1. Women’s Access to Land in Ghana: Implications for Water Isabel Lambrecht, IFPRI, Accra Gender and Irrigation Technical Workshop April 13-14, Accra, Ghana 1

2. Introduction Access to land is a prerequisite for access to irrigation In most African countries, women have less access to land than men (Doss et al. 2015) Call for more equal and secure access to land for women  Gender equity  To increase female decision-making power (Allendorf 2007; Doss 2013 etc.)  To increase farm productivity (Goldstein and Udry 2005; Holden and Bezabih 2009) What drives unequal access to land for men and women? 2

3. Background: Land Tenure in Ghana Diversity of tenure systems: - Customary tenure (80% of all land) = family land and stool/skin land  Communal tenure – multiple, overlapping land rights  A farmer owns the crops, not the land  Stronger land rights for those investing labor on the land -Land market development unequal throughout the country:  Nonmarket land acquisition: free allocation, borrowing, inheritance, gift.  Market land acquisition: sharecropping, renting, purchase -> Processes of commodification and individualization of land 3

4. Background: Gender in Ghana The Household:  one consumption unit under the control of the household head in terms of basic necessities  HH members do not fully pool their income  Polygamy: 4.7% of rural households. Highest in Savannah (13%) (GLSS6)  Female headed households: 26.1% of rural households. Highest in Coastal Zone (37.9%) (GLSS6) Large gender gap in access to agricultural land:  9.8% of plots by individual female farmer << 83.1% by individual male farmer (Deere et al. 2013)  Cultivation rights held individually, rarely jointly by spouses/ married couples 4

5. COMMUNITY Division of labor Mobility 5 STATE Land / Property law Marriage law Inheritance law HOUSEHOLD / FAMILY Household and family organization Kinship / lineage MARKET Land market Labor market Other input and output markets GENDERED ACCESS TO LAND Conceptual Framework Social norms, rules and perceptions affect unequal access to land for men and women

6. COMMUNITY Division of labor Mobility 6 STATE Land / Property law Marriage law Inheritance law HOUSEHOLD / FAMILY Household and family organization Kinship / lineage MARKET Land market Labor market Other input and output markets GENDERED ACCESS TO LAND Conceptual Framework: Household, family, lineage

7. Household, family and lineage 7

8. -Men are responsible to provide for their household -Ideally, women are provided for by men at any time of their lives (as daughters, wives, mothers, sisters …) Rationale for explicit and implicit rules that favor male access to land, labor and other productive resources within the household, family and lineage “ The portion of the joint revenue with the man is for the family upkeep, children’s education, health and that is where you prepare your capital down for the next season. If I have in mind a plot to build to help the family, I will not go to the woman, contribute this or contribute that. It is my responsibility to do that for the family.” (Male farmer, Hohoe District) 8

9. Family and lineage Explicit rules regarding family and lineage membership determine who can access family resources: -Matrilineal or patrilineal: children are member of either mother’s or father’s family/lineage, but not both. -Marriage: -In some patrilineal ethnic groups, women become part of their husbands’ family -Women move to their husband’s house or home village upon marriage -Divorce / widowhood -> Husband and wife make strategic decisions on which land to cultivate and/or to invest. 9

10. Family and lineage  Patrilineal: “It is in the woman’s interest to cultivate on her husband’s land for the sake of your children so that when the woman dies, the children can enjoy. In case of cash crops, you [woman] don’t put it on your family land, you put it on your husband’s land so that anytime you die, your children can enjoy. Because if you [woman] keep it on your family land and you die, it goes to your [woman’s] family.” (Male farmer in Volta region)  Matrilineal: “When there is separation and the farm is established on the woman’s family land, the family members might not allow the man to have access to the farm so in that instance, the husband will think twice in establishing such perennial crops on the woman’s family land. We [women] too would not like to establish perennial crops on our husband’s lands because if anything happens and our husband is no more, our husband’s family members will not allow us [women] to have access to the produce. If the husband is no more, we [women] take care of the children, so if it is on our land, we can have full control over the produce to help take care of the children, but if it is established on the man’s farm, the moment he dies, his family takes over that farm.” (Female farmer in Ashanti Region) 10

