Ayala Wineman

Filling the Legal Void? Experimental Evidence from a Community-Based Legal Aid Program for Gender-Equal Land Rights in Tanzania

Gender disparities continue to exist in women’s control, inheritance, and ownership of land in spite of legislation directing improvements in women’s land access. Women are often excluded from traditional patrilineal inheritance systems, often lack the legal know-how or enforcement mechanisms to ensure their property rights are maintained, and often lack initial capital or asset bases to purchase land through market mechanisms. Community-based legal aid programs have been promoted as one way to expand access to justice for marginalized populations, through provision of free legal aid and education. Despite promising programmatic experiences, few rigorous evaluations have studied their impacts in developing countries. We evaluate the effect of a one-year community-based legal aid program in the Kagera Region of northwestern Tanzania using a randomized controlled trial design with specific attention to gender. We measure impacts of access to legal aid on a range of land-related knowledge, attitude, and practice outcomes using individual questionnaires administered to male and female household members separately. Effects were limited in the short term to settings with minimal transaction costs to the paralegal. Treatment women in smaller villages attend legal seminars and are more knowledgeable and positive regarding their legal access to land. Cost-effectiveness analysis shows that the costs of bringing about these changes are moderate. The difference between the impact of the intervention on men and on women is narrowed when taking into account the gender-differentiated paralegal effort, and thus costs, allocated to women and men.

The Effects of Kenya's 'Smarter' Input Subsidy Programme on Smallholder Behaviour and Incomes: Do Different Quasi-experimental Approaches Lead to the Same Conclusions?

Kenya joined the ranks of sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries implementing targeted input subsidy programs (ISPs) for inorganic fertilizer and improved seed in 2007 with the establishment of the National Accelerated Agricultural Inputs Access Program (NAAIAP). While several features of NAAIAP were ‘smarter’ than other ISPs in the region, some aspects were less ‘smart’. However, the efficacy of this program, and the relationship between its design and effectiveness, have been little studied. This article uses nationwide survey data to estimate the effects of NAAIAP participation on Kenyan smallholders’ cropping patterns, incomes, and poverty status. Unlike most previous studies of ISPs, a range of panel data- and propensity score-based methods are used to estimate the effects of NAAIAP. The article then compares these estimated effects across estimators and to the effects of other ISPs in SSA, and discusses the likely links between differences in program designs and impacts. The results are robust to the choice of estimator and suggest that, despite substantial crowding out of commercial fertilizer demand, NAAIAP had sizable impacts on maize production and poverty severity. NAAIAP’s success in targeting resource-poor farmers and implementation through vouchers redeemable at private agro-dealer shops likely contributed to its more favorable impacts than those of ISPs in Malawi and Zambia.

All in the Family: Bequest Motives in Rural Tanzania

While most research on bequest motives has focused on developed countries, less is known about the developing country context. This paper explores the drivers of bequest decisions in Kagera, Tanzania, with particular attention paid to the gender of parents and children. We draw primarily from predictions of the strategic bequest (exchange) model to evaluate whether parents divide their estate with the intent to solicit care from their children. A general preference for sons is observed within intended bequests of land and nonland assets, although women narrow the gap between male and female children. Parents favor children who have recently remitted income to the household, and parents with greater needs seem to favor children who will likely provide care. We also find some evidence that bequests are exchanged for gendered labor. The results indicate that parents in Tanzania make bequest decisions with deft consideration of their own needs.

Land markets and migration trends in Tanzania: A qualitative-quantitative analysis

While migration has been found to enhance welfare across a range of settings, most of the literature focuses on rural‐to‐urban migrant flows. Using a unique dataset from north‐western Tanzania, this article probes an important, yet overlooked, link between land markets and rural‐to‐rural migration. A mixed‐methods approach is used to discern how these two forces are intertwined in village life. Results indicate that household decisions to migrate are particularly influenced by the ease of market‐based land access in their new communities. This suggests that labour mobility may be facilitated through the development of a well‐functioning land market.

Land Prices Heading Skyward? An Analysis of Farmland Values across Tanzania

Although studies of the determinants of farmland prices are common in developed country settings, such analyses are extremely scarce in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper offers a comprehensive examination of land values across Tanzania. Land prices rose significantly between 2008/09 and 2012/13, presenting a potential obstacle to land access for poor and aspiring farmers. A hedonic analysis reveals that indicators of agricultural potential, local population density, and access to markets/urban centers are all statistically significant determinants of land values in Tanzania. The paper concludes with a discussion of promising directions for future research on land values in SubSaharan Africa.

Filling the legal void? Impacts of a community-based legal aid program on women’s land-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices

Abstract Securing women’s property rights improves overall welfare. While governments in Africa often make provisions for gender-equal legal rights, the dichotomy between de jure and customary practices remains. Community-based legal aid (CBLA) has been promoted to address this chasm through provision of free legal aid and education. We evaluate a one-year CBLA program in Tanzania using a randomized controlled trial. Results show women in treatment communities had higher exposure to legal services and increased their legal knowledge. Women who had access to a trained voluntary paralegal experienced a 0.31 standard deviation increase in a legal service index, and a 0.20 standard deviation increase in an index documenting their knowledge of land-related regulations. These changes were, however, insufficient to shift women’s attitudes or result in more favorable gendered land practices. Estimates by village size and progressiveness reveal that transaction costs and social context influence program success.

Weather extremes and household welfare in rural Kenya

Households in rural Kenya are sensitive to weather shocks through their reliance on rain-fed agriculture and livestock. Yet the extent of vulnerability is poorly understood, particularly in reference to extreme weather. This paper uses temporally and spatially disaggregated weather data and three waves of household panel survey data to understand the impact of weather extremes –including periods of high and low rainfall, heat, and wind– on household welfare. Particular attention is paid to heterogeneous effects across agro-ecological regions. We find that all types of extreme weather affect household well-being, although effects sometimes differ for income and calorie estimates. Periods of drought are the most consistently negative weather shock across various regions. An examination of the channels through which weather affects welfare reveals that drought conditions reduce income from both on- and off-farm sources, though households compensate for diminished on-farm production with food purchases. The paper further explores the household and community characteristics that mitigate the adverse effects of drought. In particular, access to credit and a more diverse income base seem to render a household more resilient.