ethiopia strengthening land tenure and administration program endline report

452 Pages·2016·7.17 MB·English

ETHIOPIA STRENGTHENING LAND
TENURE AND ADMINISTRATION
PROGRAM ENDLINE REPORT
An Impact Evaluation of the Effects of Second-Level Land
Certification Relative to First-Level Certification
This publication was produced at the request of the United States Agency for International
Development. It was prepared independently by The Cloudburst Group.
Photo Credit: Jessica Nabongo

This impact evaluation report and endline analysis is the collaborative efforts of several individuals,
particularly: Adi Greif and Dan Mattingly (technical leads on the econometric analysis), Lauren Persha
(overall research lead for the endline analysis and final report drafting), Stephanie Fenner (data
management, coding, and analysis support), and Karol Boudreaux, Aidan Boyd, Cynthia Caron, and
Heather Huntington (research support and report inputs).

Prepared for the United States Agency for International Development, USAID Contract Number AID-
OAA-TO-13-00019, Evaluation, Research and Communication (ERC) Task Order under Strengthening
Tenure and Resource Rights (STARR) IQC No. AID-OAA-I-12-00030.

Implemented by:
The Cloudburst Group
8400 Corporate Drive, Suite 550
Landover, MD 20785-2238
Ethiopia Strengthening Land
Tenure and Administration
Program Endline Report
An Impact Evaluation of the Effects of Second-Level Land
Certification Relative to First-Level Certification

MAY 2016

DISCLAIMER
The authors' views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States
Agency for International Development or the United States Government.
CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ........................................................................................ iii
TABLES ......................................................................................................................................................... iii
FIGURES ....................................................................................................................................................... iii
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY........................................................................................................ 1
EVALUATION PURPOSE AND EVALUATION QUESTIONS ........................................ 8
EVALUATION PURPOSE ......................................................................................................................... 8
EVALUATION QUESTIONS .................................................................................................................... 9
PROGRAM BACKGROUND ............................................................................................... 10
DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGE ............................................................................................................ 10
SECOND-LEVEL LAND CERTIFICATION ....................................................................................... 11
EXPECTED PATHWAYS TO IMPACT .............................................................................................. 12
EVALUATION METHODS AND LIMITATIONS ............................................................. 15
EVALUATION DESIGN ......................................................................................................................... 15
EVALUATION LIMITATIONS: PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION NOTES ............................... 20
ANALYTIC APPROACHES ................................................................................................................... 22
FINDINGS 1: OVERVIEW OF KEY RESULTS .................................................................. 28
KEY FINDINGS ......................................................................................................................................... 28
OVERVIEW OF KEY RESULTS ............................................................................................................. 28
FINDINGS II: DETAILED IMPACTS OF SECOND-LEVEL CERTIFICATION ............. 34
OUTCOME FAMILIES ............................................................................................................................. 34
MULTIPLE HYPOTHESES TESTS AND P-VALUE ADJUSTMENT .............................................. 40
TIME TREND NOTES ............................................................................................................................. 40
MULTI-ARM TREATMENT ANALYSES ............................................................................................. 40
HETEROGENEOUS EFFECTS ACROSS KEY MODERATING VARIABLES ............................ 41
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ............................................................... 47
CONCLUSIONS ...................................................................................................................................... 47
CONTRIBUTIONS TO OVERARCHING EVALUATION QUESTIONS .................................. 48
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS ......................................................................................................... 55
ANNEX I—EVALUATION STATEMENT OF WORK ............................................................. 58
ANNEX II—EVALUATION METHODS AND LIMITATIONS .................................................. 72
MODEL SPECIFICATIONS AND KEY ASSUMPTIONS ................................................................ 72
POWER CALCULATIONS .................................................................................................................... 76
SUPPORTING CHARTS AND DATA ................................................................................................ 79
ANNEX III—SUPPLEMENTAL DATA ................................................................................... 101
ANNEX IV—DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS ............................................................. 127
ANNEX V—DISCLOSURE OF CONFLICTS OF INTEREST .................................................. 248
ANNEX VI—BASELINE REPORTS ........................................................................................ 249
ANNEX VII—DESIGN REPORT ............................................................................................ 403
ANNEX VIII—DATABASES .................................................................................................. 441
LITERATURE CITED ............................................................................................................. 442
Ethiopia Strengthening Land Tenure and Administration Program Endline Report: i
An Impact Evaluation of the Effects of Second-Level Land Certification Relative to First-Level Certification
ACRONYMS

