Annual World Bank Conference on Land And Poverty 2016 Intra-Household Allocation And Gender Distribution Of Land Ownership: Findings From A Large Survey In Rural Uganda. Ludovica Cherchi1 Markus Goldstein1 James Habyarimana3 Joao Montalvao1 Michael O’Sullivan1 Richard Oput2 Christopher Udry4 1The World Bank Gender Innovation Lab; 2Ministry of Land, Housing, Urban Development, Uganda; 3Georgetown University; 4Yale University Annual World Bank Conference on Land And Poverty 2016 insights of the baseline data collection from an IE on land rights and gender equality in Uganda

Background 80% of the rural land in Uganda is held under unregistered customary tenure. The Government of Uganda is carrying out a World Bank-funded project to register and title 800,000 parcels of individually customarily owned land in rural areas (SLAAC). Why titling rural land? Land titles can: Improve tenure security and reduce the risk of expropriations and disputes Increase transferability of rights, increasing participation in the rental and sales market Improve access to credit Improve investments and productivity on the land The Government wants to supplement this intervention with a strategy to promote gender equality in land registration. Secure land rights + facilitate investments + benefits Currently a costly and long process Current system less favorable towards women

Motivation The Africa Gender Innovation Lab of the World Bank, in collaboration with the Uganda Ministry of Lands, designed an Impact Evaluation (IE) on the SLAAC project. Lack of rigorous Impact Evaluation evidence on the causal effects of titling and co-titling. The GIL IE uses a rigorous Randomized Controlled Trial approach to examine the causal impacts of the project.

IE Objectives Overall effects of the Government intervention on household welfare Understand and quantify both expected impacts and risks associated with the program Inform the design of a subsequent national roll-out. Impact of increased intra-household gender equality in land ownership on household welfare.

IE Study Setting Uganda

Estimating the Impact of Two Interventions: Government intervention (SLAAC): of individually customarily owned parcels of land. and registration Systematic demarcation, adjudication Intra-household Gender Equality intervention Incentives to increase take up of ‘co-titling’ (names of both spouses included in the land titles) i. HH level sensitization about the benefits of titling and co-titling using an educational video ii. Financial incentives (title registration fees waiver) conditional on co-titling Note 1: Reduced cost. Nominal cost for the title. Note 2: 2 preliminary qualitative work to identify best strategy for the household level intervention. Target both spouses

Study Design Full sample: 3000 Households from 600 Villages (2400 HHs monogamous and 600 polygamous) Treatment Villages 2250 HHs TA1: Conditional incentive for co-titling 750 HHs TA2: Unconditional incentive for titling TA3: Intervention without incentives Comparison Villages

Baseline Data Collection Baseline data collection in 2015 3000 households with co-habiting couples that own non-registered land in the community of interest. Spouse level interviews. 2957 Households 75% in Western Uganda Average # of parcels used by the HH: 3.2 Share of parcels owned by the HH (self reported): 76% Let’s look at the level of documentation

Ownership Document Mean St.Dev Obs   Mean St.Dev Obs Parcel has a document proving ownership 0.65 0.48 7181 Type of document Freehold title issued by the Government 0.01 0.11 4643 Sales agreement Document signed by a local official 0.28 0.45 Inheritance document 0.12 0.32 Certificate of customary ownership 0.02 Receipt from local government 0.08 5% (59) of the household that were replace. The idea is just to mention that even if that was not part of our eligibility criteria, uptake of formal titling is extremely low These documents do not carry the same weight as gov issued document

Demand for Freehold Titles   Mean St.Dev Obs Parcel manager knows what a Government-issued land ownership document is. 0.57 0.49 7181 Parcel for which the manager plans to get a freehold title in the next 12 months. 0.15 0.35 4070 Reason for not having a formal document for the parcel It is too costly to obtain one 0.67 0.47 I do not think it would be useful 0.14 0.34 I do not know how to obtain one 0.09 0.28 It takes too long to obtain one 0.04 0.19

Gender Equality In The Customary System   Mean St.Dev Obs Female spouse is plot manager - at least one plot 0.54 0.5 6612 parcel owner - self reported 0.26 0.44 7181 parcel owner - her name is on the ownership document - self reported 0.21 0.41 4643 Female spouse can sell the parcel (exclusively or jointly) 0.32 0.47 use the parcel as collateral for credit (exclusively or jointly) 0.37 0.48 rent out the parcel (exclusively or jointly) 0.38 0.49 plant tree crops or other long term investments (exclusively or jointly) 0.43 Most managed by man, women are managers but mostly joint with their husbands. As a result only X% of the parcels have…

Perception of Land Rights Female spouses lack ownership rights in the current customary system. Should they be included in the ownership title?   Mean St.Dev Obs Respondent thinks both spouses names should appear on the ownership title. Male spouse 0.52 0.5 2932 Female spouse 0.71 0.46 2922 This intervention hopes to change gender imbalances, so we asked how willing would be male spouse to co.title and only … Importance of gender informed sensitization, make a difference in shifting gender perspective

Conclusion Lack of knowledge and high cost of getting a title main emerge as main reasons for not having a title Female spouses lack ownership rights in the current customary system Low willingness of male spouses to include their wives on the title Low share of formal titling

Moving forward… Government and household-level gender interventions in 2016 First follow-up household survey in 2017 to shed light on early impacts Second follow-up household survey in 2018