In fact, 7 years after passage of the Act, not a single one of these certificates has been awarded, despite considerable grassroots demand and the fact that in some areas work on systematic surveys with lowercost technologies had been initiated (Rugadya _et al._ 2004). Lack of a sustainable business model and institutional structure imply that even in traditional _mailo_ areas, land administration is challenged to live up to requirements. Finally, the government failed to widely disseminate the Act, despite the fact that no behavioral changes can be expected unless households are aware of its provisions. Only recently, in preparation for pilots to systematically demarcate land in few parishes, were systematic efforts, including preparation of leaflets in local languages and training sessions, undertaken. The fact that these activities were limited to the parishes singled out for subsequent intervention provides us with an interesting exogenous source of variation in the level of knowledge which can be utilized in econometric estimation.

# **3.3 Data and descriptive evidence**

The data for our analysis are from a survey conducted in the second half of 2004 by the World Bank in collaboration with the Ministry of Water Land and Environment (MWLE), Makerere University, and FASID to provide a baseline that could help to study the impact of systematic demarcation at a later stage. In each of six districts, chosen to capture the diversity of Uganda’s different regions, one parish that had been selected for systematic demarcation and a neighboring parish with similar characteristics were chosen.<sup>6</sup> This yielded a total sample of 970 households or 2185 parcels in 12 parishes. Within each parish, households were selected randomly. In addition to standard household characteristics, the survey contains results from administering a quiz on provisions of the new land Act to both the main male and female person in the household (usually head and spouse) to assess the extent of their legal knowledge. This is complemented by a large array of information on land ownership and transfer rights, soil quality, and production at the plot level.

Key statistics for parcels owned or operated by the sample households, by main tenure type, as reported in table 1, yield a number of insights. First, contrary to widespread belief, the difference in transferability between freehold and customary tenure is one of degree (i.e. unconditional vs. conditional) rather than principle. In fact, while the ability to sell without restrictions is, with 50%, lowest under the customary tenure regime, 26% of customary holders, as compared to 12% under freehold and 8% under _mailo_ , are able to sell provided they have obtained prior approval. Even though the number of rights that can be exercised without approval is highest for freehold parcels, customary parcels have the highest number of rights with approval, while _mailo_ comes in lowest in both categories. This suggests that customary lands do not appear to suffer from limited transferability; to the contrary, constraints to land transfers may be

> 6 The districts are Iganga, Mbale and Soroti from the East, Kibalale from the West, Moroto from the North and Wakiso from the Central region. The “control” parishes from each sub-county were selected purposefully in consultation with sub-county officials to correspond to the pilot sites.

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