ATT Average Treatment Effect on the Treated
DFID Department for International Development
DID Difference-In-Difference
EEA Ethiopian Economics Association
ELAP Ethiopia Land Administration Program
ELTAP Ethiopia Strengthening Land Tenure and Administration Program
ERC Evaluation, Research and Communication
FDR False Discovery Rate
FHH Female-headed Household
GIS Geographic Information System
GoE Government of Ethiopia
GPS Global Positioning System
ha Hectare
ICC Intra-cluster Correlation Coefficient
IE Impact Evaluation
LIFT Land Investment for Transformation
LOESS Local Regression
LTPR Land Tenure and Property Rights
MDES Minimum Detectable Effect Size
MHH Male-headed Households
REILA Responsible and Innovative Land Administration
SIDA Swedish International Development Agency
SNNP Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region
SOW Statement of Work
SWC Soil and Water Conservation
USAID United States Agency for International Development
Ethiopia Strengthening Land Tenure and Administration Program Endline Report: ii
An Impact Evaluation of the Effects of Second-Level Land Certification Relative to First-Level Certification
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
TABLES
Table 1. Overview of Significant Average Treatment Effect Results .............................................................. 3
Table 2. Evaluation Hypotheses and Indicators ............................................................................................... 18
Table 3. Treatment and Control Definitions and Household Sample Sizes Used in the Impact Analyses
...................................................................................................................................................................................... 27
Table 4. Overview of Significant ATT Results ................................................................................................. 32
Table 5. Average Treatment Effects on the Treated (ATTs) By Outcome Family ................................. 33

FIGURES
Figure 1: Heterogeneous Treatment Effects on Amount of Credit, By Distance to Nearest Regional
(Killil) Capital ............................................................................................................................................................ 42
Figure 2: Heterogeneous Treatment Effects on Amount of Credit, By Household Landholding and
Distance to Regional Capital ................................................................................................................................. 42
Figure 3: Heterogeneous Treatments Effects on Likelihood of Household Obtaining Credit, By Age of
Household Head and Household Wealth Status ............................................................................................. 44
Figure 4: Heterogeneous Treatment Effects on Tenure Security ................................................................ 45
Figure 5: Heterogeneous Treatment Effects on Female Decision-Making And Empowerment ........... 46

