Filling the legal void? Experimental evidence from a community-based legal aid program for gender-equal land rights in Tanzania

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dc.creatorMueller, Valerie
dc.creatorBillings, Lucy
dc.creatorMogues, Tewodaj
dc.creatorPeterman, Amber
dc.creatorWineman, Ayala
dc.date2015-04-03
dc.date2024-08-01T02:49:18Z
dc.date2024-08-01T02:49:18Z
dc.date.accessioned2026-06-27T14:59:26Z
dc.descriptionGender 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.
dc.formatapplication/pdf
dc.identifierhttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/149381
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/123456789/91360
dc.languageen
dc.publisherInternational Food Policy Research Institute
dc.relationhttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/149579
dc.relationhttps://doi.org/10.2499/CAPRiWP108
dc.relationhttps://doi.org/10.1080/13600818.2017.1414174
dc.rightsOpen Access
dc.sourceMueller, Valerie; Billings, Lucy; Mogues, Tewodaj; Peterman, Amber and Wineman, Ayala. 2015. Filling the legal void? Experimental evidence from a community-based legal aid program for gender-equal land rights in Tanzania. IFPRI Discussion Paper 1434. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/149381
dc.subjectgender
dc.subjectcommunity organizations
dc.subjectlegal frameworks
dc.subjectinheritance
dc.subjectland ownership
dc.subjectassets
dc.subjectland rights
dc.subjectproperty
dc.subjectwomen
dc.titleFilling the legal void? Experimental evidence from a community-based legal aid program for gender-equal land rights in Tanzania
dc.typeWorking Paper

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Instituto Internacional de Investigación sobre Políticas Alimentarias (IFPRI)