Policy Brief Issue 33 EMPOWERING WOMEN THROUGH EQUAL LAND RIGHTS: GENDER INNOVATION LAB EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE FROM The Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) RURAL UGANDA conducts impact evaluations of development interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa, seeking Authors: Ludovica Cherchi, Markus Goldstein, James Habyarimana, Joao to generate evidence on how Montalvao, Michael O’Sullivan, Chris Udry, and Ariel Gruver to close the gender gap in earnings, productivity, assets and agency. The GIL team is KEY MESSAGES currently working on over 70 impact evaluations in more than • Traditional customary land tenure systems often limit 25 countries with the aim of women’s land rights in Sub-Saharan Africa. At a time when building an evidence base with many African governments are implementing land formalization lessons for the region. reforms, it is important to understand what works to strengthen The impact objective of GIL is women’s land tenure security. increasing take-up of effective policies by governments, • In an ongoing experiment in rural Uganda, we offered development organizations and the private sector in order households fully-subsidized land titles and basic information to address the underlying about the benefits of land titling. We find that about 91% of causes of gender inequality in Africa, particularly in terms the households accepted the titles, and 62% decided to co-title. of women’s economic and social empowerment. The lab • Providing additional gender information and making aims to do this by producing the offer conditional on female co-tilting raised the take- and delivering a new body of evidence and developing a up of joint titles to about 76% and 89%, respectively, without compelling narrative, geared dampening overall demand for titling. towards policymakers, on what works and what does not work in promoting gender equality. http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/africa-gender-innovation-lab Land is a key productive asset that serves as the land titles to over 1,000 untitled rural households in primary source of household income and significantly Western Uganda. The first policy instrument makes contributes to economic development across Sub- the subsidy conditional on including the wife’s name Saharan Africa. However, most customary tenure on the land title. The second instrument provides systems in Africa tend to favor men, granting rights households with additional information about the to women primarily through a husband or male benefits of joint titling using an educational video. This relative. These imbalances lead to substantial gaps randomized experiment provides the opportunity in land ownership between men and women—a to assess the effectiveness of these two policy disparity which becomes even more striking instruments, implemented both independently and when considering formal types of ownership. As jointly, in improving women’s access to formal land governments across Africa look to adopt land tenure titles. The overall cost of the intervention amounted reforms, there are warranted concerns that such to less than $270 per household. efforts could disempower women by potentially hardening or even exacerbating existing gender The GIL study is a collaboration with the Government gaps. It is therefore important to identify policy of Uganda’s Ministry of Lands, Housing, and Urban instruments that encourage female land ownership Development (MLHUD), the Competitiveness when implementing land formalization programs. and Enterprise Development Project (CEDP), This land titling intervention, which experimented and researchers from Associates Research Trust with a set of novel policy instruments in the context Uganda, Northwestern University, and Georgetown of rural Uganda, aims to build the evidence of what University. works to strengthen women’s inclusion in formal land ownership. HERE’S WHAT WE FOUND • Overall demand for titles was very HERE’S WHAT WE DID high. Among households assigned to the The World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) core intervention, 91% accepted the offers is conducting a randomized controlled trial to test during the first visit and 62% decided to ways to strengthen women’s formal property rights. co-title. The rate of joint titling is consistent The experiment takes place in the context of a land with average shares of joint de facto titling intervention offering fully-subsidized freehold ownership reported by households. 50% 25% When we offer fully- Gender conditionality Gender information subsidized freehold land increases demand for co- increases demand for co- titles, 91% of households titling by 50% relative to core titling by 25% relative to core decide to title, and 62% intervention without diminishing intervention without diminishing decide to co-title. overall demand for titles. overall demand for titles. LAND TITLING: OFFER ACCEPTANCE RATES BASIC INFORMATION BASIC & GENDER INFORMATION 100% 91% 89% 91% 89% Joint Titles 80% 76% Solo Titles 62% 62% 60% 40% 20% 0% Unconditional Conditional Unconditional Conditional Offer Offer Offer Offer • When testing the two policy instruments • Neither policy instrument affected independently, the conditional offer overall household demand for titling. delivered a larger positive impact on Acceptance of titling offers during the first joint titling. While both the conditional visit was high (around 90%) across all four offer and information on the gender experimental treatment arms. This finding benefits of joint titling increased demand challenges the assumption that men for co-titling, imposing the condition was would require strong economic and social particularly effective: with levels of joint incentives to agree to formalize their land titling increasing by 50% compared to with their spouse. the core intervention, relative to a 25% For the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab, increase with the gender information. the next steps of this project include collecting • Jointly implementing both policy follow-up data to measure the longer-term impacts instruments did not make either more of co-titling on agricultural productivity and effective in promoting co-titling. In fact, investment, as well as on women’s empowerment. the impact of the conditional offer appeared We will also introduce a flexible credit offer for some to be more powerful in the absence of gender households to explore the implications of coupling information, and the provision of gender- greater land security with improved access to specific information increased co-titling financing for both productive investments and significantly only among unconditional offers. insurance against risk. POLICY IMPLICATIONS AND NEXT STEPS In the absence of any gender inclusion incentives, many households were willing to register land in the names of both spouses, as demonstrated by acceptance rates during the core intervention. These results indicate that, in the context of Western Uganda, the price subsidy alone offers a cost- effective strategy to further formalize land tenure and improve women’s documented land ownership. This finding helps to alleviate some of the concern that land titling programs in customary settings can disempower women. Still, the evidence from both policy instruments suggests that incentives matter and can be a powerful tool to convince more households to co- title in this setting. Both the conditional offer and the provision of gender- specific information increased household acceptance of co-titling, without negatively impacting overall titling. Such findings invite future research to uncover more practical incentives with the potential to promote gender equality in parallel with land tenure reform. To learn more about the underlying constraints of gender gaps in land tenure and effective interventions to improve property rights across Sub-Saharan Africa, see the World Bank Policy Research Working Paper: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/28911 FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT Markus Goldstein mgoldstein@worldbank.org Photo credit: World Bank / Stephan Gladieu (front page) and World Bank / Ariel Gruver (back page) Amy Copley acopley@worldbank.org This work has been funded in part by the Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality (UFGE), a multi-donor trust fund 1818 H St NW administered by the World Bank to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment through experimentation and Washington, DC 20433 USA 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, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The first draft of this policy brief was released in April 2019.