Digital Land Governance and Gendered Credit Access: A Peri-urban Theoretical Framework for Kigali, Rwanda (2000–2026)

The rapid digitisation of land governance in Rwanda, particularly through the Land Tenure Regularisation Programme, has transformed peri-urban landscapes. While enhancing tenure security, its gendered implications for accessing agricultural credit remain under-theorised, especially in dynamic zones where urban expansion intersects with agrarian livelihoods. This article develops a novel theoretical framework to analyse how digital land registries mediate women's access to formal agricultural credit in peri-urban contexts. It aims to conceptualise the interplay between techno-legal infrastructures, gendered social norms, and financial inclusion. The framework is constructed through a critical synthesis of feminist political economy, institutional economics, and science and technology studies. It integrates concepts of gendered institutional bricolage and digital materiality to analyse the non-linear pathways between registration and credit. The framework posits that digitisation can paradoxically solidify existing patriarchal biases within credit assessment algorithms, despite formal legal equality. A key mechanism is the translation of social norms into digital criteria, which can systematically undervalue women's communal land use practices as collateral. Digital land governance is not a neutral fix for gendered credit gaps. The theoretical framework reveals a complex socio-technical system where digitisation can entrench, rather than dissolve, barriers to women's financial inclusion in peri-urban agriculture. Future empirical research should apply this framework to audit algorithmic bias in credit scoring. Policymakers must mandate gender-disaggregated impact assessments of digital land tools and support the development of complementary, non-individualised collateral instruments. land tenure, financial inclusion, gender, digitalisation, peri-urban, Rwanda, feminist political economy This article provides the first theoretical model linking digital land registry design to gendered credit outcomes in an African peri-urban setting, introducing the concept of 'patriarchal datafication' as a key analytical lens.