1. Scope for Decentralization of Land Administration in Africa: Evidence from Local Administrative Data in Mozambique
Raul Pitoro
Michigan State University, USA
Paper prepared for presentation at the
“ANNUAL WORLD BANK CONFERENCE ON LAND AND POVERTY”
Washington DC, March 20-24, 2017

2. “Burtland Declaration”
Motivation
“Burtland Declaration”
Successful land administration lead to reduction in land conflicts, improve socio-political stability, and governance.
Challenges: institutional and organizational arrangements, and limited capacity for service delivery (MINAG, 2010).
Several initiatives
YET, land registration is a lengthy and complex process
Low performance
BD: Sustainable development requires a sound land administration system
designing poverty reduction policies according to the nature of poverty in question improving the targeting efficiency of the scarce resources in rural areas

3. Objective and Research Questions and Hypotheses
To learn how to improve the performance of Land Administration System (LADS) based on the current structure and performance
Research Questions:
Is the current land administration performance significantly associated with its structure?
If so, what structural transformation would lead to improved performance?
Research Hypothesis:
Structure performance hypothesis: The performance of LADS is a function of its structure

4. Conceptual Framework
No internationally accepted methodology to evaluate the performance of LADS (Steudler et al., 2004)
But, a more comprehensive approach is needed (Lavandez et al., 2002)
To fill this gap: The Structure-Conduct-Performance Approach:
Performance of an industry is determined by it’s conduct and structure
Structure is measured in terms of size of firms’ concentration, fragmentation, and competition
Better administrative structure high performance
Inverse relationship between concentration and fragmentation
Market structure measured in terms of the size of firms’ concentration, fragmentation, and competition.

5. Data
Administrative data records during from the National Land Authority (DNTF)
Over 44,000 sporadic land use right applications countrywide
Processing time of land use rights application (days)
Land use, land size, gender, ownership
Population census data from the Bureau of National Statistics (INE)
Projections from 2007 for 158 Districts
Population
Area size
Infrastructures
Source:

6. Estimation Strategy: Structure-Conduct-Performance Approach
Measures of Structure
Concentration: Population density and number of applications per Km2
Fragmentation or competition: Number of localities per Km2
Authority level : Number of applications approved by authority level
Level 1: Provincial governor (parcels <1,000 ha)
Level 2: Ministry of Agriculture (parcels 1,000 – 10,000 ha)
Level 3: Council of Ministries (parcels >10,000 ha)
Measures of performance
Time to process land use rights registration (days)
Analysis in two regions
No internationally accepted methodology to evaluate the performance of LADS (Steudler et al., 2004)
But, a more comprehensive approach is needed (Lavandez et al., 2002)
To fill this gap: The Structure-Conduct-Performance Approach

7. Estimation Strategy: Empirical model
where Yi represents the performance indicators of unit j in District i;
CMi is a vector of measures of a measure of concentration (population density and applications per Km2);
FGi is a measure of fragmentation or competition (localities per km2)
ATi is a measure of authority level;
Xi is a vector of District characteristics; and
єi is the random error term.
Hypothesis:
Structure performance hypothesis: α 1 ≠ 0, α 2 ≠ 0, α 3 ≠ 0
Concentration hypothesis: α 1 ≠ 0, α 2 = 0, α 3 = 0
Fragmentation/competition hypothesis: α 1 = 0, α 2 ≠ 0, α 3 = 0
Power differential hypothesis: α 1 = 0, α 2 = 0, α 3 ≠ 0
Market structure measured in terms of the size of firms’ concentration, fragmentation, and competition.
A combination of these is possible

8. Results Low demand, High fragmentation and Low performance
Significant differences between two regions
Central and Northern regions are better-off than Southern region
Central & northern: high demand, low fragmentation and high performance
Southern: Low demand, high fragmentation and low performance
High demand long processing times but high revenue collected
Central and Northern regions are better-off than Southern region
Low demand, High fragmentation and Low performance
High demand,
Low fragmentation and High performance

9. Results High demand and large areas  slow processing
Decentralization Performance gain under High demand
High demand and large areas
 slow processing
No Decentralization under low demand

10. Conclusions and recommendations
The performance of land administrative system in Mozambique is function of its structure
Increased demand for services slow down the processing time
Long processing times on large areas and high demand
Flexible procedures for large land areas
Potential for decentralization to lower administrative level under high demand for land administration services under low fragmentation
Regional differences should be taken into account
Challenges: human, financial, physical capital
Opportunities: INFATEC, Donors
few applications but long process vs many applications and less complex but limited access

11. Limitations
Caution!
Due to data limitation  two indicators of performance were used
A comprehensive evaluation requires more performance indicators (World Bank 2007).
At least four:
Annual registered transfers as percentage of registered parcels,
Ratio of annual registry running costs/registered parcels,
Registration staff days/registration, and
Ratio revenue/expenditure --a version used in this study)

12. Thank You!