Sector Results and Learning:
Land

MCC needs to ensure that evaluations assess the linkage between outputs, short-term outcomes, and longer-term outcomes. The CLS independent evaluation could have benefited from a greater focus on the post-Compact status of outputs and their linkage to targeted outcomes. The continued monitoring of outputs, like the delivery of land certificates, is especially important when implementation continues right until a compact ends, and/or the partner country is expected to complete work started during the compact. For example, while this evaluation highlighted the delayed delivery of land certificates, it did not provide the definitive status of this delivery, primarily because the use of administrative data was not factored into the design and MCC did not have a ready means for accessing these data post-Compact. Furthermore, the fact that the target for Household land rights formalized was just under half of the target for Parcels corrected or incorporated into the system obscured the reality that land certificates should have been delivered to many more households before the Compact ended. In other words, despite meeting 86% of the land rights formalized target, less than half of the registered land rights, i.e., for parcels corrected or incorporated into the system, had been delivered by the end of the Compact. However, the need to monitor the delivery of leases was not built into the Namibia post-Compact M&E Plan. In order to ensure access to accurate land data, MCC needs to build effective tools during implementation that facilitate the collection and reporting on key project outputs, like land certificates, during and post-Compact. In the Morocco II Rural Land project, MCC tried to improve the post-Compact reporting ability by requiring that the implementer develop a GIS system that will produce reports to track project outputs. In most other countries, where the incomplete status of implementation was clearer, MCC has more comprehensive post-Compact M&E Plans and robust relationships with government counterparts to facilitate annual reporting on key land metrics using administrative data. MCC must ensure that these data sources and relationships are built into the project and M&E frameworks, which requires that project leads and M&E leads are collaborating about these needs. Mozambique, Cabo Verde, and Lesotho, have all attempted to use information systems funded under those Compacts to report toward post-Compact M&E Plans.

Measuring yields and productivity may require a different approach. Similar to findings in MCC’s agriculture portfolio, the Benin Access to Land evaluation found changes in increased investment but no changes in productivity and yields. In this case there was sufficient time to see these changes. Concerns were raised that our ability to measure productivity using recall data is insufficient. It is unclear if investments were simply ineffective or insufficient to result in higher productivity and yields or if we are just not able to effectively capture these changes. This points to the potential need to explore alternative and more cost-effective ways to measure productivity such as geospatial data, which allows for collection of data across areas at multiple periods of time. The World Bank is working on reviewing remote sensing imagery to see if that data will provide further details on crop cover and production.

Incentives are often needed to advance the selection of women and vulnerable groups as project beneficiaries. When using a scoring system to select beneficiaries, simply awarding higher points for inclusion of women and low-income groups may not be sufficient to gain their participation. The Peri-Urban Rangeland Project (PURP) shortlisted herder group applicants based on those who passed a minimum score using established scoring criteria; these criteria included more points for the inclusion of low income and women-headed households. However, the final beneficiary herder groups did not include many women-headed or lower income households. This could have been due to more points also given for herders for socioeconomic factors and animal husbandry experience such as owning fodder and dairy processing equipment and experience in milk and meat sales. Herder groups also were required to repay a notable part of the cost of PURP-supplied wells and funds for materials for fencing and animal shelters, so herder applicants may not have been as willing to include herder households with lower incomes and less experience. MCC may want to ensure the project concept works first before expanding to households who may have less ability to succeed. However, if participation by women and vulnerable groups is key to the project, MCC should consider alternative methods to ensure participation by these groups, such as a quota. As there are various factors at hand in each environment and intervention that could influence beneficiary selection, program designers should consider in each situation the specific drivers of women and vulnerable group participation in that context.

In areas with relatively strong perceptions of tenure, systematic land registration may not improve tenure perceptions and investment; land investment can in fact strengthen and secure tenure claims. The Land Administration Reform Activity (LARP) evaluation found that although the national level legal and institutional reforms resulted in land transactions, mortgages and investments, the additional support to systematic regularization in the informal settlements around Maseru did not lead to increased investment. In fact, even though LARP succeeded in meeting targets for leases, investment was around 20 percentage points lower in LARP land regularization areas as the comparison area. Similarly, although there were increases in women’s ownership of land and female-headed households along with decreased in female-headed households concern over being involved in a land related conflict, women had no significant changes in investment.

There were a few factors that potentially contributed to this inverse investment effect. First, only 5% of comparison households were concerned with land-based conflict at baseline so there were already relatively high perceptions of tenure. Second, the comparison area was far from the city and rapidly urbanizing compared to the more developed treatment areas. Third, government criteria for leases during systematic regularization included construction or presence of building materials, which could have led to investment in treatment areas ahead of the baseline. Finally, the comparison areas were able to sporadically register, and these rates of registration improved under LARP’s successful policy and institutional reforms. However, there was still more titling occurring in treatment areas and people were investing in comparison areas without leases.

Looking at the household survey data for explanation, respondents prior to LARP leasing did not believe tenure insecurity was a cause of lack of investment, but rather 95-99% noted lack of investment was due to either no need to invest or not being able to afford it. Following the provision of leases, control area households noted investment was made to secure ownership rights (around 20%) rather than due to having a secure tenure document (under 5%) where in areas that received LARP leases, the driving factors of investment were more mixed. The land literature has similarly shown mixed evidence linking land tenure documentation, perception of tenure and investment.

During the design phase, MCC should consider drivers of tenure and investment for each beneficiary of interest in the specific context. Although tenure and investment may be correlated at times, in the absence of documentation and a rapidly changing environment like urbanization, investment may be a means to secure tenure rather than secure tenure leading to investment.

In areas where there is existing high demand for registration, new offices and digital records access can quickly improve access to registration services and lower land transaction time for consumers. The Property Rights Project’s (PRP’s) digitization of records enabled the establishment of kiosks which provided immediate access to land reference letters, verification of property records and status of land transaction requests. The opening of new district offices in the capital and strengthening registry offices in regional centers facilitated access to land services and shortened transaction time. Focus group respondents estimated an average of 2-3 days per transaction versus 14-21 days per transaction prior to the PRP. The decrease in transaction time was driven by less time waiting in lines, travel time and no longer having to go to the Property Registry multiple times to process or verify a request.

MCC continues to analyze and invest in opening of local offices and strengthening existing offices; however, similar time savings have not always realized. One reason for Mongolia’s success is there was clear demand for land services and existing offices were already unable to keep up with demand, especially in the capital city. Similarly, in MCC’s land administration reform investment in Lesotho, the bulk of land transactions were concentrated around the capital city where landholders faced issues with processing land transactions. An investment in a new land administration agency and office successfully improved customer service and consumers perceived efficiency of land transaction services.