Gender Inequality And Land Tenure

At its 2014 Land and Poverty Conference in March, the World Bank highlighted the efficacy of producing computerised land-related data using satellites, drones, databases and other sources such as traditional surveys.
This makes it easier and quicker to register land and generate title deeds, and - being digital - it means poor smallholder farmers can access deeds from local land registration offices rather than having to travel long distances to a town where paper copies would otherwise be stored.
As SciDev.Net reported, some conference delegates pointed to potential complications. They are right to be concerned: creating and digitising land registries could exacerbate unfair land grabs or further marginalise people who may not have the right to claim land they live on or farm.


The topic of gender inequalities around land tenure is much discussed in development, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, for example, has a global database with up-to-date information and analysis on such inequalities.  (Gender and Land Rights Database here)

Although 70 per cent of Africa's farmers are women, patriarchal customary law often holds sway, excluding them from owning or controlling land. Even in matrilineal societies, where property and land inheritance follows the female line, such as those in Malawi, in reality the maternal uncle - or mwini mumba - will control the land.
Such discrimination in land access and decision-making is a key barrier to empowering poor women, lowering their status in the community and preventing them from borrowing money against collateral to improve their farming methods or to start small businesses.
Digitising land ownership is something of a double-edged sword. If land registry digitising projects were to blithely record the name of the head of the family as the proprietor of the land, this could further erode women's limited control over land.
But, done with sensitivity to the complex dynamics around land ownership, they could offer the chance to record women's rightful access to land officially, while also providing quick and easy access to title deeds.
The challenge is how to do this when land is so often considered the property of the male household head. One way could be to record the name of the person who farms the land, rather than the person who traditionally controls it.
To begin with, promoters of land digitisation projects should be aware of its potential to dispel one of the largest barriers to women's empowerment: their unequal access to land. To do this, digitising technology must be used wisely.

from here

Cote D'Ivoire - Homelessness For Returning Refugees

 Tens of thousands of western Côte d’Ivoire residents who fled deadly election turmoil three years ago have returned home, where survival is a daily struggle as more than half of them remain homeless.

Voluntary repatriation by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has brought home 33,702 people from neighbouring Liberia since 2011. Around 400 have also returned from Guinea and an unknown number have come back on their own. The 2010-2011 post-election conflict forced some 220,000 people to flee western Côte d’Ivoire to Liberia.

UNHCR’s deputy representative in Côte d’Ivoire, Serge Ruso, told IRIN that 52 percent of the former refugees have no houses. Violence ignited by the disputed outcome of the November 2010 presidential run-off first broke out in the country’s west, where armed gangs supporting then opposition candidate and now President Alassane Ouattara raided villages, killed and drove out people seen as supporters of then incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo.

Many of the former refugees restarting life at home without a roof over their heads have sought shelter with friends or relatives. Those whose land has not been illegally seized by their ethnic or political foes are slowly rebuilding, while the loss of both homes and farms to rivals has deepened desperation and longstanding rancour for others.

The government’s Post-Crisis Assistance Programme (PAPC) says 2,243 houses need reconstruction or refurbishment in the crisis-riven west, and that it rebuilt or restored 687 houses in 2012 thanks to World Bank funding.

Land has been at the centre of conflict in the region, and with the looming 2015 elections, lingering tensions over access to land could trigger violence.

Nonzi, 66, and his family survived the July 2012 attack on a camp outside Duékoué housing some 5,000 people who had been displaced by the 2010-2011 poll violence. The attack was seen as ethnically driven, as it was blamed on armed Malinké men backed by traditional hunters known as dozo who support Ouattara. The camp was home to mainly Guéré people who are Gbagbo sympathizers.

Land tenure in Côte d’Ivoire is either customary or statutory. Ninety-eight percent of land in rural Côte d’Ivoire is owned through customary law. The statutory system is applicable only when land is registered. The government in 1998 passed a rural land law aiming to recognize and formalize customary land rights by setting out procedures and conditions for them to be transformed into title deeds. But land ownership agreements are still predominantly verbal, a matter that has contributed to the recurrent disputes.

The land disputes add to political rivalries that often take on an ethnic dimension. Observers have criticized the government for failing to carry out far-reaching reconciliation and fair justice in the aftermath of the violent 2010-2011 election crisis. Côte d’Ivoire’s west is seen as having borne the brunt of the country’s years of crisis since the 1999 toppling of President Henri Konan Bédié.


“Today problems about land, community rehabilitation, improving infrastructure, development and reintegration of former fighters are a low priority,” Kourouma, Ivorian political analyst.

Still, many Ivoirians in refuge want to return home. The UNHCR plans to repatriate 16,000 refugees from neighbouring Liberia this year. In March, the agency and the Liberian government closed down the third camp in southeastern Liberia as more Ivoirians returned home.

“Those who are returning have no houses to go to. Some have benefited from community projects by aid groups, but considering the losses during all these years of crisis, this assistance is very little,” said Albert Gbahou, head of Yrozon village in the country’s west.

“Everyone is looking at the government for solutions to the problems. The refugees, the displaced who were dispossessed of their land need to get it back in order to settle. Since the returns begun, we have been working with families to help out those returning, but this is quite insufficient,” Gbahou added.

Land dispossession has deprived families of livelihoods in the agriculturally rich western Côte d’Ivoire, Human Rights Watch found in an October 2013 study.

“The current pre-election atmosphere does not favour peaceful return of refugees. As long as the problems they are facing are not resolved, there’s always a risk of a crisis,” said Ivoirian lawyer and political analyst Julien Kouao.

“We know that since 2000 we have been repeating our political mistakes and our misfortunes too. This is what confirms the fears of renewed crisis.”


From here