Formalizing Rural Land Rights in West Africa: Early Evidence from a Randomized Impact Evaluation in Benin

Abstract

Publié par l'Équipe d'assistance à la recherche La série des documents de travail consacrés à la recherche sur les politiques diffuse les conclusions des travaux en cours pour encourager l'échange d'idées sur les questions de développement. Elle a pour objectif de publier les résultats rapidement, même si la présentation n'en est pas définitive. Les études portent le nom de leurs auteurs qui doivent donc être cités. Les rapports portent le nom de leurs auteurs et doivent être cités en conséquence. Les observations, interprétations et conclusions présentées ici n'engagent que leurs auteurs et ne sauraient être attribuées à la Banque internationale pour la reconstruction et le développement/Banque mondiale et ses organisations affiliées, à des membres du Conseil des Administrateurs, ni aux pays qu'ils représentent Document de travail 7435 consacré à la recherche sur les politiques Ce rapport a été produit par la Région Afrique et le Groupe de recherche de Balnque Mondiale. Il s'inscrit dans le cadre d'une initiative de plus grande envergure lancée par la Banque mondiale pour donner libre accès à ses travaux de recherche et contribuer aux discussions consacrées aux politiques de développement dans le monde entier. Les documents de travail consacrés à la recherche sur les politiques sont également affichés sur le web à http://econ.worldbank.org. Il est également possible de contacter les auteurs aux adresses suivantes :

Tenure Security and Farm Efficiency Analysis Correcting for Biases from Observed and Unobserved Variables: Evidence from Benin

“…To the best of our knowledge, there are no previous studies in Benin regarding the impact of land rights on the technical efficiency (TE) of smallholder farmers. Furthermore, the analysis of the impact of customary land rights is sparse in the literature, where most developing countries are characterised by customary land tenure systems (Goldstein et al, 2015).…”

Gender and Property Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Review of Constraints and Effective Interventions

“…less likely to be aware of public information meetings prior to their occurrence, and were less likely to receive written materials about the intervention (Kumar and Quisumbing 2015). Similarly, in Benin, female heads of household were less aware of the country's certification program when compared with male heads, and they were less likely to attend informational meetings about the program (Goldstein et al 2015). And, in the wake of Uganda's 1998 Land Act, which lifted nondiscrimination exemptions for customary law, females under customary land tenure regimes reported lower levels of overall knowledge about their land rights than males (Deininger, Ali, and Yamano 2008).…”

“…Women have also greater tenure insecurity over the land that they use relative to men (Goldstein and Udry 2008;Goldstein et al 2015). In Rwanda, for example, female household heads experience lower levels of tenure security than men, which constrains their willingness to make or maintain investments in structures such as bunds, terraces, and dams (Ali, Deininger, and Goldstein 2014).…”

“…For example, insecure property rights can lead one to spend more time than is necessary (for production alone) on agricultural labor to serve as a signal of one's claim over land and to lower the risk of expropriation (Besley and Ghatak 2010;Houngbedji 2015). Experimental evidence from Benin has shown that, when women face differential tenure security over their plots of land, they reallocate their labor and production toward less secure land -and this strategy has adverse consequences for their overall yields (Goldstein et al 2015). Time availability may also limit women's participation and control over other productive assets as well.…”

“…Productivity: Understanding the down-stream productive impacts of property rights interventions will be essential to understanding whether these programs can increase women's economic empowerment and improve household well-being. Evidence from the savings (Dupas and Robinson 2013a) and land (Ali, Deininger, and Goldstein 2014) literatures has uncovered gender differences in impact on productive investment outcomes, and new empirical work from a land formalization program in Benin shows that productivity effects can also vary by gender (Goldstein et al 2015).…”