Melesse, M.B., Dabissa, A. and Bulte, E. (2018) ‘Joint Land Certification Programmes and Women’s Empowerment: Evidence from Ethiopia’, Journal of Development Studies, 54(10), pp. 1756–1774.
The author started by elaborating on the general fact that women are subjected to gender-based discrimination in developing countries. This gender-based discrimination is reflected by women’s limited access to social and economic opportunities. Action taken worldwide to redress this injustice starting from gender inclusion in the Millennium Development Goal to the policy reforms toward women empowerment and gender mainstreaming program is appreciated. However, the inequality issue continued and the quest for more action to ensure gender equality. Among this new dimension of gender equality, women empowerment through economic activities and access to resources/opportunities is the primary one. Among these resources, access to land is emphasized. Women access to land in developing country is restricted by customary practices, and patriarchal structure, that operate against women’s right over the land. Customary practices promote male inheritance right and privilege in marriage. Lack of autonomous rights negatively affected women’s interests particularly economic interest, social status and decision making. Land right is found to be directly connected to women’s empowerment, as it facilitates economic opportunities and boost women role in decision making process. One of the ways to ensure women right over the land is through joint land certification that is aimed at enabling women to claim their share of household land and improve their bargaining powers.
With a primary goal of analyzing the effects of the Ethiopian joint land certification program on women’s empowerment within the household, the author employed a mixed approach of survey and field experiment method. Cross sectional data were gathered from household levels.
According to the finding, joint land certification has a positive and significant impact on various aspects of women empowerment. There are significant differences between certified and uncertified women in the following aspects. Accordingly certified women are more likely to participate in household decisions compared with uncertified women’s, they are more likely to engage in community activities and are more informed about their land rights and legal provisions. Moreover, they are found to have greater levels of tenure security, confidence, and willingness to protect rights. It’s also found that Women with joint land rights tends to have more freedom in physical mobility and autonomy relative to uncertified women and participate more in local institutions than comparable uncertified women. They are more likely to be a member of local organisations, and benefit from enhanced opportunities to voice and express their interests and perspectives.
However, the impact of land certification is applicable only to some aspects of women’s empowerment whereas, the actual figures of most empowerment indices remain very low (for both certified and uncertified women). Particularly, the levels of participation in community activities, physical mobility and autonomy, and institutional inclusion of both certified and uncertified women are low. Accordingly, this is an indication that land certification is not an end by itself, and a lot remains to be done to ensure women’s empowerment to the fullest. Presumably complementary measures aiming at expanding the opportunity sets of women, like education, employment, health, credit access, and market participation are important as well.