SDG INDICATOR 5.a.1: recommended questions Developed by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Statistics Division (FAO/ESS) and United Nations Statistics Division, Evidence and Data for Gender Equality (EDGE/UNSD) 1
Table of Contents 1. Indicator Title... 3 2. Recommended questions... 4 2.1. Minimum set of questions on the ownership of agricultural land collected at the individual-level... 4 2.2. Module on the ownership of agricultural land collected at the parcel level... 5 2.3. Background data... 7 3. Computation of the indicator 5.a.1... 8 4. Terms and Definitions... 9 4.1. Agricultural land... 9 4.2. Agricultural population... 9 4.3. Ownership / secure rights... 9 4.4. Tenure type... 10 5. Respondent selection... 12 5.1. Who to interview... 12 5.2. How many individuals to interview?... 12 5.3. Random Selection Procedure... 12 2
1. Indicator Title Indicator title: (a) Proportion of total agricultural population with ownership or secure rights over agricultural land, by sex; and (b) Share of women among owners or rights-bearers of agricultural land, by type of tenure; Indicator 5.a.1 has been agreed by the United Nations Statistical Commission to monitor progress toward target 5a (UNSC 47 th Session). It has been upgraded to the Tier II group at the Interagency Expert Groups on the SDG (IAEG-SDG), held in Ottawa (Canada) in March 2017. The indicator is divided in 2 parts: Part (a) is an incidence measure. It measures how prevalent ownership or secure rights over agricultural land are in the reference population. Part (a) of the indicator shall be disaggregated by sex and the two proportions should be analyzed together in order to assess the discrepancy between women s and men s ownership / rights over agricultural land. As such, Part (a) of 5.a.1 should be reported as follows: number of women with ownership or secure rights over agricultural land total female agricultural population and number of men with ownership or secure rights over agricultural land total male agricultural population Part (b) measures the share of women among owners or rights-bearers of agricultural land, therefore it can be used to monitor the under-representation of women among the agricultural land owners. The numerator is the number of women with ownership or secure rights over agricultural land; the denominator is the total number of people with ownership or secure rights: number of women with ownership or secure rights over agricultural land total people with ownership or secure rights over agricultural land Part (a) and (b) of the indicator use the same reference population i.e., the agricultural population (an operational definition is provided in section 3). Although not explicitly mentioned in the indicator s title, 5.a.1 refers to adult individuals. The threshold of 18 years-old can be used for the purpose of global monitoring, but countries may decide to adapt this threshold based on country specific cuts-off. Part (a) and (b) of the indicator are based on the same data and they simply monitor ownership / secure rights from two different angles. Indeed, it is sufficient to have: 1) The number of adult individuals with ownership or secure rights over agricultural land (by sex), and 2) The total adult agricultural population to compute both part (a) and part (b) of the indicator. 3
2. Recommended questions The operationalization of the SDG 5.a.1 indicator benefited from the methodological work on asset ownership carried out by the Evidence and Data for Gender Equality (EDGE) initiative, whose key focus is the development of methodological guidelines on measuring asset ownership from a gender perspective. Building on the work of the Inter-agency and Expert Group on Gender Statistics (IAEG-GS), the EDGE initiative is jointly executed by the United Nations Statistics Division and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) in collaboration with National Statistical Offices, the Asian Development Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank. The methodology summarized in this technical note reflects the recommendations expressed in the draft UN Methodological Guidelines on the Production of Statistics on Asset Ownership from a Gender Perspective presented to the 48 th Session of the UN Statistical Commission 1. The proposed methodology was tested in 7 countries (Georgia, Maldives, Mexico, Mongolia, Philippines, Uganda, and South Africa) and benefited from inputs from partners, technical agencies and NSOs. This section presents the set of questions proposed for the calculation of the 5a1 indicator. In particular, the paragraphs below present: 1. A minimum set of questions on the ownership of agricultural land collected at the individual-level 2. Module on the ownership of agricultural land collected at the parcel level 2.1. Minimum set of questions on the ownership of agricultural land collected at the individual-level This approach is recommended if: 1) The survey can collect only a minimum set of questions on the ownership of agricultural land 2) the inclusion of a roster of parcels goes beyond the scope of the survey 3) the survey follows the proper respondent selection protocols for