Lessons from Land Administration Projects

Land rights and the systems that
administer them can vary significantly across the world and
within countries (World Bank 2003). For a number of reasons,
land rights may be unclear or insecure. Securing land rights
plays an important role in driving economic growth and
poverty reduction. In recent years there has been increasing
awareness of the relevance of land tenure issues to food
security, climate change, rapid urbanization, informality,
and indigenous peoples’ rights. The World Bank Group has a
long history of developing and implementing projects aimed
at securing land rights through a variety of interventions.
This note synthesizes cross-cutting findings from 14
Independent Evaluation Group assessments of land
administration projects that the World Bank has supported
from 1998 to 2014. The project-level assessments reviewed
for this report contain a wealth of information about how
the Bank Group approached different problems related to
strengthening land administration systems in diverse
environments. This information is relevant to both land
administration specialists and experts in other fields whose
work is impacted by land tenure issues.