Ethiopia Strengthening Land Tenure and Administration Program Endline Report: iii
An Impact Evaluation of the Effects of Second-Level Land Certification Relative to First-Level Certification
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Following decades of social, political and economic insecurity marked by conflict, famine, regime change,
and land redistribution, in the late 1990’s the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) embarked on an ambitious
program to document and register lands held by rural households. This “first-level” land certification
program was designed to increase tenure security and certify long-term use rights for rural households.
The program has been widely viewed by donor institutions, development practitioners and scholars as
one of the most successful low-cost land registration programs in Africa or anywhere else in the world.
Despite the well-documented benefits, first-level certification was also perceived to have key limitations
that rendered it unlikely to be a viable long-term solution for securing land rights for smallholders. In
particular, the process did not map individual plots or provide a sufficient level of spatial detail around
boundary documentation to allow for the development of cadastral maps for improved land use
management and administration. Moreover, the lack of computerized land registries under first-level
certification did not enable effective management and updating of registration records.
With a view towards addressing these limitations, beginning in 2005, the USAID-supported Ethiopia
Strengthening Land Tenure and Administration Program (ELTAP) worked with woreda-level (district)
land administration agencies to pilot a second-level land certification process. ELTAP was implemented
in Tigray, Amhara, Oromia and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNP) from 2005
to 2008. USAID support for second-level certification continued under the Ethiopia Land
Administration Program (ELAP), which ran from August 2008 to February 2013.
This report presents the results of an impact evaluation of the ELTAP/ELAP second-level certification
work. The evaluation focuses on the impact of second-level certification relative to first-level
certification impacts across a range of household-level outcomes. As such, the results provide insights
on the role of land rights clarification and enhanced documentation in meeting broader development
objectives. The study contributes original evidence on the role of land tenure strengthening in mitigating
development challenges and helps build the knowledge base about the longer-term components of a
functional land registration process.
The overarching question that underlies and motivates this evaluation is:
“Does second-level land certification marginally increase tenure security and
improve rural livelihoods as compared to first-level land certification?”
The evaluation focuses on four broad questions listed below.
Q-I. What are the marginal welfare and tenure security benefits to households from second-level
certification, relative to first-level certification?
Q-II. How, if at all, have second-level land certificates been used as proof of ownership, and is their
use different from that of first-level land certificates?
Q-III. How do beneficiaries, including landholders and local government officials, perceive the value of
first- and second-level certifications?
Q-IV. How has second-level certification affected intra-household welfare differently from first-level
land certification?
Ethiopia Strengthening Land Tenure and Administration Program Endline Report: 1
An Impact Evaluation of the Effects of Second-Level Land Certification Relative to First-Level Certification
The evaluation estimates the Average Treatment Effects on the Treated (ATT) for households that
received second-level certification over first-level certification, using a quasi-experimental Difference-in-
Difference (DID) approach coupled with entropy balancing. The study estimates impacts on household
beneficiaries, for a set of outcomes across six outcome families:
 Access to credit;
 Land disputes;
 Land rental activity;
 Soil and water conservation investments;
 Land tenure security; and
 Female empowerment and decision-making over land.
Impacts of second-level certification are estimated from a panel data set of 4,319 households that were
surveyed across 284 kebeles (village clusters) in Amhara, Oromia, SNNP, and Tigray regions, at the start
of the second-level certification process and again some 3-7 years afterwards.
In addition to average impacts, the study also examines how impacts of second-level certification vary for
a set of seven program-relevant characteristics of households or villages that could be important
modifiers of program effect: gender of household head; marital status of household head; program
round (i.e., ELTAP vs. ELAP); household total landholdings; wealth status; age of household head; and
distance to regional capital. The results provide additional guidance to inform policy and programming
considerations.
KEY FINDINGS
The evaluation results suggest positive and significant impacts, on average, of second-level certification
relative to first-level certification, for indicators from three outcome families (Table 1).
 Credit access: The study finds a10% additional increase in the likelihood of households in the
treatment group taking out any credit for farming purposes, and a small increase in the average
amount of credit obtained. The results indicate a small average magnitude of impact, and are robust
to different model specifications. This result is encouraging, but should be viewed with caution since
land certificates cannot be used as collateral in formal lending situations in Ethiopia, and the
mechanism for this impact is not clear from the study data. This result may relate more strongly to
household credit activity obtained through an informal lending environment.
 Tenure security: The study finds moderate impacts on certain indicators for land tenure security,
including an 11% increase in the likelihood of the household believing they have a heritable right to
bequeath their land, relative to households with no certification or first-level certification.
 Female empowerment and involvement in land-related decision-making: The analysis indicates an 11%
increase in the likelihood of a wife possessing land in her name, and a 0.32 hectare increase in land
held jointly by husband and wife or by female-headed households, as a result of second-level
certification. The evaluation also finds a 44% increase in a wife deciding which crops to grow on land
in her possession. The magnitude of these impacts are fairly large, and results are moderately robust.

Ethiopia Strengthening Land Tenure and Administration Program Endline Report: 2
An Impact Evaluation of the Effects of Second-Level Land Certification Relative to First-Level Certification
FULL VERSUS PARTIAL SECOND-LEVEL CERTIFICATION
The evaluation dataset encompassed households that received full second-level certification, as well as a
large group of households with partial second-level certification (53% of households which received
second-level certification during the evaluation period received this partial treatment, in the evaluation
dataset). Partial certification occurred when a household’s land was surveyed via a participatory process
but formal documentation was not provided. This discrepancy in treatment application stems from the
program inability to issue the second-level certificates, as this is the formal responsibility of the
Government. This treatment disparity made it possible to examine the potential differences in impacts
for full vs. partial second-level certification and enables the study to advance the knowledge base on the
relative contributions of participatory land surveying and formal documentation to development
outcomes of interest. Overall, the analysis points to few substantive differences in impacts across
households that received partial versus full second-level certification, although the results do show some
evidence of differential treatment effects.1
TABLE 1. OVERVIEW OF SIGNIFICANT AVERAGE TREATMENT EFFECT RESULTS
Treatment A Treatment B Treatment C Treatment D
Full 2nd level  
Full or partial  Partial 2nd  Full or Partial 
(survey & 
2nd level  level  (survey  2nd vs no or 
certificate 
certification only) 1st level
Outcome FamilyLabel   only)
Amount of credit taken for farming purposes in past year in Birr + + +
Access to credit Household took any credit for farming purposes in past year  + + +
(Yes/No)
‐
HH formally or informally used land as collateral to obtain credit ‐ ‐
Land tenure  HH believes it has heritable right to bequeath land (Yes/No) +
security
Wife possesses land in her name (Yes/No) +
Female  ‐ ‐
Wife has certificate of title for land in her possession
empowerment 
& decision‐
making over  Wife decides what crops to grow on land in her possession + +
land
Area of land in hectares possessed by wife only, or husband and 
+
wife jointly
Reported results are based on impact estimates obtained via an entropy‐weighted fixed effects difference‐in‐difference model.
Increasing statistical significance is indicated by large and bolder font.
+/‐  +/‐ +/‐
Significance reported as:  : α <  0.10;   : α < 0.05; and   : α < 0.01

