Impact Evaluation of the Rwanda Land Tenure Regularisation Programme

2019
DFID, Rwanda

A Mokoro team, in partnership with OPM, conducted this impact evaluation of Rwanda’s Land Tenure Regularisation Programme (LTRP). Mokoro’s Team Leader, Stephen Turner, joined Chris Tanner as Mokoro’s land management experts, with OPM providing experienced evaluators to support the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the methodology.

The aim of the Land Tenure Regularisation Programme was to issue a registered title to every landholder in Rwanda through a one-off, low-cost community-based process. The impact evaluation assessed whether the programme achieved the intended impacts, including a contribution to poverty reduction, increased productive land-based investments, optimisation of land use, gender equity and social harmony.

The evaluation team undertook a contribution analysis, assessing quantitative and qualitative data from a wide range of sources to determine the likely impacts of the programme alongside those of other potential influences affecting land use and economic activity. The team conducted an extensive analysis of secondary data, supplemented by data collected in-country from key informant interviews at local government and community level, from an online survey of Sector Land Managers, and a comprehensive literature review. The evaluation commended the programme, but found that it would not necessarily provide a transferrable model.  It provided some improvements for women and in social harmony, with some concerns remaining regarding the need to protect pro-poor priorities, challenges around sustaining the programme, and unintended impacts, such as threats to food security through increased agricultural programmes.

In March 2019, Stephen Turner presented the results of the evaluation to DFID representatives and Rwandan government officials in Kigali. Later that month the key findings were presented at the 2019 World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty by Mokoro team member Jim Grabham.

The people behind the project

Project leader: Stephen Turner

Principal Consultant

Researcher

Principal Consultant