IFPRI Policy Seminar "Beyond Gender Myths Closing the Knowledge Gap in Agriculture and Food Security" Presentation by Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI and Agnes Quisumbing, Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI at IFPRI on 22 November 2013.

1. The Gender Asset Gap:
Pieces of the puzzle
Agnes Quisumbing
Poverty, Health and Nutrition Division
International Food Policy Research Institute
IFPRI Policy Seminar, November 22, 2013
Washington DC

2. What we know
• What we learned from SOFA 2010-2011:
– Gender gaps in land, assets, nonland inputs, and
technologies have a high opportunity cost in terms of gains
in yields, production, and potentially, reduction in hunger
• We know gender gaps exist, and there are gains to
closing those gaps
• But we do not know:
– The extent of the gender gap across resources (myths
prevail)
– The extent of the gains in closing the gap
– Most effective ways to close the gap (although there is
evidence from some impact evaluations)

3. Nonland inputs:
Assets and technology
Photo credit: Ruth Meinzen-Dick, IFPRI
Photo credit: Maria Theresa Castro, IRRI

4. Number of studies reviewed
Gender gaps in nonland assets and
technology
Source: Peterman, Behrman and Quisumbing, 2010. IFPRI Discussion
Paper 975. (SOFA background paper)

5. Land
Photo credit: Supriya Chatterjee, Landesa

6. Sound bites
-- Oxfam, Action Aid, etc.
-- Variations found in UN Women, Bread
for the world and others citing FAO
gender land rights database
-- Infographic from the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation

7. Does the single statistic contain some
element of truth?
• Problematic because:
1. Masks regional and within country variations
2. No clear attention to how ‘women’s land ownership’ is
defined – and how this relates to bundles of rights
3. Treatment of joint ownership?
4. No clear comparison group (assumed to be men in the
same context?)
5. Based on limited data
 All these factors handicap policy
recommendations, ultimately hurting efforts towards
understanding gender-inequalities in land rights.

8. Gender Inequalities in Ownership and Control
of Land in Africa: Myth and Reality
(Doss, Kovarik, Peterman, Quisumbing, van den Bold 2013)
1. Explores conceptual and methodological issues in
estimating “women’s land ownership.”
2. Reviews existing evidence from large-scale studies in
Africa (data collected post 2002).
3. Provides new data-based estimates on women’s land
ownership in Africa:



Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) gender and land
rights database
Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)
Living Standard Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on
Agriculture (LSMS-ISA).
4. Discusses policy, advocacy and research implications of
findings.

9. FAO Gender and land database
• Primarily from agricultural censuses
• Landholder is defined as a “…person who makes major
decisions regarding resource use and exercises management
control over the agricultural holding operation. The holder has
technical and economic responsibility for the holding and may
undertake all responsibilities directly, or delegate
responsibilities related to day-to-day work management to a
hired manager.” (FAO, 2007)
• Therefore, a landholder is not necessarily a land owner
• 9 countries, N = 44,450 in Cape Verde - 15,732,850 in Nigeria

10. FAO Gender and land database (2002 – 2013)
Percentage of landholders who are women
60
Percentage
50
40
30
20
10
0
Cape Verde
(2004)
Botswana
(2004)
Comoros
(2004)
Tanzania
Ethiopia
Madagascar Nigeria (2007) Gambia
Mali (2004–
(2007–2008) (2001–2002) (2004–2005)
(2001–2002)
2005)
Country (year)

11. Demographic and Health Surveys
• Starting in 2009, select DHS started collecting
information on individual land ownership:
 Household level: “Does any member of this household
own agricultural land?”
 Individual level: “Do you own any land either alone or
jointly with someone else?” Response options: no
ownership, sole ownership, joint ownership, or both
sole and joint ownership.
• 10 countries

12. DHS – sole + joint ownership (2009 – 2013)
Percentage of households owning any agricultural land
100
90
Women owning any land (sole or joint)
86
81
80
80
Percentage owning land
Men owning any land (sole or joint)
79
77
73
70
72
64
60
60
50
54
54 55
54
63
54
53
50
48
47
39
40
32
36 36
38
34
30
28
30
20
11
10
*
*
0
Burundi (2010) Rwanda (2010) Malawi (2010) Burkina Faso
(2010)
Tanzania
(2010)
Ethiopia (2011) Uganda (2011)
Country (year)
Zimbabwe
(2010-11)
Lesotho (2009) Senegal (201011)
* means that data is not available

13. DHS – sole ownership (2009 – 2013)
Percentage of households owning any agricultural land
Women owning any land (sole only)
Men owning any land (sole only)
100
90
86
81
80
79
80
77
73
72
70
63
Percentage owning land
60
53
50
50
47
46
43
40
30
25
20
11
28
23
22
13
12
12
8
10
*
14
22
11
7
9
5
*
0
Burundi
(2010)
Rwanda
(2010)
Malawi
(2010)
Burkina
Faso
(2010)
Tanzania
(2010)
Ethiopia
(2011)
Uganda Zimbabwe Lesotho Senegal
(2011) (2010-11) (2009) (2010-11)

14. LSMS-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture
• Joint effort led by the World Bank in 7 African countries
starting in 2008 (Mali still in progress).
• Detailed plot level characteristics
including, ownership, documentation, area (GPS) measures
and value (self reported) measures.
• Among total land area owned or accessed by
households, women own a high of 31% in Malawi, followed
by Uganda (16 %), Tanzania (15 %), Nigeria (9%) and Niger
(8 %).
• Comparatively, men solely own on average 21.8 times as
much absolute land area in comparison with women in
Nigeria, and between 1.1 to 6.9 times as much land as
women solely own in the other countries.