11. COMMUNITY Division of labor Mobility 11 STATE Land / Property law Marriage law Inheritance law HOUSEHOLD / FAMILY Household and family organization Kinship / lineage MARKET Land market Labor market Other input and output markets GENDERED ACCESS TO LAND Conceptual Framework: Community

12. Community Community leadership is male-dominated, decisions over land are considered to be “men’s business” Division of labor and crops: -More strength-requiring tasks for men (e.g. clearing of land), typically rewarded with stronger land rights -More remunerative crops cultivated by men Gendered division of labor, crops and land has adjusted to changes in the community and the market 12

13. Community Women’s responsibilities in the household and social norms on mobility -Limit women’s time to farm -Limit women’s access to more distantly located land “In this community for instance, when you have a land for farming, you know the town is enlarging. When it enlarges to the extent that it reaches your farm, it is there that the chief will own the land. Assuming they want to build certain factories there, then the land belongs to the chief. So the people who have their farms close to the town can lose their land.” (Male farmer in Northern Region) 13

14. COMMUNITY Division of labor Mobility 14 STATE Land / Property law Marriage law Inheritance law HOUSEHOLD / FAMILY Household and family organization Kinship / lineage MARKET Land market Labor market Other input and output markets GENDERED ACCESS TO LAND Conceptual Framework: State

15. State Statutory law: -1992 Constitution of Ghana is gender neutral -1985 Intestate Succession Law: any self-acquired property should be distributed 1/16 th to the children, 3/16 th to the spouse, 1/8 th to parents, 1/8 th following customary rules Limited applicability of statutory law: -in many cases customary law rather than statutory law holds -not compatible with diversity of (informal) marriage arrangements -Limited knowledge of statutory rights, lack of enforcement mechanisms, social pressure to not execute statutory rights 15

16. COMMUNITY Division of labor Mobility 16 STATE Land / Property law Marriage law Inheritance law HOUSEHOLD / FAMILY Household and family organization Kinship / lineage MARKET Land market Labor market Other input and output markets GENDERED ACCESS TO LAND Conceptual Framework: Markets

17. Markets Access to resources “Women are allowed to buy land if they can pay for it, but none of the women here have enough money.” (Male farmer in Upper West Region) “The men have more plots than the women. If the women have the resources, which is money, their plots can be bigger than their husbands. It is also because the men have more energy than the woman in terms of farm operations [land clearing and land preparations]. Except that the woman has enough funds to hire labor to do the clearing or to do the land preparation.” (Female farmer Ashanti Region) 17

18. Markets Social norms and perceptions “Our husbands gave us the lands on which we are farming. Our husbands go to look for the land and give it to us to work on. If the woman wants extra land to farm on, she will have to tell her husband that if I get a land, I will also like to establish my own farm. Once you have a husband, you need not to go ahead to do the negotiation. It is your husband who has to do it for you.” “Getting a land of your own as a woman, as for me, I don’t believe because you [woman] work together with the man. You do all your movements together, so it is always the man who will have access to the land before you get some. So, as for me, I don’t believe that.” (Female migrant farmer in Ashanti Region) 18

19. Water and Women? Women are asked to fetch water:  For the household  Drinking water for men working on the land  For agricultural activities: to spray herbicides and pesticides, irrigation after planting of seeds, … Access to land and water go hand in hand: For example: when rice becomes popular as cash crop, men take over the swamp areas “When it came that we should make farms in the muddy place, men never like to enter the mud. So it was only women who enter the mud and make rice farming and the men will not help them. […] When we were young, men never enter the mud to work rice. It is now that they see that the revenue that comes from there is good so they (men) are also trying to enter.” (female farmer in Volta Region) 19

20. Conclusions Access to land  Gender differences are driven by social norms, rules and perceptions on gender differentiated roles in the household, family, community …  Strong role model for men as providers for their family and household, whereas women provide the necessary support Implications for water:  More fertile and productive plots of land more often allocated to men  Plots with better access to water more often allocated to men  Productive technologies, such as irrigation technologies, more often adopted by men  Women are often responsible for water in a supportive role in the household, rather than for increasing their own agricultural productivity -> How can women maintain cultivation rights to land when its value increases due to improved access to irrigation infrastructure? 20

21. 21 Thank you! Isabel Lambrecht DSGD, IFPRI, Accra i.Lambrecht@cgiar.org