CLAIM: ‘Only 2% of Zim women own agricultural land: World Bank’
SOURCE: NewsDay
VERDICT: Misleading
On May 2, 2024, NewsDay, a local privately-owned daily newspaper published a story under the headline: ‘Only 2% of Zim women own agricultural land: World Bank.’ The publication attributed the claim to the World Bank (WB)’s Zimbabwe Gender Assessment Report.
The actual claim in the World Bank report reads, ‘Documented ownership of agricultural land is low in Zimbabwe, just 2 percent of women and 3.8 percent of men are deeded landowners’
However, the World Bank report took its 2% figure from the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat)’s 2019 Understanding Gender Equality in Zimbabwe: Women and Men in Zimbabwe Report.
The ZimStat report speaks of 2% women of the agricultural population with documented ownership – not all Zimbabwean women. Reading the ZimStat report indicates that overall, 2.8 percent of the agricultural population have documented ownership of agricultural land with women constituting 2 percent and men 3.8 percent – of the total agricultural population, not the whole Zimbabwe population.
This means that of the agricultural population who have documented ownership of agricultural land, 2% are women.
Agriculture Population was defined in the survey as the population whose livelihood is linked to agricultural land. Interest was on the adult agricultural population, i.e. the adult population living in agricultural households. A household is considered agricultural if it has operated land for agricultural purposes or held/tended livestock over the past 12 months, regardless of the final purpose.
Apart from the NewsDay being wrong in how it interprets the World Bank figures from ZimStat- making it 2% of Zimbabwean women, instead of 2% women of the agricultural population with documentation – it is unclear how ZimStat gets to a total of 2.8% of the agricultural population having documented ownership of agricultural land. As shown in the figure below, ZimStat says the 2.8% total is from 2% women and 3.8% men, with no explanation on how this total came about. It would make more sense if the total is 5.8%.
Key factors to take note of in the ZIMSTAT 2019 Report
- In Zimbabwe, the land is by and large owned by the State.
- The term land ownership is commonly used to indicate possession of the rights most akin to ownership in a private property system, such as long-term leases, occupancy, tenancy or use rights granted by the State, often for several decades, and that are transferable.
In this particular survey, ownership/use rights information was collected using the following proxy conditions:
a.) Legal Document: The availability of a legally recognized document.
b.) Right to Sell: The ability of an individual to permanently transfer the asset in question in return for cash or in-kind benefits.
c.) Right to bequeath: The ability of an individual to pass on the asset in question to another person(s) after his or her death, by written will, oral will, or intestate (without a will).
Definition of agricultural land
According to Section 72 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, agricultural land refers to land used or suitable for agriculture – horticulture, viticulture, forestry, or aquaculture or for any purpose of husbandry, including the keeping or breeding of livestock, game, poultry, animals or bees; or the grazing of livestock or game. The same section of the supreme law also states that agricultural land “does not include Communal Land or land within the boundaries of an urban local authority or within a township established under a law relating to town and country planning or as defined in a law relating to land survey.”
Ownership and administration of agricultural land
All agricultural land is vested in the state, according to Section 290 of the current Constitution, and can only be occupied by a lease or other agreement with the State (Section 291 of the Constitution). Section 292 of the Constitution reads: “The State must take appropriate measures, including legislative measures, to give security of tenure to every person lawfully owning or occupying agricultural land.”
Conclusion
The claim that ‘only 2% of Zimbabwean women own agricultural land’ attributed to the World Bank in the NewsDay story has been rated as misleading. It is not what the World Bank says. The World Bank in its report claims, ‘Documented ownership of agricultural land is low in Zimbabwe, just 2 percent of women’. ZimStat, the primary source of the figure says, ‘Overall, 2.8 percent of the agricultural population have documented ownership of the agricultural land with women constituting 2 percent’. The claim is, therefore, rated as misleading since the figures from the survey indicate that, ‘2% of the 2.8% of the agricultural population with documented ownership are women’ not that just 2% of Zimbabwean women own agricultural land. The population being referred to is the agricultural population with documented ownership not the whole of Zimbabwean women. And while this was a 2023 World Bank report, the statistics are from a 2019 survey.
