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Grievances mounted in the villages as it took years for families to have their rights to compensationplots of land recognized. Villagers blockaded and harvested part of the plantation and filed a courtcase. While women were excluded from formal political arenas, such as the local union, they wereinformally active in asserting their rights. These efforts have resulted in a number of villages receivingcompensation plots, but apparently little more.Increasing women’s access to and controlover landWomen face systematic disadvantage in landrights because of laws, customs and norms thateither exclude them from tenure or ownership ormake their rights contingent on the relationshipwith a male relative or spouse. This has particularimplications in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia,where large numbers of women rely on land fortheir livelihoods. Strengthening women’s rights overland and other productive resources is critical notonly to their productivity in the short term but also toexpand their broader economic agency and provideprotection against shocks. 240Reforming marital property regimesAppropriate legal frameworks and gender-sensitivepolicies are needed to strengthen women’s landrights. First, recognizing claims to property acquiredwithin marriage can increase women’s ownership ofassets because women, especially when married, areless likely than men to be able to acquire individualassets. Such claims recognize women’s paid andunpaid contributions to the household by consideringassets acquired during marriage as the joint propertyof the couple.Recent research on individual-level asset ownershipfound that women fare much better in maritalsystems with joint or common property (such asin Ecuador) than under those with ‘separation ofproperty’ (as in Ghana and the state of Karnataka,in India). Under marital regimes that stipulate a‘separation of property’, in the event of dissolution ofthe marriage all property is treated as individuallyowned. In Ghana and Karnataka, women are 36 percent and 20 per cent of landowners, respectively.By contrast in Ecuador, where children of bothsexes inherit land and a ‘partial community’ ofproperty prevails (whereby all property, except forinheritances, acquired by either spouse during themarriage belongs to both of them jointly), womenconstitute the majority of landowners at 52 per cent. 241Gender-sensitive land titling and reformprogrammesLand reform and titling programmes can also helpwomen gain access to land if they are systematicallydesigned with gender equality considerations inmind. Two factors make a difference.The first is joint titling. Individual titles canpotentially increase women’s autonomy and helpto rebalance unequal gender power relations in thehousehold and may be appropriate in some cases.However, the majority of poor women rely on theirmembership of the household for their livelihoodsand survival. Efforts to ensure women’s access toresources within the household, through joint titling,inheritance rights for daughters and copies of titledeeds, should therefore be given priority. 242 Thesecond area requiring policy attention is efforts tobolster women’s agency, voice and participation,both through representation in decision-makingbodies that administer land rights and viaautonomous women’s organizations that monitorthe process and demand accountability. 243The land registration process in Rwanda initiated inthe mid-2000s gave legally married women equalownership rights over household parcels of land. A2011 study found that women in a formal union were17 percentage points more likely to be regarded asjoint landowners after the reform than before. 244111