calculation of the 5a1 indicator; i.e. it collects self-reported (not proxy) data from one randomly-selected adult household member or all household members In such a case, individual level questions should be asked through an individual questionnaire/module administered to a randomly selected adult household member or all household members. The list of question is as follows: Questions Q1. Do you own any agricultural land, either alone or jointly with someone else? 1 Yes 2 No (end of questions) Q2. Is there an ownership document for any of the agricultural land you own? (for enumerators: multi response question; allow for more than one type of document to be listed) function This questions refers to whether the respondent, not the respondent s household, owns any agricultural land. It measures reported ownership, which captures the respondent s self-perception of his/her ownership status, irrespective of whether the respondent has formal ownership with title deeds, customary tenure or long-term rights over the land. This question identifies whether there is an ownership document for any of the agricultural land the respondent reports owning and the type of documentation. Documented ownership refers to the existence of any document an individual can use to claim ownership rights in law over the land. The list of options is indicative and countries are encouraged to adopt country-specific list. However, it is of utmost importance that the list includes only country relevant documents that are enforceable before the law (ie., formal documents 1 Source: UN Methodological Guidelines on the Production of Statistics on Asset Ownership from a Gender Perspective Draft Guidelines submitted at the UN Statistical Commission in March 2017. 4
Q3. Is your name is listed as an owner on any of the ownership documents? 1 - Yes (alone or someone else) 2 - No 99 - Refuses to respond Q4. Do you have the right to sell any of the agricultural land you own, either alone or someone else? 1 - Yes (alone or someone else) 2 No 99 - Refuses to respond Q5. Do you have the right to bequeath any of the agricultural land you own, either alone or someone else? 1 - Yes (alone or someone else) 2 - No 99 - Refuses to respond allowing legal or legal like ownership). This question measures the respondent s documented ownership status. Because individual names can be listed as witnesses on an ownership document, it is important to ask if the respondent is listed as an owner on the document. It is recommend that the measure of documented ownership not be conditional on the respondent producing the document for the enumerator to confirm. This question obtains information on whether the respondent believes that he/she has the right to sell any of the agricultural land s/he reports owning. When a respondent has the right to sell the land, it means that he or she has the right to permanently transfer the land to another person or entity for cash or in kind benefits. This question obtains information on whether the respondent believes that he/she has the right to bequeath any of the agricultural land he/she reports owning. When a respondent has the right to bequeath the land, it means that he/she has the right to give the land by oral or written will to another person(s) upon the death of the respondent. Some data collection initiatives already adopt a similar approach to collect evidence on land ownership. For example: the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) include three questions on ownership of agricultural and non-agricultural land in their model questionnaire proposed for phase 7. the AGRIS project (FAO) included the 5.a.1 questions in the individual questionnaire of the AGRIS toolkit. 2.2. Module on the ownership of agricultural land collected at the parcel level Countries may opt instead to collect information on the ownership of agricultural land at the parcel level for the calculation of SDG Indicator 5.a.1 for two reasons. First, the country implements a nationallyrepresentative survey that already collects a roster of parcels (e.g. the LSMS-ISA and many agricultural surveys) to which the questions on ownership can be appended. Second, the country wants to go beyond the data items strictly needed for the computation of the indicator and collect a broader set of information in order to carry out a comprehensive analysis of women s and men s ownership, rights and control of agricultural land. Collecting such information, including on the characteristics of agricultural land, should be done at the parcel level. 2 When a module on the ownership of agricultural land is appended to an existing survey, the total number and sequence of questions in the module will depend on the general objectives and structure of the survey. Yet, for calculation of SDG Indicator 5.a.1, the following protocols should be followed: i) Data should be self-reported, therefore one randomly-selected adult respondent or all adult household members should be interviewed. As such, it is more convenient to append a module on agricultural land ownership into a survey that already randomly selects a household member for interview or administers the survey to all household members. In the absence of these scenarios, the survey protocols should allow for 2 A full list of data items, and their rationale, can be found in the draft UN Methodological Guidelines on the Production of Statistics on Asset Ownership from a Gender Perspective submitted to the UN Statistical Commission in March 2017 and in the technical note submitted to the IAEG-SDG for fast-tracking the 5.a.1 indicator to the Tier II category. 5
