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Full citation: Kumar, N. and Quisumbing, A. (2015). “Policy Reform toward Gender Equality in Ethiopia: Little by Little the Egg Begins to Walk.” World Development 67, 406-23.

Full citation: Mequanint B. Melesse, Adane Dabissa & Erwin Bulte (2018) Joint Land Certification Programmes and Women’s Empowerment: Evidence from Ethiopia, The Journal of Development Studies, 54:10, 1756-1774, DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2017.1327662

Full citation: Hallward-Driemeier, M. & Gajigo, O., Strengthening Economic Rights and Women’s Occupational Choice: The Impact of Reforming Ethiopia’s Family Law, World Development, Volume 70, 2015, Pages 260-273.

This is proclamation no. 240 of 2001 to provide for the establishment of the Ethiopian Women's Development Fund

Full citation: Kumar, N. and Quisumbing, A., "Policy Reform toward Gender Equality in Ethiopia" 1226 IFPRI DISCUSSION PAPER (November 2012). - Using data from the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey (ERHS), the study shows how two seemingly unrelated reforms—community-based land registration, undertaken since 2003, and changes in the Family Code implemented in 2000—may have created conditions that reinforce each other in improving gender equity. Specifically, the analysis finds (among other things) impacts of the land registration effort on the evolution of perceptions of the distribution of assets upon divorce. The study found that awareness about the land registration process is positively correlated with the shift in perceptions toward equal division of land and livestock upon divorce, particularly for wives in male-headed households. The presence of female members in the Land Administration Committee also had a positive effect on the shift in perceptions toward a more equal distribution of assets upon divorce. [Threats to Women’s Land Tenure Security and Effectiveness of Interventions - Annotated Bibliography]

Full citation: Deininger, K., Augustinus, C., Enemark, S., and Munro-Faure, P. (Eds.) (2010). “Innovations in land rights recognition, administration, and governance.” World Bank Publications. - This paper brings together a variety of studies on land rights. Chapter 4 in particular focuses on efforts to improve tenure security. One study in India examines whether changes in inheritance legislation impact the socioeconomic status of females, and found that when daughters were granted coparcenary birthrights in joint family property denied to daughters in the past, the amendment significantly increased the probability of females inheriting land. However, even after the passage of the amendment, significant bias against females persists. Another study in Ethiopia assesses the effects on the allocative efficiency of the land rental market of the low-cost approach to land registration and certification of restricted property rights that were implemented in Ethiopia from the late 1990s. Four rounds of balanced household panel data collected from 16 villages in northern Ethiopia are used. After controlling for endogeneity of land certification and unobserved household heterogeneity affecting land market participation, it was found that land certification enhanced land rental market participation of female landlord households. [Threats to Women’s Land Tenure Security and Effectiveness of Interventions - Annotated Bibliography]

Full citation: Quisumbing, A. and Kumar, N. (2014). “Land Rights Knowledge and Conservation in Rural Ethiopia: Mind the Gender Gap.” IFPRI. - This paper examines the community-based land certification effort in Ethiopia, an early successful attempt to implement a cost-effective and transparent land-registration process. It found that while the difference between male- and female-headed households’ proportions of land registered is small, there is a “glaring” gap in men’s and women’s knowledge of land rights and that educating women had significant impact on soil conservation. Using the 2009 round of the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey, the paper examines the medium-term impact of the land registration on investment behavior by households, particularly the adoption of soil conservation techniques and tree planting. The paper suggests that closing the knowledge gap in legal rights is an important step to improving adoption of soil conservation technologies and sustainable farming techniques. [Threats to Women’s Land Tenure Security and Effectiveness of Interventions - Annotated Bibliography]