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A country's land policy determines land-related benefits for citizens. An effective land administration practice is crucial for urban development. The importance placed on land administration as a public policy goal in Ethiopia is not surprising considering the complex implications of the country and its urban development. The practice of land administration was not based on challenges of urban development in Southern Ethiopia. It has not ensured land ownership, sale, or other means of exchange of rights for citizens. Goal and objectives This study investigated the implications of land administration for urban development in Southern Ethiopia. The aim of this study was to gain an indepth understanding of the implications of land administration for urban development by investigating the nature of land administration practices that can ensure effective and efficient land ownership and rights. Methodology This study used concurrent triangulation mixed methods. It adopted a random and purposive sample with a sample size of 369 urban dwellers. Key Informant Interviews (KII) and a literature review were utilised to collect data. The collected data were analysed by categorising the themes which were used to report through the tables and charters. Results The results reveal that the land belongs to the state, as captured in Article 40 of the 1995 Ethiopia Constitution, preventing citizens or individuals from directly benefitting from ownership. Land administration does not meet the interests of all the citizens and is ineffective. Alternative land policies should be sought that can ensure effective, efficient and legal ownership able to foster urban development by integrating land administration practices with the existing dynamics of urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2008 the Ethiopian government has allocated vast tracts of land, particularly in the Gambella and Benishangul-Gumuz regions, to agricultural commercial actors with little or no participation from indigenous communities. The marginalization of indigenous peoples in this process primarily emerges from the government's very wide legislative discretionary power regarding decision-making in the exploitation of land. The government has invoked constitutional clauses relating to land ownership and its power to deploy land resources for the "common benefit" of the people, to assert the consistency of this discretionary power with the Ethiopian Constitution. This article posits that the legislative and practical measures taken by the government that marginalize these indigenous peoples in decisions affecting the utilization of land resources are incompatible with their constitutional right to self-determination. Further, it posits that the government's use of the constitution to justify its wide discretionary power in the decision-making process relating to land exploitation is based on a misreading of the constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores empirical evidence on the relationship between agricultural transformation, ownership structure of agribusinesses, and employment creation in Ethiopia. It draws on secondary data to present evidence of Ethiopia's agricultural transformation, employment trends, and the agribusiness sector's contribution to employment generation. The country's agricultural sector has shown signs of transformation in the form of both labour movement to the more productive manufacturing and services sectors, and productivity growth through the commercialisation and creation of agribusinesses. The findings suggest that the growing number of agribusinesses are generating more jobs for youth but also reveal a number of challenges to overcome, such as skills gaps, low pay in the private sector, and inflexible land ownership and transfer processes. The study suggests targeted policy reforms to incentivise efficient and competitive private agribusinesses, and to address agribusiness-related constraints, skills and wage gaps, as well as land ownership and rental market constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lack of land ownership can discourage agricultural technology adoption, yet there is scarce evidence of the impact of land rental contracts on the adoption of improved crop varieties in developing countries. The current study investigates such impact using a nationally representative survey of Ethiopian maize farmers. In contrast to many previous studies, we show in a simple model that cash-renters are as likely to adopt improved maize varieties as owner-operators, while sharecroppers are more likely to adopt given that such varieties are profitable. Empirical analysis reveals a significant impact of sharecropping on improved maize variety adoption, and no significant impact from cash-rental, lending support to the above hypotheses. These results imply that improvements in land rental markets can potentially enhance household welfare through crop variety adoption in agrarian economies where land sales markets are incomplete or missing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Area-based land taxes – a form of property tax – exist where rural land markets do not exist or do not function well. Understanding how these taxes affect different groups of landholders, including by men and women, is important since a tax based on the land size is likely to have an outsized effect on smaller landholders. However, survey data allowing for an individual- and household-disaggregated analysis has been scarce. Using newly available data on tax payments and self-reported individual land ownership from the Ethiopian Socioeconomic Survey 2018/2019, this paper assessed the gender implications of an area-based rural land use fee and agricultural income tax in Ethiopia. We found that female adult-only households were more likely than dual adult households to be smallholders with less than 0.5 hectare of land, and these smallholders faced the largest per-hectare tax rates. Female-headed- and female adult-only households faced a tax incidence that was 37 % higher than it was for male-headed and dual-adult households. The gender land ownership patterns, norms limiting women's role in agriculture, household structures, and gender agricultural productivity gaps are likely to result in lower consumption, and consequently, a higher tax burden for women. Finally, we simulated the effect of a hypothetical tax schedule with progressive per-hectare tax rates and exemptions for smallholders, and found that while this would reduce women's tax burdens, the tax remained to be regressive because of the prevalence of landholdership among poor households. Our study highlights the difficulty of area-based land taxes to be progressive. • Newly available individual-level land ownership and tax payment data in survey data. • Female-adult only households bear a larger tax burden than dual-adult households likely due to gender norms in agriculture. • Exemptions for smallholders and progressive tax schedule will reduce women's tax burdens but taxes remain regressive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]