THE ROLE OF RURAL LAND CERTIFICATION IN EMPOWERING RURAL WOMEN

Abstract

Ethiopia, Amhara Region in particular, has introduced recently rural land registration and certification with the goal of being able to recognize land rights and provide security of tenure to its citizens in an innovative way. The major objective of doing so was to establish systems of land administration that can provide tenure security to land holders. Systematic assessment of the performance of such systems with respect to gender would be of great importance to inform the policy debate. As a result, a study was conducted in three districts of Amhara Region, Ethiopia, to identify the role of land certification on women empowerment. The data was collected through interview schedule, focus group discussion and key informant interview. The findings of the study revealed that land right registration in the names of both husband and wife had enabled married women ownership right to access their land resource. However, none married women had partially benefited from their land resources. It was hardly given to women to have control over what crop to grow, what and how much inputs to use, frequency and time of management practices, etc. It is the sharecropper who can take the leading role in the decision land management. Recommendations include economic empowerment of women through access to credit, extension services, use of labour saving technologies, and effect legal registration of land transactions, including share cropping.