For more than five years, the Women’s Land Tenure Security (WOLTS) Project has been investigating the intersection of gender and land relations in mining-affected pastoralist communities in Mongolia and Tanzania. The aim has been to develop a methodology for long-term community engagement and capacity building to protect and support the land rights of all vulnerable people – thus to fully mainstream attention to gender equity in land tenure governance within a framework that would facilitate improvements in community land rights across the board.

To ensure a better and more sustainable future for all, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (“the 2030 Agenda”) has identified 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. SDGs range from poverty eradication, zero hunger, decent work and reduced inequalities to quality education, clean water and sanitation, and gender equality, only to name some of them.

HIGHLIGHTS

It’s been ten years since open data first broke onto the global stage. Over the past decade, thousands of programs and projects around the world have worked to open data and use it to address a myriad of social and economic challenges. Meanwhile, issues related to data rights and privacy have moved to the centre of public and political discourse. As the open data movement enters a new phase in its evolution, shifting to target real-world problems and embed open data thinking into other existing or emerging communities of practice, big questions still remain.

In Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya, a decentralized approach to land administration promises more accessible dispute resolution and a better deal for women. Among the challenges however, are old social attitudes that pre-empt discussion about women’s right to control land. In Lira district, for example, in-laws and land-grabbers routinely chase widows off land. A “viciously vibrant land market” often means that women are swindled in Bugunda district.

Several studies have shown that the land registration and certification reform in Ethiopia has been implemented at an impressive speed, at a low-cost, and with significant impacts on investment, land productivity, and land rental market activity. This study provides new evidence on land productivity changes for rented land and on the welfare effects of the reform. The study draws on a unique household panel, covering the period up to eight years after the implementation of the reform.

Ethiopia has implemented one of the largest, fastest and cheapest land registration and certification reforms in Africa. While there have been evidences of positive impacts of this land reform in terms of increased investment, land productivity and land rental market activities, the government is now piloting another round of land registration and certification that involves GPS measurement and computer registration.

This study utilizes land registry data from the First and Second Stage Land Registration Reforms that took place in 1998 and 2016 in sampled districts and communities in Tigray region of Ethiopia. Tigray was the first region to implement low-cost land registration and certification in Ethiopia and providing household level land certificates in the names of household heads. Second Stage Land Registration and Certification (SSLRC) is scaled up since 2015 and provides households with parcel-based certificates with maps. The SSLR&C lists all holders of parcels by name and gender.

We assess the gender difference in mobile phone ownership among youth business group members, and how it affects election into leadership and group board positions in recently established rural youth business groups in northern Ethiopia. Based on data on 1125 youths from 119 youth business groups where 32% of the members were female, 37% of the females and 70% of the males owned mobile phones. Male members were twice as likely to become board members and five times as likely to become group leaders.

We have investigated whether joint land certification in Southern Ethiopia has contributed to a strengthening of the perceived land rights of women and an increase in their intra-household involvement in land-related decisions. We use gender-disaggregated household panel data and generate indices for wives’ and husbands’ land rights attitudes and for wives’ involvement in land-related decisions. After controlling for endogeneity of land certification, using a control function approach, we find that receipt of land certificate has strengthened wives’ awareness of their land rights.

This working paper is an output from the research project “Youth Business Groups for Sustainable Development: Lessons from the Ethiopian Model” that is funded by Research Council of Norway under the NORGLOBAL2 research program for the period 2019-2022. This working paper provides updated and extended information on the gender differences among group members and how these are related to likelihood of becoming group board members and leaders.

We have used gender-disaggregated household panel data from 2007 and 2012 in combination with dictator games and hawk-dove games to assess the effects of joint land certification of husbands and wives on wives’ involvement in land-related decisions within households. We find that joint land certification has enhanced wives’ knowledge of their rights and their influence in land-related decisions, while about a third of husbands attempt to retain their dominant positions, preferring that women retain only their traditional weak rights.