ABSTRACT
Inequalities in land access and ownership in Rwanda contributed significantly to the 1994 Genocide. The post-Genocide government implemented land-related legal reforms as well as a country-wide Land Tenure Regularization (LTR) program to reduce land-related conflicts, address gender inequalities in land access, and foster economic development. Through a low-cost, locally based participatory approach, informal customary rights for more than 8.4 million land parcels were converted into formally registered rights in three years. Research suggests that the LTR program enhanced tenure security, with differential gains and losses among categories of rural residents. Outcomes for women were mixed, and studies found contradictory results. Wives in legally registered marriages were qualified to be listed on certificates as joint owners, but little effort was invested in ensuring they were listed. However, non-senior wives in polygamous marriages registered the plots they farmed in their own names and listed their children as heirs. A World Bank follow-on study found active informal market transactions in land in rural areas, but low rates of registration of transfers five years after the start of the LTR program raised concerns by some observers about erosion of tenure security of parcels registered in the initial universal registration of holdings.
