Land Tenure Insecurity and Formalizing Land Rights in Madagascar: A Gender Perspective on the Certification Program
从性别视角分析马达加斯加土地认证项目对男女土地权利的影响，发现项目虽增强了个人正式权利，但因缺乏性别平等机制，强化了男性户主对土地的主导权，且未解决殖民产权和商业压力等主要威胁。
This contribution examines Madagascar's land tenure reform – aimed at reducing land tenure insecurity – from a gender perspective. In particular, it investigates the certification program issuing formal land title deeds (land certificates) to landholders. Drawing on a household survey with gender-disaggregated asset data conducted in the rural municipality Soavinandriana, the analysis suggests that the certification program has strengthened both men's and women's formal claims to individually held land. However, the lack of gender equality principles and, in particular, of mechanisms to ensure that couples’ jointly held land is jointly secured, seems to have reinforced primary ownership of land by male household heads, at the expense of women's land rights. Furthermore, the land tenure reform does not address some of the most important threats to tenure security such as colonial titles and commercial pressure on land, and large parts of the country are still not covered by the certification program.