the random selection of an adult household member to complete the module on land ownership following the completion of the main survey. ii) If the main survey already captures a roster of parcels belonging to the household in the household questionnaire, the respondent selected to complete the module on agricultural land ownership should be asked if she/he owns any agricultural land. If yes, the respondent should report which of the roster of parcels generated at the household level he/she owns. In addition, the respondent should be given the opportunity to report any additional parcels not included in the household parcel roster. The remaining questions in the module will only be asked for the agricultural parcels owned by the respondent (see example below). iii) If all household members are interviewed, the same procedure described in protocol ii) should be followed. Parcel-level module on the ownership of agricultural land based on household parcel roster Q1. Do you own any agricultural land, either alone or someone else? 1 Yes 2 No (end of module) Parcel ID Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Is there an ownership document for this [PARCEL]? Please tell me which agricultural parcels you own ENUMERATOR: LIST PARCEL ID CODES FROM THE HOUSEHOLD QUESTIONNAIRE THAT ARE OWNED INDIVIDUALLY OR JOINTLY BY RESPONDENT (tick all that applies) 1 - A title deed 2 - Certificate of customary ownership 3 - Certificate of occupancy 4 A will / certificate of hereditary acquisition 5 - A purchase agreement 6 - A certificate of perpetual / long term lease 7 - Other (specify: ) 8 - No document (skip to Q5) n (skip to Q5) 99 refuses to respond (skip to Q5) Is your name is listed as owner on the ownership document for this [PARCEL]? 1 - Yes (alone or someone else) 2 - No 99 - Refuses to respond Do you have the right to sell this [PARCEL], either alone or jointly with someone else? 1 - Yes (alone or someone else) 2 No 99 - Refuses to respond Do you have the right to bequeath this [PARCEL], either alone or someone else? 1 - Yes (alone or someone else) 2 No 99 - Refuses to respond 1 2 N iv) If the main survey does not capture a roster of parcels at the household level and one randomly-selected adult household member will be administered the module on agricultural land ownership, a respondent roster of parcels can be created in the individual questionnaire by asking the respondent to list all of the parcels that s/he owns (see example below). 6
Parcel-level module on the ownership of agricultural land based on respondent parcel roster Q1. Do you own any agricultural land, either alone or someone else? 1 Yes 2 No (end of module) Parcel ID 1 2 N Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Is there an ownership document for this [PARCEL]? List all of the agricultural parcels you own, either alone or someone else (tick all that applies) 1 - A title deed 2 - Certificate of customary ownership 3 - Certificate of occupancy 4 A will / certificate of hereditary acquisition 5 - A purchase agreement 6 - A certificate of perpetual / long term lease 7 - Other (specify: ) 8 - No document (skip to Q5) n (skip to Q5) 99 refuses to respond (skip to Q5) Is your name is listed as owner on the ownership document for this [PARCEL]? 1 - Yes (alone or someone else) 2 - No 99 - Refuses to respond Do you have the right to sell this [PARCEL], either alone or jointly with someone else? 1 - Yes (alone or someone else) 2 No 99 - Refuses to respond Do you have the right to bequeath this [PARCEL], either alone or someone else? 1 - Yes (alone or someone else) 2 No 99 - Refuses to respond 2.3. Background data The 5.a.1 computation requires also the age, sex and involvement in agricultural activities of the selected respondent. Such data can be collected through the household questionnaire. In particular, age and sex are normally included into the household rosters; while specific questions on participation to agriculture need to be included in the household questionnaire (see paragraph 4.2). 7
