In certain contexts, provision of village level land rights in the statutory system or related buy in to common land use plans can initially lead to similar effects as provision of individual land rights. The investment effects were seen at the village level prior to issuance of individual land use certificates (CFRs) and these investment effects continued to be significant in the endline analysis even though only a small portion of the population had received CFRs. Other external evaluations, including of MCC’s Mozambique Community Land Fund intervention, have found similar conclusions. Alternative modes of implementation could not be tested such as PFRs (village level land use plans) vs land certificates as this would require a different project design and implementation of only PFRs in some areas while implementing both PFRs and land offices to process CFRs in other areas. More research is needed to understand the contexts where such village-level interventions may work and if the results last in the long-run.
Lesson Learned