institutional infrastructure and regulate its operation has undermined registry sustainability (Galiani 2011), leading to a loss of social welfare.

# **2.2 Rwanda’s background and LTR accomplishments**

With land scarcity and insecure land tenure having been identified as one proximate cause of the 1994 Genocide (Andre and Platteau 1998), Rwandan policy makers after 1994 were clear that addressing land tenure was key for sustainable development. Recognition of the issue’s gender dimensions led to adoption of the 1999 inheritance law to eliminate widespread bias against female land ownership (Daley _et al._ 2010). It was followed by the 2004 land policy, the 2005 organic land law (OLL), and the establishment of an institutional and administrative structure for land management and administration. At the district, town, and municipality levels, District Land Bureaus (DLBs), complemented by sector and cell level land committees, assumed responsibility for land administration and planning.

Given the near complete absence of registered land rights, and the lack of examples to be readily drawn on, in 2007-10 a pilot to register some 15,000 parcels was undertaken in four cells reflecting the diversity of the country. A process for systematic low cost demarcation and adjudication using aerial photography or high-resolution satellite imagery was designed and implemented through trained local para-surveyors. The latter recorded, in public with presence of neighbors and local authorities, agreed plot boundaries on the image, possibly after minor disputes had been resolved by local elders, issuing a demarcation slip that led to generation of a unique parcel ID, registration of a claim, and issuance of a claim receipt to the owner. Data was then computerized and results displayed publicly on office walls at the cell level for a period of at least one month in which objections could be raised and corrections made as needed. Once satisfactorily completed, titles and lease certificates were issued at the central level and distributed to land owners.<sup>5</sup> An evaluation of the pilot exercise suggested clear impacts in three areas, namely (i) improved land access for legally married women and better recordation of inheritance rights, although women who were not legally married saw diminished property rights, an issue that was corrected before embarking on the national roll-out; (ii) significant investment impacts, e.g., a doubling of the change in investment in soil conservation, that were particularly pronounced for female-headed households in line with the notion that these had suffered from higher levels of insecurity before; and (iii) a marginal reduction in land market activity rather than a wave of distress sales (Ali _et al._ 2014).

Refinement of processes based on thorough review of the pilot experience allowed rapid scale-up and rollout as a national program. In less than 3 years, the Rwanda Natural Resource Authority (RNRA) demarcated over 11.3 million out of an estimated 11.5 million land parcels in the country in a participatory way and at

> 5 Registration was free of charge during the pilot and exemptions for poor individuals were put in place during the national roll-out.

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