Women and rural land in Ivory Coast: rights, access, and realities

“Land is men’s business”

In many Ivorian villages, that sentence is not a proverb. It is an unwritten rule that has organised access to land for generations. Land passes from father to son. Women farm it, but they do not own it. They work plots that are lent to them, inherited indirectly, or allocated informally. No written document, and therefore no recourse on the day a conflict breaks out.

Yet on many rural holdings, day-to-day farm work rests largely on women. In the central and northern regions, they are often the first to work the land, to tend the food crops, and to keep the family fed.

And the law itself draws no distinction between the sexes.

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What the law says: formal equality

Law No. 98-750: no distinction between men and women

Law No. 98-750 on the rural land domain, the founding text of Ivorian rural land law, at no point distinguishes between men and women for obtaining a Rural Land Certificate (CF, Certificat Foncier Rural). Any natural person of Ivorian nationality may apply for and obtain a land certificate.

In law, a woman holds the same prerogatives as a man to:

• Apply for a Rural Land Certificate
• Be recorded as the holder of customary rights
• Pass those rights on to her heirs
• Move from the CF to the rural Land Title (TF, Titre Foncier) through land registration (immatriculation)

The mandatory participation of women in the CVGFR

The Rural Land Agency (AFOR, Agence Foncière Rurale) is clear on this point: a Village Rural Land Management Committee (CVGFR, Comité Villageois de Gestion Foncière Rurale) set up without including at least one woman is irregular (AFOR FAQ).

This is not a recommendation. It is a condition of validity. A CVGFR made up only of men cannot lawfully process land certificate applications.

The Family Code and inheritance law

The Ivorian Family Code (Law No. 2019-570) strengthened women’s inheritance rights. The surviving spouse inherits a share of the marital estate, land assets included. Daughters inherit on the same footing as sons.

Between the letter of the law and practice in the village, the gap remains wide.

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The figures: real but partial progress

The PAMOFOR and PRESFOR data

PAMOFOR (Programme d’Appui à la Mise en Œuvre du Foncier Rural, the rural land implementation support programme), the predecessor of PRESFOR, issued 48,070 land certificates. Of those, 31% went to women.

The PRESFOR programme (2024-2029), financed by the World Bank, has set quantified gender targets. The half-yearly reports submitted to the World Bank, to the Court of Auditors (Cour des Comptes), and to the High Authority for Good Governance (HABG) include indicators on women’s participation.

Source: afor.ci/programmes-projets/presfor

What 31% means, and what that rate does not tell you

31% is real progress compared with the previous decade, when women holding formalised land rights appeared only very rarely in the registers.

We remain far from parity, however. And that rate is a national average: where customary structures are still the most closed, fewer women apply for a certificate in their own name. That is an observation from the field, not a figure we can document region by region.

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The concrete obstacles on the ground

Patrilineal customary transmission

In most Ivorian rural communities, land passes from father to son. Custom does not treat daughters as legitimate heirs to land, even where the law says the opposite. This social norm is old and solid. It does not disappear by decree.

Oral agreements and informality

Many women farm plots on the basis of oral agreements: a husband who lends a plot, a brother who authorises the cultivation, a father-in-law who tolerates the occupation. These arrangements hold. They hold until the day a conflict breaks out (divorce, death, family quarrel). Without a written document, the woman has no evidence of her rights.

Social pressure and self-censorship

Applying for a land certificate in one’s own name can be read as a challenge to the social order. In some villages, a woman who claims an individual land right risks being marginalised, criticised, even intimidated. That pressure often holds women back harder than the administrative hurdles do.

The indirect cost of formalisation

In the areas covered by PRESFOR, issuing the Rural Land Certificate costs the applicant nothing: the programme covers the fees. What remains are the side steps, and they have a price. The trip to the sub-prefecture. Surveyor fees for cases outside PRESFOR. The hours spent in meetings instead of on the plot. These indirect costs weigh proportionally more on women, who are often in more precarious economic situations.

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Three tools to secure rights, available today

The formalised agrarian contract

This is one of the most accessible tools for securing a woman’s rights over a plot she farms without being its customary owner.

AFOR provides model agrarian contracts that require five signatures:

• The two parties (the owner and the person farming the plot)
• Two witnesses
• The chair of the CVGFR

This contract is not a land certificate. It does, however, create written evidence that can be relied on in the event of a conflict. For a woman who has been farming a plot for years, that is concrete protection.

Further reading: The 10 types of agrarian contracts

The collective land certificate

The law allows several people to be listed on the same land certificate. An entire family, men and women, can be recorded as co-holders of the customary rights over a plot.

The option makes sense for women who cannot, or do not wish to, apply for an individual certificate, but who want their rights formally recognised within the family framework.

The individual land certificate

For women who have the means and the support, the individual certificate offers the strongest protection of the three options. It gives a documented right, recorded in AFOR’s official registers.

The procedure is the same as for men:

1. Application to the CVGFR
2. Land inquiry by the investigating commissioner (commissaire-enquêteur)
3. Publicity and objection period (three months)
4. Issuance by the Sub-prefect

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Village territory delimitation: an issue for women too

The delimitation of village territories (Decree No. 2019-263) bears directly on women’s rights. When a village’s boundaries are unclear, conflicts most often break out in the junction zones, precisely where women farm.

A delimited village offers a safer framework for any land certificate application, including by women.

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Sources:

• Law No. 98-750 (PDF): rural land domain
• AFOR FAQ: participation of women in the CVGFR
• PRESFOR: gender targets, PAMOFOR data
• Law No. 2019-570: Family Code (inheritance rights)
• Decree No. 2019-263: delimitation of village territories

Further reading:

• Rural Land Certificate: the complete guide
• The 10 types of agrarian contracts
• Delimitation of village territories
• Succession and land: disputes after a death