Submissions Accepted for Presentation at the World Bank Land Conference 2024

This paper evaluates the impact of a rural land administration program in Ecuador on female empowerment and household food security. Using a double robust estimation that combines the difference-in-difference approach with inverse probability weighting, we explore whether receiving a georeferenced cadastral map of one’s parcel provides women with increased bargaining power, empowering them to participate more actively in productive and consumption decision-making that leads to improved diversification of the production portfolio and the household’s food security. Although we find no significant effects on aggregate levels of empowerment, results show that female beneficiaries became more empowered with regards to access to and generation of resources and time use. Households who received jointly titled cadastral maps also increased their food security and crop diversification. These results suggest that increasing informal tenure security through cadastral mapping may spur female empowerment, thus improving their own and the family’s overall welfare.

This paper examines the role of the customary tenure system in redistributing land resources within the context of developing countries, facing challenges such as market imperfections and land idleness. Specifically, it scrutinizes the scenario in Malawi, where the farmland market is underdeveloped, and land acquisition predominantly occurs through customary tenure systems. Leveraging data from the National Integrated Household Panel Survey, the study employs a combination of fixed effects and maximum likelihood statistical techniques. Research findings show that farmland allocated by chiefs or employers is associated with higher farming ability scores, signaling allocative efficiency; however, the welfare effect is not significant, though positive. While the inherited customary land tenure system proves inefficient in allocating land with a significant negative farming ability score, it demonstrates a positive impact on crop sales income.

In Madagascar, the land used for extensive cattle rearing is currently the subject of increased competition between different users. A bill is on the political agenda to deal with the situation of these lands. However, no concrete path has been drawn to legally recognize the land rights of agropastoralists. This article analyses the methods of land governance and the strategies used by local people to secure land tenure, and suggests ways of meeting the challenges of the legal recognition of local land rights. Our qualitative interviews showed that the pasturelands studied are similar to unconventional Ostromian commons, under the authority of 'big agropastoralists'. Faced with the sources of insecurity, agropastoralists also resort either to negotiation or to ignoring bans or using fire. The challenge is therefore to design flexible, accessible tools that are adapted to the realities of local players, in order to provide legal recognition of their rights

Mailo is a type of customary land tenure that was created and semi-formalized during the colonial period, creating landlords and tenants. Mailo lands, which are mostly found in central Uganda close to Kampala, are prone to tenure insecurity and high levels of dispute further exacerbated by rising land values. The World Bank is implementing an impact evaluation of land governance interventions on Mailo land by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) “Improvement of Land Governance in Uganda (ILGU)” pilot project. This paper presents findings on the impact of the ILGU program on land documentation, bussulu payment, knowledge and awareness, land rights, perceived tenure security, conflict, land-related investment, land markets, livelihoods and productivity, intra-household bargaining, climate change and shocks/coping strategies. The IE design is based on a geographic discontinuity approach on sub- county borders.