analysis tion projects undertaken by the World Bank and of data from Nicaragua and Honduras, for example, other donors, for instance, more explicit attention suggests a positive correlation between women's has been paid to gender. property rights and their overall role in the house- In general, there have been generally three major hold economy: greater control over agricultural gender approaches: income, higher shares of business and labor market earnings, and more frequent receipt of credit (Katz 1. Specifying enhancement of women's access to and Chamorro 2002). Married women often have land and credit as one of the project objectives access to land for farming through their husbands. and outcomes (e.g., Mozambique, Brazil, However, land becomes a particularly critical Vietnam); resource for a woman when the household breaks 2. Analyzing impacts of land policy and reform down--that is, for example, in the event of male interventions from a gender perspective through migration, abandonment, divorce, polygamous parallel studies or demonstration projects (e.g., relationships, or death. In the event of a divorce or Laos, Kyrgyz Republic, Zimbabwe); and www.worldbank.org/gender-rural THE WORLD BANK 1818 H Street, NW Wahington, DC 20433 USA 3. Making gender a cross-cutting theme in all groups for land to develop under a one-time assis- project activities (e.g., Brazil, Cambodia). tance program. Provision has been made in Jammu and Kashmir, India for women to obtain joint title to Each has its strengths and weaknesses and the their mulberry gardens with a no-objection letter approach (or mix of approaches) will depend on from their husbands or land owner. the scope of the project, the political will of the project designers and implementers, and the partic- · In the Bolivia National Land Administration ular cultural issues within the country and region. Project, a major impediment to issuing titles for women (and men) was their lack of ID cards, The main point, however, is that explicitly recog- which the police have now issued to everyone to nizing gender as an issue to be considered at the become eligible for registering property owner- outset will allow better monitoring and evaluation ship. Joint titling is now being backed strongly by of project impacts and will enable the required the government. In fact women are to have their financial costs and the required expertise for pro- names first on the titles. The project experiences grams to be included. indicated that it is critical to pay special attention Priority issues include: the legal (both formal and to public awareness campaigns and fieldwork customary) framework regarding women's rights to from the start because this is when the most infor- land; the process for identifying rights holders on mation is disseminated and collected. the ground; education and training during imple- · In the Cambodia, Land Management and mentation of the project, and the actual formaliza- Administration Project, a conscious effort has been tion and adjudication of land rights. In addition, made to include women, especially women-headed there is the critical issue of monitoring and evaluat- households. The project plan states that to assist the ing project activities and outcomes during the life adversely affected and most vulnerable segments of of the project in order to ascertain whether gen- the population (e.g., the rural poor, women heads of dered activities and procedures are effective and to households) attention is required to: (1) inequality introduce midstream adjustments where needed. in land holdings, (2) landlessness, (3) insecure ten- Good practices in gender ancy, (4) land conflicts, and (5) encroachment on mainstreaming within World Bank urban lands by squatters. Women's groups are tar- Land Administration Projects geted in the stakeholder analysis of the Social Assessment and the systematic adjudication to · Indian National Sericulture Project departments encourage project participation. prepare proposals supporting requests by women's Anderson-Saito, K., E. Pehu, and A. Dhar. 2004. "GENRD Operational Notes for Task Managers to Integrate Gender into Rural Projects." ARD Internal Publication. Washington, DC: World Bank. Fong, M.S., and A. Bhushan. 1996. Toolkit on Gender in Agriculture: Gender Toolkit Series No. 1. Washington, DC: World Bank. Fort, L., B. Leilani Martinez, and M. Mukhopadhyay. 2001. Guidelines for Integrating Gender in Monitoring and Evaluation. Gender Issues and Best Practices in Land Administration Projects: A Synthesis Report, 2005. Washington, DC: World Bank. Katz, Elizabeth, and Juan Sebastian Chamorro. 2002 "Gender, Land Rights and the Household Economy in Rural Nicaragua nd Honduras." Paper prepared for USAID/SADIS CRSP, Madison, Wisconsin. Moser, Caroline O.N. 1993. Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practice and Training. London: Routledge. Rao, Aruna, Mary B. Anderson, and Catherine A. Overholt. (eds.). 1991. Gender Analysis in Development Planning: A Case Book. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Rural Women's Access to Land and Property in Selected Countries. Analysis based on initial and periodic reports to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1997­2003) FAO/IFAD/International Land Coalition, Maria Hartl, Consultant, July/August 2003. Rygnestad, H, A. Dhar, and E. Pehu. 2004. Land Administration and Gender Issues, Draft Portfolio Review 2003, Washington, DC: World Bank.