3. Computation of the indicator 5.a.1 At the operational level, the indicator relies on three proxies: 1. Having own name listed as an owner on an ownership document that allows protecting the individual s rights on the land 2. Having the right to sell the land, either exclusively or with someone else 3. Having the right to bequeath the land, either exclusively or with someone else The following operationalization is therefore recommended: - Part (a) of 5a1 should be measured through the proportion of total adult agricultural population with documented ownership of agricultural land or the right to sell or bequeath agricultural land, by sex. - Part (b) of 5a1 should be measured through the share of adult women among adult individuals with documented ownership of agricultural land or with the right to sell or bequeath agricultural land (among the agricultural population). Based on the analysis of the seven EDGE pilot countries, they provide the most robust measure of ownership that is comparable across countries with diverse prevalence of documentation. Indeed, individuals may still have the right to sell or bequeath an asset in the absence of documented ownership, therefore the indicator combines documented ownership with the right to sell or bequeath to render it comparable across countries. The minimum set of data items needed to compute part (a) and part (b) is the following: Essential data items Corresponding questions in the minimum set of questions collected at the individual level Sex of the respondent Age of the respondent Engagement in agricultural activities in the past 12 months, for ownconsumption or income-generation Whether or not the respondent owns any agricultural land Whether or not any of the land owned by the respondent has an ownership document that allows protecting individual s rights on the land Whether or not the respondent is listed as an owner on any of the ownership documents, either alone of someone else Whether or not the respondent has the right to sell any of the agricultural land, either alone or someone else Whether or not the respondent has the right to bequeath any of the agricultural land, either alone or someone else Household roster Household roster Household roster (or a labor module, if included in the survey) Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 8
4. Terms and Definitions This section defines all the key terms used in the indicator 5.a.1. 4.1. Agricultural land 3 Agricultural land is land covering the following classes of land use: (a) arable land under temporary crops (ie., crops with less than one-year growing cycle) (b) arable land under temporary meadows and pastures (ie., cultivated with herbaceous forage crops for mowing or pasture); (c) arable land that is temporarily fallow (due to crop rotation systems or temporary unavailability for planting) (d) land under permanent crops; (e) land under permanent meadows and pastures. 4.2. Agricultural population Although an official definition of agricultural population does not exist, an operational definition of this term shall be proposed for the scope of indicator 5.a.1. Indicator 5.a.1 uses agricultural population as denominator, instead of the total population, because security of rights over agricultural land is relevant only for the individuals whose livelihood relies on agriculture. As a consequence, in the context of 5.a.1, the term agricultural population has to be interpreted as equivalent of individuals engaged in agriculture. Investigating involvement in agriculture is not trivial, because: i. Agricultural work is highly irregular and strongly affected by seasonality, therefore if the survey adopts a short recall period, we risk excluding individuals engaged in agriculture who did not practice agriculture at the time of the survey simply because they were interviewed off-season. ii. iii. iv. Agricultural work may take a lot of individual s time, but not necessarily be the main source of income Agriculture is sometimes practiced only or mainly for self-consumption, without any market orientation (therefore no/little income). Finally, the individual s livelihood cannot be completely detached from the livelihood of the other household members. In view of this, in the context of the indicator 5.a.1, an individual is part of adult agricultural population if the following conditions are met: 1) is adult 2) belong to a household where at least one member is mainly (more than 50 percent of time) engaged in an agricultural occupation over the past 12 months, regardless the final purpose (whether for income-generation or self-consumption) and the status in employment. The adoption of a household perspective is particularly important from the gender perspective, because in many agricultural households, women often consider themselves as not involved in agriculture whereas they provide substantive support to the household s agricultural activities. 4.3. Ownership / secure rights 4 The concept of legal ownership is not sufficient for understanding the complexity of ownership rights from a gender perspective, for two key reasons: 1. In many countries, the incidence of ownership documents, which confer upon the owner the ability to claim the asset under the law, remains low. 2. Even when ownership documents exist, claims of legal ownership, particularly for women, may be complicated by legal pluralism i.e. the coexistence of multiple types of (often contradictory) 3 Source: FAO, 2015. World Programme for the Census of Agriculture 2020. Volume 1: Programme concepts and definitions. 4 Source: UN Methodological Guidelines on the Production of Statistics on Asset Ownership from a Gender Perspective Draft Guidelines submitted at the UN Statistical Commission in March 2017. 9
