Sector Results and Learning:

Land

This Land Sector Results and Learning page is a repository of evidence generated by all MCC-funded land interventions. To promote learning and inform future program design, this page captures monitoring data from key common indicators, showcases recent and relevant evaluations, and includes all agency lessons from completed land evaluations to-date.

What Do We Invest In?

MCC has funded $445.9 million in land interventions as of September 2024. These interventions fall into the following categories: legal, regulatory and policy reform; institutional strengthening; clarification and recognition of land rights; and land use planning and natural resource management.

  • Clarification and Recognition of Land Rights

    These programs address weak tenure security and weak understanding of land rights by clarifying and recognizing use rights, rights holders, and parcel boundaries.

  • Institutional Strengthening

    These programs address weaknesses in land administration by investing in records management and transaction systems, business process change, infrastructure, equipment, and human capacity.

  • Land Use Planning and Natural Resource Management

    These programs address inadequacies in land use and management by clarifying land use typologies, demarcating village boundaries, and establishing land use plans.

  • Legal, Regulatory and Policy Reform

    These programs address the land governance environment by strengthening the laws, regulations, and procedures for the recognition, administration and transfer of land rights.

What Have We Completed So Far?

MCC and its country partners develop and tailor Monitoring and Evaluation Plans for each program and country context. Within these country-specific plans, MCC uses common indicators to standardize measurement and reporting within certain sectors. See below for a subset of common indicators that summarize implementation achievements across all MCC land investments as of September 2024.

  • 135

    legal and regulatory reforms adopted

  • 399

    land administration offices established or upgraded

  • 325,920

    land rights formalized

  • 365,074

    parcels corrected or incorporated in land system

What Have We Achieved?

MCC commissions independent evaluations, conducted by third-party evaluators, for every project it funds. These evaluations hold MCC and country partners accountable for the achievement of intended results and also produce evidence and learning to inform future programming. They investigate the quality of project implementation, the achievement of the project objective and other targeted outcomes, and the cost-effectiveness of the project. The graphs below summarize the composition and status of MCC’s independent evaluations in the land sector as of November 2024. Evaluations of land investments that were part of a broader agriculture or irrigation project will be reflected in the Agriculture and Irrigation Sector Results and Learning page. Read on to see highlights of published interim and final evaluations. Follow the evaluation links to see the status of all planned, ongoing, and completed evaluations in the sector and to access the reports, summaries, survey materials, and data sets.

Created with Highcharts 11.2.0Evaluations by Type7 (44%)​7 (44%)9 (56%)​9 (56%)PerformanceImpact
Created with Highcharts 11.2.0No. of EvaluationsEvaluations by Status3​31​12​22​212​12PlanningDesignBaselineFinalCompleted02468101214
Created with Highcharts 11.2.0No. of ReportsInterim Reports - Expected and Actual Publication Date1​11​12​21​11​1PerformanceImpact201120152017201820210123
Created with Highcharts 11.2.0No. of ReportsFinal Reports - Expected and Actual Publication Date1​11​11​11​12​22​22​21​11​11​12​21​1PerformanceImpact20122014201920202021202220232024202801234

Highlighted Evaluations

What Have We Learned from Our Results?

To link the evidence from the independent evaluations with MCC practice, project staff produce an MCC Learning document at the close of each interim and final evaluation to capture practical lessons for programming and evaluation. Use the filters below to find lessons relevant to your evidence needs.

    • Mozambique Compact
    • Land Tenure Regularization - Rural and UrbanLand Administration Capacity Building

    Before proceeding with an impact evaluation endline and analysis, MCC should carefully consider the risks, constraints, and compromises to the evaluation design, and the resulting implications for the expected learning value of the evaluation.

    Before proceeding with an impact evaluation endline and analysis, MCC should carefully consider the risks, constraints, and compromises to the evaluation design, and the resulting implications for the expected learning value of the evaluation. The impact… read more

    • Mozambique Compact
    • Land Tenure Regularization - Rural and UrbanLand Administration Capacity Building

    Developing and operationalizing land information systems is often challenging and requires flexibility to be built into program design.

