LAND TENURE OR A LAND TITLE! WHAT MATTERS IN ACCESS TO CREDIT? Policy Brief 15, June, 2016 Silver Spring Hotel 1

Outline 2  Rationale  Intervention design  Method and data  Key findings  Conclusion and policy action

Rationale 3  Historically, Uganda has undergone several land tenure reforms.  The 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda recognises four types of land ownership.  Land tenure reforms outlined in the 1998 Land Act have contributed to increased access to credit.  The Act not only chose to recognise the customary power and rights that still exit in Uganda, but, also allowed owners to obtain a title of customary ownership and even included provisions for converting customary tenure to freehold.  Foreseen benefits included more efficient land markets and land use, greater access to credit and investment.  Arguments in policy and theoretical studies indicate that land tenure security and titling have an impact on access to credit especially among rural agricultural households.  Petracco and Pender (2009) use 2005/06 household survey data from Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) to explore whether since the1998 land reforms, “tenure status or ownership of title had any impact on rural households’ access to credit be it formal or informal in Uganda”.

Intervention design 4

Method and data 5  Methods  Descriptive analysis and Propensity Score Matching (PSM)  Data  UNHS 2005/06: 7426 sampled households but only 3,890 rural hh owned parcels Rural hh 3,890 Freehold 213 Leasehold 31 Mailo 731 Customary 2,893

Key Findings 6

1. Access to credit forms by land tenure 7

2. Access to credit forms by land title 8

3. Land tenure or land title (PSM results) 9  Find a positive impact for rural households with freehold and customary tenure without title and their chances of obtaining any form of credit.  Where, chances are even higher among freehold households without a tile compared to customary households without title by 13 percent.  The impact of access to informal credit for household under customary or freehold tenure without ownership of a title, was positive and significant  The likelihood of this happening increases by 13.2 percent.

Conclusion and policy actions 10  Conclusion  Findings point out that what matters most in Uganda is not the security of land (measured in form of having a title) but more in credibility and /or duration a household has taken living on that parcel of land (measured as tenure).  Policy actions 1. Government should continue to promote opportunities that freehold tenure present in the long term, as accrued benefits (as per evidence) are even higher for rural households under freehold land tenure than customary. 2. This can be achieved partly through increased awareness and interpretation of the 1998 Land Act reforms which in will increase the rate of registering land from customary to freehold tenure system.

Thank you 11