Africa Gender Innovation Lab - Impact Evaluations: Land & Assets

1. World Bank and MCC, Benin Plans Fonciers Ruraux

This evaluation examines the impact of a participatory rural land formalization program that offers community surveying, land adjudication, and the issuance of land certificates. The study aims to uncover a range of potential agricultural and investment effects that stem from an expansion of rural land rights for women and men.  

2. World Bank, Ghana Land Titling Registration Project, MiDA and MCC

In close collaboration with ISSER at the University of Ghana, this study looks at the difference in impact between men and women of providing formal land titles to rural and semi-urban plot-holders in a pilot title registration district in the Central Region in Ghana. In conjunction with this project, the Lab is investigating whether the provision of financial literacy skills helps women overcome informational constraints and facilitates access to financial services.

3. World Bank, Rwanda National Land Title Registration and Pilot Land Title Registration

The national (randomized) roll-out and scale-up of Rwanda’s land title registration will allow for a deeper analysis than the pilot. A more extensive survey will allow GIL to look not only at the effects of registration on investment, but more broadly at economic activity (e.g. off-farm work choices).   In addition, detailed household and community data will allow GIL to examine the effects of title registration on intra-household decisions (such as investment in children), as well as how community institutions interact with improved property rights to change individual outcomes. 

This work examines the effect of a land titling program on a range of agricultural and investment outcomes. An initial comparison of treated and comparison communities pointed to improved land rights for legally married women but a decrease in land rights for non-married women. In addition, women are showing investment in land quality at about double the rate of men.

4. World Bank, Uganda Competitiveness and Enterprise Development Project

Customary land tenure arrangements hold sway in much of rural Uganda, where the incidence of formal land registration is low -- particularly for women. The Uganda Competitiveness and Enterprise Development Project will offer the systematic demarcation and titling of rural land parcels to boost investment and tenure security. A randomized control trial of the program will experiment with different nudges to incentivize households to adopt the joint spousal registration of land. The study will examine the impact of including a woman’s name on a land title on agricultural and household outcomes, over and above the impact of owning a land title itself. This evaluation thus aims to provide rigorous evidence on how to expand women's access to and control over a key productive asset.