law governing individuals rights to property, including both statutory and customary laws. For example, constitutional or national laws may guarantee women equal rights to land ownership while customary laws or practices, such as religious law or long standing traditions, may prohibit women s ownership of land and only grant them access through husbands, fathers, brothers, or other male relatives. As such, we conceptualize ownership as a bundle of rights comprising some or all of the following components based on the tenure systems recognized within a country: - Reported ownership: Refers to the person(s) who considers him or herself to be an owner of the asset in question, irrespective of whether his or her name is listed as an owner on an ownership document for the asset. Reported ownership measures people s self-perceptions about their ownership status and thus, need not and cannot be objectively verified. It is a key concept for understanding the empowerment effects of asset ownership from a gender perspective since we expect the benefits and behaviors related to asset ownership to be influenced by people s perceptions of what they believe themselves to own. - Documented ownership: refers to the existence of a document an individual can use to claim ownership rights in law over an asset by virtue of the individual s name being listed as an owner on the document. The type of documentation conferring ownership, and the rights accorded under that ownership, will be specific to the country context, but may include one or more of the following: a formal title or deed, a purchase agreement, or a certificate of customary ownership, a purchase agreement, a certificate of perpetual / long term lease, etc. - Right to sell: refers to the ability of an individual to permanently transfer the asset in question in return for cash or in-kind benefits. This right to alienate is the right most commonly associated with ownership, but the concept is not applicable in areas where assets, such as land, cannot be sold due to either laws or social norms. In such contexts, information on the right to rent out an asset may be collected. - Right to bequeath: refers to the ability of an individual to give the asset in question, by oral or written will, to another person(s) after his or her death. The right to bequeath is also an alienation right, one that may be more universal than the right to sell since in many contexts, owners can bequeath assets to their children or other persons even if they are prohibited from selling them. 4.4. Tenure type 5 As indicated by the World Census of Agriculture s Guidelines (WCA), four broad categories of tenure can be identified: 1) legal ownership or legal owner-like possession; 2) non legal ownership or non-legal owner-like possession, 3) rented in, 4) other types of tenure. The terms legal / non-legal ownership used in the WCA can be interpreted as equivalent of formal / informal ownership. Indeed, the non-legal occupancy of land does not necessarily implies the prosecution of the dweller, rather the fact that the occupant cannot enforce any rights on the occupied piece of land. The concept of formality is evidently strictly linked with security of tenure. Legal ownership or legal owner-like possession describes land rights that provide statutory security of tenure. Security of tenure has various aspects. Importantly, the ownership must be recognized by the state, and administrative structures must be in place to ensure that property rights are enforceable. This may be done through a formal land title system, but could also include certain forms of customary land tenure arrangements in which land rights are registered or certified in some way. Typically, legal ownership implies that the owner of land has the right to determine how the land is used (within certain constraints), and may have the right to sell or rent out the land. It may also imply that the owner can use the land as collateral. The following types of tenure arrangements may be included under this heading: 1. The individuals possess a title of ownership, which gives them the right to determine the nature and extent of the use of the land. 5 Source: FAO, 2015. World Programme for the Census of Agriculture 2020. Volume 1: Programme concepts and definitions. 10
2. The land is held under conditions that enable it to be operated as if legally owned. A common type of legal owner-like possession is where land is operated under hereditary tenure, perpetual lease or long-term lease, with nominal or no rent. 3. The land is held under a tribal or traditional form of tenure, which is legally recognized by the state. Such arrangements usually involve land being held on a tribal, village, kindred or clan basis, with land ownership being communal in character but with certain individual rights being held by virtue of membership in the social unit. Such arrangements can be formalized through the establishment of legal procedures to identify the community s land and to manage the land rights of community members. Non-legal ownership or non-legal owner-like possession describes a variety of informal land tenure arrangements, which do not provide security of tenure, and where circumstances could arise in which the holder may be dispossessed of the land. The following types of tenure arrangements may be included under this heading: 1. The holder or members of the holder s household have operated the land without interruption for a long period without any form of legal ownership, title, long-term lease or payment of rent. 2. The land is operated under a system in which a rent free plot of tribal or other communal land is received and retained as long as it is kept under cultivation by the recipient s personal and household labour, but which cannot be sold or mortgaged. 