Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism

Empirical research on gender dimensions in agricultural inputs has focused on land. This chapter reviews existing microeconomic empirical literature from the past 10 years on gender differences in use, access, and adoption of nonland agricultural inputs in developing countries. The review focuses on three key areas: (1) technological resources, (2) natural resources, and (3) human resources. In general, there has been more empirical research on inorganic fertilizer, seed varieties, and extension services than on tools and mechanization and life-cycle effects, and most of the studies are from Sub-Saharan Africa. A consistent finding is that, across different types of inputs, men generally have higher input measures than women, and that this input gap is responsible for observed productivity differences between men and women; however, this finding is often sensitive to the use of models that control for other background factors, as well as the type of gender indicator implemented in the analysis. The final section presents future directions, opportunities, and recommendations for microeconomic gender analysis of nonland agricultural inputs.

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A Review of Empirical Evidence on Gender Differences in Nonland Agricultural Inputs, Technology, and Services in Developing Countries

Contemporary discourse on land in Africa is polarized between advocates of tenure reform through state registration of individual titles to land and others who claim that customary or 'communal' tenure is the only check against landlessness among the poor in the African countryside, and that 'pro-poor' land policy should therefore strengthen customary rights to land. This paper draws on a growing body of evidence on the emergence of vernacular rural land sales and rental markets to question assumptions that underlie the non-market 'ideal type' communal tenure model that has historically dominated policy thinking in Africa, and continues to be shared by both sides of the current land tenure reform debate. The paper argues that recognition of the specific characteristics of 'vernacular land markets'- commoditized transfers of land within the framework of customary tenure - is essential if state land policies are to succeed in promoting the interests of the poor.

Customary vs Private Property Rights? Dynamics and Trajectories of Vernacular Land Markets in Sub-Saharan Africa

Cutting the web of interests: Pitfalls of formalizing property rights

Challenges in Land Tenure and Land Reform in Africa: Anthropological Contributions

This article examines some contemporary policy discourses on land tenure reform in sub–Saharan Africa and their implications for women's interests in land. It demonstrates an emerging consensus among a range of influential policy institutions, lawyers and academics about the potential of so–called customary systems of land tenure to meet the needs of all land users and claimants. This consensus, which has arisen out of critiques of past attempts at land titling and registration, particularly in Kenya, is rooted in modernizing discourses and/or evolutionary theories of land tenure and embraces particular and contested understandings of customary law and legal pluralism. It has also fed into a wide–ranging critique of the failures of the post–colonial state in Africa, which has been important in the current retreat of the state under structural adjustment programmes. African women lawyers, a minority dissenting voice, are much more equivocal about trusting the customary, preferring instead to look to the State for laws to protect women's interests. We agree that there are considerable problems with so–called customary systems of land tenure and administration for achieving gender justice with respect to women's land claims. Insufficient attention is being paid to power relations in the countryside and their implications for social groups, such as women, who are not well positioned and represented in local level power structures. But considerable changes to political and legal practices and cultures will be needed before African states can begin to deliver gender justice with respect to land.

Anne Whitehead

Papers

Policy discourses on women's land rights in sub-Saharan Africa: the implications of the re-turn to the customary.