1 While the evaluation results suggest few material differences in impacts across these two sets of households, the study does not conclude
from the analyses that surveying alone is sufficient to generate positive tenure security or household economic impacts. Given that such
households anticipated receiving the full second-level process and formal documentation, it is not possible to know whether their impacts as
measured reflect land and related decisions and beliefs made on the actual level of treatment received, or whether such decisions and beliefs
also incorporate the household’s legitimate expectation to eventually receive formal documentation of their land rights. It is possible that
over time, if these households continue to operate in this legally ambiguous area between first- and second-level certification, their behaviors
will change and their perception of tenure security will erode. Such a shift may emerge only over longer time frames.
Ethiopia Strengthening Land Tenure and Administration Program Endline Report: 3
An Impact Evaluation of the Effects of Second-Level Land Certification Relative to First-Level Certification
IMPACTS ON FEMALE-HEADED HOUSEHOLDS AND OTHER VULNERABLE GROUPS
The study finds few differences in the impact of second-level certification for female-headed households
over male-headed households, or between widows and non-widows, across most outcome families.
The results do indicate an 11% average increase in the likelihood of female-headed households (and a
12% increase in the likelihood of widows) feeling more secure entering into credit-based business
transactions when the transactions occur with a holder of a land certificate. The results additionally
show a 44% average increase in wives deciding which crops to grow on land in their possession, and an
average increase of 0.32 hectares of land that is held jointly by husbands and wives or by female-headed
households. However, the magnitude of positive impacts from second-level certification is generally not
as large for female-headed households as it is for male-headed households.
KEY MODIFIERS OF PROGRAM IMPACTS
The results provide some evidence that some of the impacts of second-level certification are modified by
the kebele distance to the regional capital or a household’s total landholdings. Kebeles closer to city
centers and markets tend to experience stronger positive impacts than did more isolated kebeles. The
findings highlight the importance of the location of land tenure programming. One policy implication of
this finding might be that land tenure programming should be targeted to those areas that have easier
access to towns and markets due to proximity, passable roads, or other transport. Access to markets
and capital incentivizes land investments and facilitates access to inputs around land investments.
CONSTRAINTS AND LIMITATIONS
Methodological: In 2013, ERC was tasked with completing the endline data collection and analysis for the
ELTAP/ELAP impact evaluation. The implementation of two baseline survey waves some years apart,
the nature of the baseline survey design, and the level or variability of the indicator at baseline also
imposed certain limitations on the potential for strong identification of treatment impacts for some
outcomes of interest, such as across agricultural productivity and economic outcomes, as well as some
measures of household tenure security. The ERC research team worked to mitigate some of the
limitations through modifications to the data collected at endline, which included, for example, shifting
to parcel-level data collection for key variables, adding a set of clarifying questions to improve the
determination of the household’s level of exposure to treatment activities at the time of baseline, and
collecting additional details on proximity to land administration offices and other spatial information.
In terms of the analytic approach, the evaluation uses a fixed effects Difference-in-Difference (DID)
model to determine program impacts, coupled with entropy weighting to achieve balance across the
treatment and comparison groups. The entropy weighting is a form of matching. This analytic step is
done to mitigate potential confounding of the impact estimates from factors that reflect decisions about
where to implement the program relative to where it was not implemented, and from household
characteristics that could relate to potentially different levels of household interest to participate in and
ability to benefit from the second-level certification process across recipient and non-recipient
households. The matching approach was generally successful in creating balance, thus removing the
effect of any differences across treatment and control observations across these factors, for most of the
treatment and outcome combinations assessed in the study. The fixed effects DID approach also
accounts for any potential confounding due to unobservable factors that remained constant over the
evaluation period. However, as with any quasi-experimental DID approach, it is possible that there
were unmeasured confounding factors which varied over time, and affected outcomes across the
Ethiopia Strengthening Land Tenure and Administration Program Endline Report: 4
An Impact Evaluation of the Effects of Second-Level Land Certification Relative to First-Level Certification