3. The holder is operating land owned by the state, without any legal rights. 4. The land operated by the holder is held under a tribal or traditional form of tenure, which is not recognized by the state and is outside the realm of the law. Rented from someone else: land may be rented for: a) an agreed amount of money and/or produce; b) a share of the produce, or; c) in exchange for services. Land may be also granted for free. Other types of land tenure include land: a) operated on squatter basis; b) operated under transitory tenure forms such as trusteeship; c) received by members of collective holdings for individual use, and; d) under inheritance proceeding. Although an explicit question on land tenure type is not included in the essential minimum set of questions for the indicator 5.a.1, the question Is there an ownership document for any of the agricultural land you own? serves to identify the nature of the ownership document. It is therefore of highest importance that the list of response options is constructed in collaboration with legal experts and that it includes documents that can be enforced before the law to claim individual s ownership rights. 11
5. Respondent selection 6 5.1. Who to interview Although not explicitly mentioned in the indicator s title, 5.a.1 refers to adult individuals. The threshold of 18 years-old can be used for the purpose of global monitoring, but countries may decide to adapt this threshold based on country specific cuts-off. Household surveys frequently collect individual-level data from proxy respondents. This approach is problematic for measuring ownership/rights over agricultural land (and assets in general) due to the introduction of non-random measurement errors. Findings from the MEXA experiment 7 revealed that data from proxy respondents yield different estimates than self-reported data, with variations by asset, by type of ownership and by the sex of the owner. For instance, the study found that self-reported data increase both women s and men s reported ownership of agricultural land in Uganda. Such increase is greater for men (15 percentage points) than for women (10 percentage points), and is less pronounced when we consider documented ownership (+7 percentage points for men and +2 percentage points for women). In addition, a non-ignorable share of respondents who do not consider themselves owners of agricultural land are identified as owners by other household members. This is very problematic from a gender perspective, as decision-makers are interested in understanding the extent to which women s empowerment, livelihood strategies and poverty reduction are driven by people s self-perception of what they own rather than other people s judgement of what it is owned. Considering the empirical evidence above, it is strongly recommended that National Statistical Offices (NSOs) collect self-reported data rather than proxy data. 5.2. How many individuals to interview? Generally speaking, the number of adult household members to be interviewed depends on the objectives of the survey and the resources available. In particular, to derive nationally-representative estimates of indicator 5.a.1, either one randomly selected adult household member or all household members should be interviewed. 5.3. Random Selection Procedure If only one adult household member will be interviewed, the random selection of the respondent d is of utmost importance. In case of Computer Assisted Personal Interviews, the electronic devices can support the random selection of the household member(s). If interviews are done with paper questionnaires, a random selection procedure should be implemented by the enumerators. A variety of methods exist, including the classic Kish method 8, which requires that the household respondent identifies all eligible household members, their age and sex. This method yields approximately the same number of women and men in the sample if the probability of non-response is the same for women and men. Other types of random selection, such as the closest birthday, can be used, if these are already used by countries in their surveys. Countries should ensure that enumerators are thoroughly trained in the selection procedure. 6 Source: UN Methodological Guidelines on the Production of Statistics on Asset Ownership from a Gender Perspective Draft Guidelines submitted at the UN Statistical Commission in March 2017. 7 The UN EDGE project partnered with the World Bank LSMS team and the Uganda Bureau of Statistics to test the effects of collecting proxy versus self-reported data on ownership and control of assets (MEXA experiment). 8 Kish, Leslie, 1965. Survey sampling. 12