The livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people, particularly the rural poor, are based on secure and equitable access to and control over land and natural resources which are in turn the source of food and shelter, the basis for social, cultural and religious practices, and a central factor in economic growth.

There is increasing awareness that innovations foster inclusive land administration and ease of access to land among citizens but studies exploring innovations in government within the context of developing countries are scanty. This study examines the effect of innovations in government on exploitation of land as a source of wealth, security of rights to land, private land ownership, and supply of information on land-use in Lagos State. The study uses a mixed research methodology. First, we identified two dimensions of innovations in government using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA).

Credibility is the measure of how institutions are perceived as a result of autonomous endogenous patterns of interaction and power differences. It is not the tenure security in the sense of neo-classical economics that matters but the perceived security and whether developers have the assurance to retain the fruits of their investment. What matters in performance of institutions is not their form but their functions as it is determined temporally and spatially in terms of economic efficiency, stability and growth.

The Gnassingbé clan has ruled the country since 1967. Throughout the survey period, demands for political change initiated by institutional and electoral reforms were a major issue of contention between the government and the challengers of the Gnassingbé regime. An alliance of opposition parties and civil society groups organized peaceful demonstrations in opposition to the regime. These demonstrations were often violently suppressed. Civil society organizations and representatives of the Christian church supported the opposition’s demands.

La reforma agraria y las invasiones a fincas privadas o del gobierno son temas tratados desde hace mucho tiempo en Guatemala; se han discutido desde la fallida reforma agraria impulsada por el ex presidente Juan Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán hasta la actualidad. Este artículo inicia con una sucinta referencia a la evolución histórica del tema de la tenencia de la tierra en Guatemala y analiza el papel desempeñado por los gobiernos de turno.