15. LSMS-ISA Uganda: Distribution of Land Area
Accessed, 11%
Owned, undo
Joint cumented, 0
ownership, document
ed, 10%
Women's
ownership, undocum
ented, 13%
Women's
ownership, document
ed, 3%
Men's
ownership, undocum
ented, 24%
Joint
ownership, undocum
ented, 32%
Men's
ownership, document
ed, 6%

16. LSMS-ISA (area measures)
Legend
Malawi
Ethiopia
Women's ownership, undocumented
Owned,
undocum
ented, 0
Women's ownership, documented
Men's ownership, undocumented
6%
16%
22%
0.6%
Men's ownership, documented
19%
Joint ownership, undocumented
31%
Joint ownership, documented
17%
13%
Accessed
41%
0.2%
32%
Owned, undocumented (men and women)
0.4%
Nigeria*
3%
Owned, u
ndocume
nted, 0
5%
Tanzania
Owned, un
documente
d, 0
8%
Niger
Uganda
14%
11%
1%
22%
Owned, u
ndocumen
ted, 0
15%
7%
0.4%
2.9%
13%
3%
10%
22%
7%
24%
31%
36%
68%
6%
5%
*In Nigeria “ownership is defined as the right to sell or use as collateral”
49%
32%
5%

17. Which countries have data?

18. Conclusions and discussion points
• Isolated statistics cannot be generalized and do not
present an accurate picture of women’s landownership
worldwide
• But most consistent message is: women are
disadvantaged and often the gender gap is large.
• In future analysis it is crucial to:
 Define definitions and indicators used
 Improve methodology, data collection and analysis efforts
 Recognize that country-specific statistics are the most
relevant to drive policy and advocacy efforts in a given
context and focus should be on developing strong in
country systems for data collection and dissemination.

19. Acknowledgements
Funding for this work was provided by the Consultative Group on International
Agriculture Research (CGIAR), Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets and by an
anonymous donor.
We are grateful to IFPRI colleagues Maha Ashour, Zhe Guo, Caitlin Kieran, Hazel
Malapit, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, and Wahid Quabili for helpful comments and assistance.
Hosaena Ghebru Hagos of IFPRI for allowed access to unpublished Trabalho de
Inquerito Agricola (TIA) survey collected by Ministry of Agriculture data from
Mozambique; Perrine Burnod of Centre de coopération internationale en recherche
agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD) for allowing access to unpublished data
from Madagascar.
This paper benefited from helpful comments from the participants at the Gender and
Agricultural Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa workshop at the International Fund for
Agricultural and Development in Rome, and the International Conference on
Agricultural Statistics 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, and to the Living Standards Measurement
Study—Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) team at the World Bank for
helpful comments.

20. Gender and Social Capital
Ruth Meinzen-Dick
Environment and Production Technology Division
International Food Policy Research Institute
IFPRI Policy Seminar, November 22, 2013
Washington DC

21. Types of Social Capital
• Group membership
–
–
–
–
–
Producer groups
Microfinance
Funeral societies
Civic, religious groups
Advocacy
• Social networks
– Kinship
– Friendship
– Contacts
Photo credits: Regina Birner

22. Importance of Social Capital
•
•
•
•
•
Access to services (extension, credit, seed, etc.)
Control of resources
Resilience to shocks
Status
Empowerment

23. Is there a gender gap in social capital?

24. Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture
Index data on group membership
Group Membership:
Percentage of women and men in dual households with adequate achievement regardless of overall empowerment
status
Men
Women
90.0
82.2
80.0
Percentage with adequate achivement
82.7
79.2
81.3
79.5
74.5
73.7
70.6
70.0
64.7
63.0
60.0
50.0
40.0
37.0
36.4
30.0
22.9
20.0
16.7
10.0
0.0
NEPAL*
TAJIKISTAN*
* Indicates statistically significant difference at 0.05 level
KENYA*
RWANDA
UGANDA
MALAWI*
ZAMBIA*

25. Is there a gender gap in social capital?
• Formal organizations
– Men in farmer groups, market oriented
– Women in civic and religious groups
– Men more likely to be in leadership
• Social networks
– Quantity vs quality of ties
Bonding
Bridging
Linking

26. Gendered barriers to participation
•
•
•
•
•
•
Structural (e.g. membership requirements)
Time
Mobility
Material constraints (money)
Confidence
Gender norms
– Public space as male
– Female seclusion
– Speaking in public

27. Implications
• Social capital: potential, not panacea
– Substitute or complement to other assets?
– Exclusion of the very poor, marginalized
• Service delivery
– Building on what (whose) groups or networks?
– Group composition: men’s, women’s, or mixed?
• Organizational efforts
– Potential, but not costless
– Do organizations meet men’s or women’s needs?
– Address gendered barriers to participation