Strengthening the Availability of Sex-Disaggregated Data on Land Ownership

Recommendations for Agricultural Censuses

FAO – UBOS Expert Consultation on “Collecting Sex Disaggregated Data on Land Ownership and Management in

Agricultural Censuses”

Kampala, Uganda, 13-15 May 2014

OUTLINE

•Rationale

•Objectives

•Findings of the Review

•Recommendations for Agricultural Censuses

Rationale

Much of the agricultural policy fails to consider the differences in

resources available to men and women

Improvement in the availability of gender-relevant information is

required to enable gender sensitive decisions for the agricultural

sector

Agricultural land considered a critical asset and the value of sex-disaggregated data on land ownership recognized by the international community

Rationale

•Proportion of population owning land, by sex included in

the Minimum Set of Gender Indicators presented by the

Interagency Expert Group on Gender Statistics and

approved by the 43rd UN Statistical Commission

Rationale

•Share of women and men with secure rights to land,

property, and other assets suggested as one of the

poverty indicators for the Post-2015 Development

Agenda (High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons)

Rationale

International community highlighted the need to identify standards for data collection

•Recommendations for sex-disaggregated data on asset ownership under the EDGE project (UNWomen/UNSD)

• FAO supported the EDGE work on land ownership with specific recommendations for Agricultural Censuses (AC).

OBJECTIVES OF FAO WORK

Propose feasible

recommendations for

the World Census of

Agriculture

(2020 round,

years 2016-25)

Contribute

to the EDGE guidelines

“Measuring assets

ownership from a

gender perspective”

EDGE project

FAO

contribution

Harmonization

Rationale

Why specific recommendations for Agricultural Censuses?

• ACs more limited than surveys in the possibility to include detailed questions → ensure consistency with EDGE proposals and identification of recommendations that are feasible for ACs

•Recommendations have to fit into the World Census of Agriculture Programme guidelines (WCA).

Rationale

Why FAO as leading agency?

• FAO mandated to strengthen the country capacity in generating agricultural statistics. Since 1945, responsible to help countries in their census of agriculture

• FAO is preparing guidelines for the next Round (WCA 2020, 2016-25)

OBJECTIVES OF FAO WORK

Review data collection methods on land ownership and control used in Agric. Censuses and Household Surveys

Define standards for collecting comparable sex-disaggregated data on land ownership / control in Agric. Censuses

Propose practical guidelines on how to incorporate questions in ACs.

Ensure consistency with the EDGE recommendations for Household Surveys

The review

• 105 Agricultural Censuses conducted between 2006 and 2013 (WCA 2010 round).

• Being AC a large scale operation, some countries had still to release reports and documentation at the time of the review.

•Review focussed on the Agricultural Censuses conducted between 2006 and 2013 whose

questionnaires were available to FAO (86 out of 105, 82%)

86

105

Focus

Coverage Coverage affected by questionnaire availability

•Outstanding coverage vis-à-vis the ACs whose questionnaires were available to FAO (red circles)

•Very good coverage vis-à-vis the implemented ACs

•We stopped

when we reached

a ‘saturation’ status

100

93

100 100

71

100

79

87 89

63 63

100

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Africa America, North-Central

America, South Asia Europe Oceania

pe

rce

nta

ge

coverage

coverage (out of documented AC) coverage (out of implemented AC)

Objectives

•Analyse how frequently Sex Disaggregated Data (SDD) on land ownership and management were collected in ACs and review methodologies • Unit of data collection - ie., at what level is the information collected?

• Definition of Ownership – ie., what type of ownership is collected?

• Other SDD data collected in ACs

• Identify good practices (feasibility analysis)

•Review how the Sub-Holder concept was operationalized

Holding level

‘Sex of the holder’ and ‘land tenure of the holding’ available at the holding

level for nearly all the ACs under review… although few reports actually

disseminate the perc. of male/female-headed holdings by land tenure

• High availability of these data

is not surprising: both the items

proposed for inclusion by the

WCA Guidelines for long time

Holding level

Holding data alone can’t disclose the extent to which

women manage and / or own agricultural land.

This can be achieved only with intra-holding level data –

ie., if land management / ownership is collected at the

individual or parcel level

• Availability of sex-disaggregated data (SDD) on land ownership or

management drops sharply and concentrates only in Africa

Why?

Not caused by

the rare inclusion

of parcel modules.

