Securing Property Rights for Women and Men in Rural Benin

Women in Sub-Saharan Africa are less likely than men to own land. They also use less land and have lower tenure security over the land that they use. This gap is costly in terms of lost productive output. The early results showed that improved tenu...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Goldstein, Markus, Houngbedji, Kenneth, Kondylis, Florence, O'Sullivan, Michael, Selod, Harris
Format: Brief
Language:English
en_US
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/803771467991943736/Securing-property-rights-for-women-and-men-in-rural-Benin
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25453
id okr-10986-25453
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-254532021-05-25T10:54:37Z Securing Property Rights for Women and Men in Rural Benin Goldstein, Markus Houngbedji, Kenneth Kondylis, Florence O'Sullivan, Michael Selod, Harris LANDS LAND LANDOWNERS PRODUCTION HOUSEHOLDS GENDER AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION PROPERTY RIGHTS INFORMATION INVESTMENTS AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY SOIL FERTILITY LAND RIGHTS PROPERTY PROPERTY REGISTRATION WOMEN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH FARMERS OWNERSHIP LAND TENURE TENURE CROPS ECONOMICS LAND USE LAND ADMINISTRATION SOIL AFRICA GENDER POLICY GENDER INNOVATION LAB WOMEN AND PROPERTY RIGHTS Women in Sub-Saharan Africa are less likely than men to own land. They also use less land and have lower tenure security over the land that they use. This gap is costly in terms of lost productive output. The early results showed that improved tenure security through land demarcation increased long-term investments in cash crops and trees and erased the gender gap in land fallowing - a key soil fertility investment. It is important that interventions cover as much of a household’s landholdings as possible: the authors found that some women shifted their agricultural production to plots of land that did not benefit from demarcation so that they can guard these less secure and less productive plots. The rural land use plans (plans fonciers ruraux (PFR)) in Benin represent a more decentralized, low-cost approach to land rights formalization. The PFR program is innovative in its focus on the formalization of existing customary rights of individual landholders. The objectives of the program are to improve tenure security and stimulate agricultural investment in rural areas. The World Bank’s Africa gender innovation lab, in collaboration with researchers from the development research group and the Paris school of economics, set out to evaluate the PFR program’s impact through a randomized controlled trial. This study provides the first set of experimental evidence on the causal impact of a large-scale land formalization program. 2016-11-28T20:05:14Z 2016-11-28T20:05:14Z 2016-02 Brief http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/803771467991943736/Securing-property-rights-for-women-and-men-in-rural-Benin http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25453 English en_US Gender Innovation Lab Policy Brief;No. 14 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Brief Africa Benin
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
en_US
topic LANDS
LAND
LANDOWNERS
PRODUCTION
HOUSEHOLDS
GENDER
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION
PROPERTY RIGHTS
INFORMATION
INVESTMENTS
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY
SOIL FERTILITY
LAND RIGHTS
PROPERTY
PROPERTY REGISTRATION
WOMEN
AGRICULTURAL
RESEARCH
FARMERS
OWNERSHIP
LAND TENURE
TENURE
CROPS
ECONOMICS
LAND USE
LAND ADMINISTRATION
SOIL
AFRICA GENDER POLICY
GENDER INNOVATION LAB
WOMEN AND PROPERTY RIGHTS
spellingShingle LANDS
LAND
LANDOWNERS
PRODUCTION
HOUSEHOLDS
GENDER
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION
PROPERTY RIGHTS
INFORMATION
INVESTMENTS
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY
SOIL FERTILITY
LAND RIGHTS
PROPERTY
PROPERTY REGISTRATION
WOMEN
AGRICULTURAL
RESEARCH
FARMERS
OWNERSHIP
LAND TENURE
TENURE
CROPS
ECONOMICS
LAND USE
LAND ADMINISTRATION
SOIL
AFRICA GENDER POLICY
GENDER INNOVATION LAB
WOMEN AND PROPERTY RIGHTS
Goldstein, Markus
Houngbedji, Kenneth
Kondylis, Florence
O'Sullivan, Michael
Selod, Harris
Securing Property Rights for Women and Men in Rural Benin
geographic_facet Africa
Benin
relation Gender Innovation Lab Policy Brief;No. 14
description Women in Sub-Saharan Africa are less likely than men to own land. They also use less land and have lower tenure security over the land that they use. This gap is costly in terms of lost productive output. The early results showed that improved tenure security through land demarcation increased long-term investments in cash crops and trees and erased the gender gap in land fallowing - a key soil fertility investment. It is important that interventions cover as much of a household’s landholdings as possible: the authors found that some women shifted their agricultural production to plots of land that did not benefit from demarcation so that they can guard these less secure and less productive plots. The rural land use plans (plans fonciers ruraux (PFR)) in Benin represent a more decentralized, low-cost approach to land rights formalization. The PFR program is innovative in its focus on the formalization of existing customary rights of individual landholders. The objectives of the program are to improve tenure security and stimulate agricultural investment in rural areas. The World Bank’s Africa gender innovation lab, in collaboration with researchers from the development research group and the Paris school of economics, set out to evaluate the PFR program’s impact through a randomized controlled trial. This study provides the first set of experimental evidence on the causal impact of a large-scale land formalization program.
format Brief
author Goldstein, Markus
Houngbedji, Kenneth
Kondylis, Florence
O'Sullivan, Michael
Selod, Harris
author_facet Goldstein, Markus
Houngbedji, Kenneth
Kondylis, Florence
O'Sullivan, Michael
Selod, Harris
author_sort Goldstein, Markus
title Securing Property Rights for Women and Men in Rural Benin
title_short Securing Property Rights for Women and Men in Rural Benin
title_full Securing Property Rights for Women and Men in Rural Benin
title_fullStr Securing Property Rights for Women and Men in Rural Benin
title_full_unstemmed Securing Property Rights for Women and Men in Rural Benin
title_sort securing property rights for women and men in rural benin
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2016
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/803771467991943736/Securing-property-rights-for-women-and-men-in-rural-Benin
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25453
_version_ 1764459765098872832