a unit cost of less than USD 6 per parcel (Nkurunziza 2015), setting a new standard for first time registration of land rights that many African countries endeavor to emulate. Survey data collected soon after program completion in 2012 point towards impacts in three areas. First, tenure security increased markedly for males and females equally, including those not legally married. This suggests modifications to implementation modalities to include women in informal marriages were effective (Santos _et al._ 2014). Second, the program led to distinct improvements in land rental market functioning and efficiency-enhancing land transfers (Ali _et al._ 2015). Finally, although investment did not increase in the short term, the program provided a basis for higher levels of agricultural investment in the medium run.

# **3. Evidence from administrative data**

Registry data document the size and gender-friendly nature of Rwanda’s accomplishment but also point towards remaining challenges, in particular unclaimed parcels. They allow to document in real-time collateralized lending volumes, land prices for residential and agricultural land, and the extent to which LTR’s gender equality is maintained. We review registration procedures and use data on roll-out of sector land managers to estimate the impact of this intervention on levels of formal land transfers at sector level.

# **3.1 Level of registration and transaction frequency**

Official land administration information system (LAIS) data highlight Rwanda’s accomplishments. In the context of LTR, information was collected on 11.42 million parcels; 0.39 million in Kigali city, 1.99 million in Eastern, 2.67 million in Northern and 3.2 million each in Southern and Western Province (table 1). Of these, 64.3% are in agricultural (50% in Kigali to 73% in Northern Province), 11.7% in residential, 8% in forest, 1.5% in commercial, and 0.3% in administrative use. The share of parcels in residential use is, with 34%, highest in Kigali, followed by the East (21%), West (13%), the South and North (7% and 6%, respectively). With an average of 0.18 ha; sizes vary between residential (900 m<sup>2</sup> in Kigali to 1,600 m<sup>2</sup> in the East) and agricultural parcels (0.11 and 0.42 ha in the North and East, respectively).

Administrative data support the gender sensitive nature of LTR as 86% of parcels owned by natural persons have a woman either as sole (25%) or co-owner (61%) and only 14% are registered exclusively to male claimants. It can help RNRA quantify and manage outstanding issues and monitor progress at high levels of disaggregation (cell or village level), e.g., the 16% of parcels for which claimants are not yet recorded. Integration of land and the mortgage registries increases ease and security of using land as collateral.<sup>6</sup> Table 2 shows that by Dec. 31 2015, US$ 2.6 billion of mortgage lending was secured by 49,694 mortgages, 65%, 30%, and 5% each secured against residential, agricultural, and commercial land, respectively. With the

> 6 Earlier, the mortgage registry was run by the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) in isolation from the land registry. In addition to increasing transaction costs, lack of a unique parcel identifier made it difficult for the lender to ensure absence of potentially competing claims.

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