Rather determined by the

rare inclusion of sex of the

parcel manager or owner

in the parcel modules

Intra holding: parcel data

• Sometimes ‘certificate’ appears among the response options for land tenure,

but this does not necessarily mean that the parcel’s manager or owner has

his/her name on the ownership document

• This person could be simply reported to be the manager or the owner of a

parcel for which the household has some form of documentation (not

necessarily in his/her name).

Intra holding: parcel data

• Sex of individuals very frequently collected in ACs (in individual

rosters)

• Land ownership (almost) never collected at the individual level

Frequent inclusion of

sex of individuals in the

rosters suggests

that this module can be

a feasible vehicle

for questions on

ownership of plots

Intra holding: individual data

Sub–holder and Sub–holding

The 2010 World Census of Agriculture introduced the concept of sub-holder to better reflect the role of women on the holding.

Recommended for inclusion under theme 12 (Management of the Holding):

• Sub-Holding: activity or group of activity managed on behalf of

holder

• Sub-Holder: person who manages the sub-holding on the behalf of holder

Sub holders

The review showed that:

1. The concept was rarely used due to ambiguous definitions

2. In the few countries where the concept was used as such (direct questions) results were difficult to interpret

Sub-holder

3. In several countries (Africa) sub-holder became

synonymous of ‘plot/parcel manager’

Source: Niger Agricultural Questionnaire

Recommendations

Recommendations

•Where to insert the questions? •option 1: parcel modules

•option 2: household member rosters

•What ownership/management questions?

•Which indicators?

Recommendations

•Where to insert the questions? •option 1: parcel modules

•option 2: household member rosters

•What ownership/management questions?

•Which indicators?

Where? Plot modules

Ownership and management questions

asked for each plot / parcel

Where ? Plot modules First preference

• Analysis benefits from additional information on plots Not only % of plots owned by men and women, but further crosstabs by area, etc.

• Easier if questionnaire includes also the individual roster Individual codes link plot and individual data → no need for ‘sex’ in the parcel

module

• Both individual and plot level statistics (flexibility) % of plots owned by women out of total plots; or % of women that own a plot out total women

Feasible

• Review showed that 30% of ACs already include a parcel module

Where? individual rosters

Ownership and management questions

asked for each adult individual

Where ? Individual Rosters

Second option (if parcel module not used)

• Analysis can’t benefit from other information on plots

• Only individual level measures % of women that own a plot out total women

• For some questions there are no unique answers

Very feasible Review showed that 70% of ACs includes a roster

Inclusion of land questions in individual rosters is very much consistent with the AC focus

Recommendations

•Where to insert the questions? •option 1: parcel modules

•option 2: household member rosters

•What ownership/management questions?

•Which indicators?

What ?

•Lessons learned from the WCA 2010 suggest not to propose again the sub–holder concept of (too abstract)

•However WCA 2020 will include a theme devoted to intra-household distribution of management roles and land ownership

What?

•Collect the sex of the manager / owner

• collect both management and ownership

• (for ownership) collect land tenure

• (for management) one question suffices, though interesting to investigate different kinds of management rights

• Investigate sole versus joint management / ownership

Sex

•Compulsory information for gender–sensitive analysis

Recommendations

• If individual roster included, use HHID codes to link the parcel modules with the individual roster → no need to collect the sex of the manager / owner

Management

•Consistent with the focus of ACs

• One question on management may suffice, though interesting to investigate different kinds of rights

Recommended data items

plot level

1. identification plot manager(s)

2. identification of person(s) who control

the agric. prod. output

Individual level

1. If the individual manages a plot

2. If the individual controls the agric. prod.

output (revenue)

Ownership

•Allows exploring relationship between management and ownership and understanding issues related to tenure security

Recommended data items

1. Owner identification (use HH ID codes if available)

2. Land tenure status (include ‘certificate’ or ‘title’ among options in order to understand if a formal document exists)

3. Ascertain whose name is on the ownership document (feasibility to be discussed)

Multiple managers /owners

•Women tend to share ownership and management responsibilities with others

• If we don’t consider co-management / co-ownership, we risk to underestimate women’s role in agriculture

Recommendations

• Allow for more than one owner / manager in the plot modules

• Ask the type of management and ownership (sole / joint)

Recommendations

•Where to insert the questions? •option 1: parcel modules

•option 2: household member rosters

•What ownership/management questions?

•Which indicators?

Indicators

• Percentage of plots by sex of the owner and form of ownership (sole/joint; land tenure type)

• Percentage of women that own a plot out of total women (gender asset gap)

• Percentage of women that own a plot out of total owners (share of owners)

• Value of land owned by women / value of the land owned by men (gender wealth gap)

Discussion and questions