The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) established a partnership with Michigan State University (MSU) to design and conduct the evaluation of the Land Administration Reform Project (LARP). A matched comparison group difference-in-differences evaluation strategy was designed and baseline data were collected in March-June 2013 (https://data.mcc.gov/evaluations/index.php/catalog/85 ), aimed at to test whether the following expected outcomes were realized and attributable to LARP:
(1) Reduction in the financial and time burden of conducting land transaction with LAA and increased efficiency in rendering land administration services to the public by LAA;
(2) Reduction in time for land conflict resolution and reduction in land related conflicts within the areas where there has been intervention amongst the 55,000 lease holders;
(3) Increased number of land parcels used as collateral for mortgage, and increased property investment, subleasing, rentals and other economic activities;
(4) Increased frequency of formal land transaction, increased land values, and increased base case mortgage lending volume;
(5) Increased household income of primary and secondary beneficiaries;
(6) Increased understanding by Basotho of their rights and knowledge about services rendered by the LAA; and
(7) Increased willingness of other land owners outside the regularization impact areas to request formal land title.
After reviewing the initial evaluation design and baseline data, complementary approaches are proposed for impact and performance evaluation of LTRP activities. Besides conducting follow up survey of households interviewed at baseline, geographic discontinuity design (households sampled on both sides the border of treatment wards) and use of time-series high resolution aerial photography are proposed to cost-effectively complement the original methodology and assess the medium-term effect of the different components of LARP. The follow up survey is conducted by the Lesotho Bureau of Statistics and extraction of vector data from 2009 and 2016 high resolution data is done by the World Bank research team. Anonymized clean data will be publicly available once data collection and compilation are completed.