villagers themselves determine criteria for accessing loans, the size of the loans and implementation procedures.

Both the examples above highlight that although centrally-planned, the adjustments that were made to some programs provided more space for local voices in decision-making around implementation. The examples reflect key aspects of much of the ongoing discussion on approaches to decentralization in Myanmar. Although national policy directives have urged greater emphasis on the role of sub-national levels of governance (UNDP 2014), approaches to achieving this have been top-down and ad hoc, with different departments emphasizing different aspects of perceived decentralization. The electrification program reflects a form of fiscal and administrative decentralization to the state/region level, whereas the Evergreen Village Project could be viewed more as administrative decentralization to below the township level. Both examples, however, are consistent with a somewhat minimalist ‘deconcentration’ definition of decentralization, with lower levels of government being provided with increased scope for decision-making within well-defined parameters (Schneider 2003).

Perceptions of implementation of national reform policies at the local level In addition to expectations about increasing government services, local perceptions of the role of government are changing based on experience of how national reform policies have been implemented locally. As villagers have seen a number of policies rolled out locally, this has reinforced perceptions that the transition is not just a national phenomenon relevant to political elites, but is also playing out locally with direct impacts on the lives of villagers. The research has documented numerous examples of how this is playing out across rounds. Changes in the village administration policy framework resulting in more democratic elections of village tract administrators, as discussed in the previous section, is one example. We highlight two other prominent areas here.

The most tangible widespread evidence of the transition being felt locally arose from government policy to enable individual ownership of land.<sup>12</sup> Following the passage of the _Farmland Law_ and the _Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Lands Law_ in 2012, research in 2013 identified strong awareness at the village level of the rollout of land registration and expectations from villagers that local officials would efficiently implement the new policies. In subsequent rounds, research indicated this had largely occurred, and by mid-2014, 80 percent of villages in the QSEM panel reported land registration as completed for all individually owned land in their village recognized under the Farmland Law.

In some areas, however, registration was problematic, and villagers have tested the responsiveness of government officials in attempting to overcome these issues. The most prevalent exception related to limitations in the regulatory framework restricting registration for land that was not individually owned, such as communal or shifting cultivation land, or was farmed by individuals but recorded in government records as vacant fallow land. Across a number of villages covered by the research, primarily in upland areas, communities have observed how others have sought to overcome this and begun to transfer communal land management to enable individual households to register land. In upland areas, the primary incentive for doing this was to reduce the risk of outside interests registering otherwise 10