Recognizing that the impressive gains from comprehensive land tenure regularization may be short-lived if subsequent transactions are not registered, Rwanda has deployed close to 400 Sector Land Managers (SLMs) throughout the country. Regressions using LAIS data highlight that posting of SLMs increased levels of registered sales but not inheritance transactions and that, for agricultural land, having an SLM taken refresher training almost doubled this effect. A survey of all SLMs in April 2016 suggests that they are fully functional and in close contact with DLOs.

Although recent developments have increased interest in African land tenure, Rwanda's nation-wide Land Tenure Regularization (LTR) program is one of a few models to address these issues at the required scale.

This report summarizes the results of the analytical work on housing market finance carried out by the World Bank Group at the request of the Ministry of Finance. The purpose of the work was to inform the policy dialogue about how best to develop a sustainable housing finance market in Nigeria, and improve the effectiveness of interventions aimed at stimulating the housing market and providing quality housing to the population. The work was funded by DFID and carried out over 2013 and 2014.

It is acknowledged that conflict over land is a major source of violence in various parts of Mindanao, particularly the prosed Bangsamoro region. Historical accounts trace the root cause of land issues and identity-based conflict to the introduction of the Regalian doctrine of land ownership by Spanish colonizers. During the American colonial regime at the turn of the 20th century, dispossession of land held by the original inhabitants of Mindanao accelerated, with an emphasis of titling lands for private ownership that clashed with the tradition of ancestral domain.

The countries of East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) are among the most vulnerable in the world to the physical, social, and economic effects of natural disasters. Disaster impacts are not distributed uniformly within a population. Due to existing socio-economic conditions, cultural beliefs and traditional practices, women and men are affected differently. In many cases, the mortality rates for women in the aftermath of a disaster are much higher than those of men.

Vietnam's rapid and sustained economic growth and poverty reduction in the last two decades benefitted from the policy and legal reforms embodied in the Land Laws of 1987, 1993 and 2003 and subsequent related legal acts. This note outlines reforms related to four main themes. The first relates to the needed reform for agriculture land use to create opportunity to enhance effectiveness of land use as well as to secure farmers' rights in land use. Prolonging the duration of agricultural land tenure would give land users greater incentives to invest and care for the land.

This publication is the product of a multi-year cluster analytical and advisory work on social and land conflict management of the World Bank office in Hanoi, which aimed to assist Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE) to improve the land acquisition and conversion process to achieve more sustainable development during the current rapid urbanization and industrialization process.

This report begins by documenting the Palestinian Authority's (PA's) ongoing fiscal crisis that threatens its ability to provide basic services to the population. In 2011, the PA required about US$1.5 billion dollars in budget support, of which US$200 million to cover development expenses not funded directly by donors. However, it only received about US$814 million in budget support and US$169 million in development financing, for a total of US$983 million.

Sustainable economic growth and strong institutions are interlinked, and the present report summarizes recent economic and fiscal developments in West Bank and Gaza (WB&G) as well as providing a broad overview of institutional accomplishments to date. The present report begins by discussing the apparent slowdown in economic growth in WB&G and the current fiscal crisis facing the Palestinian Authority (PA)-resulting partly from lower-than-expected external support this year.

This paper provides an overview of land reform in South Africa from 1994 to 2011, with the focus on the land redistribution. The government policies and associated implementation since 1994 have not generated expected social and economic results for a number of reasons. Even where land has been transferred, it appears to have had minimal impact on the livelihoods of beneficiaries, largely because of inappropriate project design, a lack of necessary support services and shortages of working capital, leading to widespread underutilization of land.

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 10 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.

This policy note assesses the performance of existing land administration and management (LAM) system in the Philippines in creating an environment for competitive cities. It looks at the influence of LAM (including property rights) in the proper functioning of land markets in urban areas; the effectiveness of land use planning and regulations in shaping urban growth, reducing informality, and improving efficiency in use of space; and the impacts of property valuation and taxation practices in generating revenues to finance local development plans.