Dependency on demand for titles/registration of land use rights is risky, especially when there is a high cost to obtain a title or unknown demand. More attention should be paid to public awareness raising and stimulating demand for land services, especially amid first-time land registration for a country. When outcomes depend on receipt of a land title/land use right, yet the program is structured around landholders demanding a title from new or improved land governance system, or paying a fee to obtain the land title/certificate, the program risks failure amid low demand. High cost is a potential driver of low demand. Land Tenure Facilitation planned to issue 2,500 land certificates out of the approximately 3,800 existing property rights in the program district; however, by the compact end, around 1,500 titles were issued out of 5,700 land parcels inventoried. During the compact, MCC paid for the certificates but afterwards, residents were responsible for the $165 to obtain the land certificate. In addition, there was relatively weak awareness of land rights (57%) at the end of the compact. In Benin, land certificates, were similarly not widely issued in the program area, as households had to demand and pay for them. However, in Benin’s case, there were also village land use plans, which provided feelings of security and related expected outcomes even without the land certificates. Alternatively, in Mozambique and Lesotho, DUATs (i.e., certificates of land rights), and leases, respectively, were issued by compact activities at no cost and as such easier to measure returns once the government approved and processed the certificate.
Moving forward, MCC might want to consider either systematic registration of land rights or ensuring there is known demand for land titles and related awareness of their rights and willingness to pay. Complimentary investments, particularly in public awareness raising around the importance of titles, might be needed to drive demand for these rights. Although District Land Commission Offices were established and some titles issued, Ghana would have benefitted form more public outreach and education to garner interest by land holders for formal land certificates. Ghana carried out community sensitization exercised but no public awareness campaigns. Per the global land logic model, addressing all significant constraints is needed to allow outcomes to fully realize. In this case, the institutions were strengthened, and land recognition interventions conducted but public awareness and training was not established when this was a new process—first time registration. Alternatively, Mongolia conducted national public awareness campaigns along with legal and policy reforms that catalyzed demand for registered title, including mortgage subsidy. Compact design should include public awareness raising when there are new legal and procedural reforms or new institutions and systems, especially when trying to catalyze demand for first time statutory recognition of land rights.