    Developing and operationalizing land information systems is often challenging and requires flexibility to be built into program design. The evaluation found that the Sistema de Gestão de Informação sobre a Terra (SIGIT) land information system developed by the… read more

    • Mozambique Compact
    • Land Tenure Regularization - Rural and UrbanLand Administration Capacity Building

    Future land rights recognition projects should do more to anticipate challenges to completing all steps of land formalization that may arise post-Compact.

    Future land rights recognition projects should do more to anticipate challenges to completing all steps of land formalization that may arise post-Compact. The evaluation found that many of the intended land use property rights certificate recipients never… read more

    • Mozambique Compact
    • Land Tenure Regularization - Rural and UrbanLand Administration Capacity Building

    In selecting land-related evaluation questions, context should be taken into account to ensure the evaluation focuses on the appropriate set of outcomes. The evaluation questions included questions on the impacts of the project on credit access and land market transactions, which reflect standard aspects of the program logic for many land projects.

    In selecting land-related evaluation questions, context should be taken into account to ensure the evaluation focuses on the appropriate set of outcomes. The evaluation questions included questions on the impacts of the project on credit access and… read more

    • Mozambique Compact
    • Land Tenure Regularization - Rural and UrbanLand Administration Capacity Building

    Land rights formalization and associated laws, procedures and institutional arrangement reforms must take into account the role of the customary system.

    Land rights formalization and associated laws, procedures and institutional arrangement reforms must take into account the role of the customary system. The evaluation found that in addition to the formal system, landholders continue to rely on customary… read more

    • Mozambique Compact
    • Land Tenure Regularization - Rural and UrbanLand Administration Capacity Building

    Some mixed results may be attributed in part to the long exposure period applied across the evaluation.

    Some mixed results may be attributed in part to the long exposure period applied across the evaluation. This evaluation, which spanned over a decade, had a long exposure period that was consistent across the entire evaluation. While long exposure periods are… read more

    • Mozambique Compact
    • Land Tenure Regularization - Rural and UrbanLand Administration Capacity Building

    When land formalization projects do not extend formal rights to all of the landholders in the project area, project designs should anticipate and mitigate potential negative spillover effects for landholders in the project area whose land has not been formalized.

    When land formalization projects do not extend formal rights to all of the landholders in the project area, project designs should anticipate and mitigate potential negative spillover effects for landholders in the project area whose land has not been… read more

    • Burkina Faso Compact
    • Rural Land Governance

    Considering the short 5 year time period of MCC Compacts, the decision to extend a pilot phase of a land project should not depend on evaluation results.

    Considering the short 5 year time period of MCC Compacts, the decision to extend a pilot phase of a land project should not depend on evaluation results. The timeline of less than two years between baseline and follow-up was too short to see results,… read more

    • Burkina Faso Compact
    • Rural Land Governance

    Evaluations should not hold the project accountable for outcomes that the project was not originally designed to address.

    Evaluations should not hold the project accountable for outcomes that the project was not originally designed to address. As originally designed, the Rural Land Governance Project included a variety of strategies within the components to ensure the engagement,… read more

    • Burkina Faso Compact
    • Rural Land Governance

    Land tenure insecurity does not necessarily imply widespread land conflict at the parcel level or dissatisfaction with existing conflict resolution processes.

    Land tenure insecurity does not necessarily imply widespread land conflict at the parcel level or dissatisfaction with existing conflict resolution processes. Assumptions around the specific nature of land tenure insecurity and land conflict should continue to… read more

    • Burkina Faso Compact
    • Rural Land Governance

    The more detailed and nuanced questions on perceptions of land tenure and types of conflict used in the Burkina questionnaire allowed a better understanding of project impacts on land tenure and related potential effects on productivity.

    The more detailed and nuanced questions on perceptions of land tenure and types of conflict used in the Burkina questionnaire allowed a better understanding of project impacts on land tenure and related potential effects on productivity. These more detailed… read more

    • Burkina Faso Compact
    • Rural Land Governance

    When designing evaluations, MCC and evaluators should be thoughtful about the exposure period.

    When designing evaluations, MCC and evaluators should be thoughtful about the exposure period. The exposure period should be identified based on the defined project objective and when MCC expects to see benefits for objective-level indicators, according to the… read more

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How Have We Aggregated Learning Across the Sector?