Plan Foncier RuralImpact evaluation

Katherine Mark (Urban Institute/ NORC)

Annette Richter (MCC Benin)

Overview

MCA Benin Compact Access to Land project Plan Foncier Rural Evaluation

Objectives/ Hypothesis Methodology Household survey Implementation

Next Steps

MCA Benin Compact

Access to land: more secure & useful land tenure Access to financial services: enhance credit

facilities and grants given to micro, small, and medium enterprises;

Access to justice: bring courts closer to rural populations and improve court functioning

Access to markets: eliminate physical and procedural constraints to the flow of goods through the Port of Cotonou

Access to Land Project

Policy & Legal Reform Achieving formal property rights to land in

rural & urban areas Improving land administration & information

management Decentralizes land registration by establishing

regional offices Provides education on land policy

Plan Foncier Rural (Rural Landholding Plan)

Objective: Expand creation of rural land plans, land tenure certificates and local land management capacity

Process: Information campaigns Assess socio-economic & land tenure conditions of villages in

selected communes Prepare village profiles including documentation of location-specific

land tenure terms and norms Produce land use and tenure maps (the PFR)

Participatory method Rural and holding plan submitted for public review and comment

Rural land use certificates issued & facilitation of formal, written records of subordinate land rights using improved approaches

Evaluation objective/ hypotheses

Objective: Measure project impact on household income in PFR project areas and on investment in targeted rural parcels

Hypotheses: Households will invest in making their property more

productive (without fear of not recouping investment because of losing access to the land)

Enhanced land tenure security should facilitate land transactions from less efficient producers to more efficient producers, raising productivity

Capital constrained owners can use land as collateral to finance investments on parcel

Evaluation Methodology

Randomization PFR implementation at the village level Pipeline: original plan to roll out PFR in EMICOV villages

over approximately 3 years Order of PFR implementation based on commune’s likelihood of benefitting from program

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

EMICOV villages

# treatment villages

20 60 55

# control villages

20 60 55

Link to household survey data

National household living standards measurement survey - EMICOV

EMICOV sample used as a basis for creating treatment and control groups

Qualifying villages randomly assigned to treatment or control groups

EMICOV survey provides data for assessing project impact

Implement PFR first in eligible EMICOV villages

Treatment & control villages

PFR Eligible communes

EMICOV sample

Evaluation implementation1. Rapid diagnostic in EMICOV sample villages2. Diagnostic determines PFR eligible villages- does village possess

characteristics that would allow the land reform activities to succeed3. Half of pool of eligible villages assigned to the “treatment’ group where

land reform activities will occur and half will be assigned to the “control” 4. Expected pool of 270 eligible EMICOV villages5. 135 would be randomly assigned to treatment

Rapid Diagnostic in EMICOV

villages

Eligible villages

Non eligible villages

135 treatment villages

135 control villages

} 270 villages

Random selection

Implementation Challenges

Implementation delays Selection process included

EMICOV & Non EMICOV villages

Randomization applied to EMICOV & Non EMICOV villages (separately)

First round pool of eligible EMICOV villages lower than expected

Target # treatment villages was 34- only 26 selected

Unlikely to achieve targeted pool of EMICOV villages and # of EMICOV treatment villages

At least 120 treatment villages feasible

Updated PFR

roll out plan

Y1 spring

2008

Y2 fall

2008

Y3

2009

EMICOV villages

Treatment 80 55 0

Control 80 55 0

Non EMICOVvillages

0 45 110

But wait… you want randomization?

Separate randomization also used to select non EMICOV villages for PFR participation

Participants perceived increased transparency and fairness in this process

Next steps

PFR preparatory process on going (land lexicons, etc)

Analyzing baseline characteristics of sample villages through EMICOV data

Qualitative work- short term proxies such as: changing attitudes towards land security intent to invest using titles as collateral wealth effects

The “after” comparison