A prevalent feature of land markets in many poor countries is that land transactions are eitherprohibited by law or face high transaction costs, preventing the allocation of land to bestuses. This is relevant because factor misallocation stemming from imperfect land markets hasbeen emphasized as a major obstacle limiting agricultural productivity in poor countries, andplays an important role in understanding dierences in income per capita across countries.1

This study looks at the effects of rural land certification in securing land rights in Amhara region.  It also looks at the status of land improvement activities made by land holders after the government certification programme and the extent and composition of disputes over land.  It was based on secondary data collected from governmental organizations and a field survey carried out in five administrative kebeles of the Fagetalekoma wereda in Amhara region.

This study analyses the impact of land registration and certification on rural farm households’investment on conservation, maintenance and tree planting in Ethiopia. I used cross-sectional datacollected from Tigray region in 2015. The Instrumental variable approach used to control forendogeneity in certificate ownership shows there is no systematic distribution in certificateownership or no endogeneity. The estimation results suggest a mixed result with different outcomevariables used as proxy for land related investment. There is positive and significant correlationbetween possession of land certificates and investment in conservation and maintenance orimprovement of conservation structures. However, I didn’t find a significant correlation betweencertificate and tree planting. Variables such as distance of farm plots and public investment onplots tend to have a strong and positive effect on farmers decision on land related investments.

Strong property rights have long been touted as key to increased performance of the rural economy in developing countries. Indeed, in an overwhelmingly agrarian economy like Ethiopia, with state ownership of land, increased land tenure security of individual farmers is expected to play a significant role in factor allocation within and beyond the agricultural sector. This paper analyses the impact of a land certification program on farmers’ off-farm participation, based on household-level panel data collected in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. Identification of the program’s impact relies on the sequential nature of its implementation and application of the Difference-in-Differences strategy. Our results suggest that certification is a significant determinant of participation in major off-farm employment activities. The program’s effect is not shown to depend on size of landholdings.

Numerous researchers have said a great deal about private and/or state landholdingsystems in Ethiopia. Many laws and policies have been issued throughout thehistory of the Ethiopian state concerning regulation of the land tenure system.Researchers and policy-makers in Ethiopia generally favour either a private orstate landholding system.

This article argues that, in Ethiopia, the aim to transform the performance of smallholder agricultural production is driven by the twin imperatives of economic growth and political control.  The agricultural extension programme – the largest and fastest growing in the continent – has been central to this strategy, and the unparalleled investment in the extension system has been driven by these twin imperatives.  However, there are tensions between the objectives of stimulating agricultural growth, on the one hand, and extensively penetrating society and winning elections, on the other, and these may reduce the returns to this investment.  Implications are drawn for wider debates on the reform of agricultural extension.

In surveying the literature on land tenure reform in Africa, what can readily beobserved is that much of that body of work has comprised a markedly econometric andtechnical focus, to the neglect of evidently contiguous political factors. As a result,fundamental structural impediments to reform efforts have largely been ignored - a factthat may be reflected in the failure of many titling interventions. In light of thisomission, the nature of political economy in both Ethiopia and Africa more generally isdelineated in this thesis, in order to construct a more rounded conceptual frameworkthrough which the issue of land tenure can be deciphered.

Land registration and certification has been perceived as a precondition for secure property rights and agricultural development. The objective of this study was to examine the role of rural land registration and certification program in ensuring tenure security in Menz Gera Midir District, in Amhara State. Data for this study were collected through questionnaire, interview of farmers and experts of the field and focus group discussions. About four hundred households were taken as sample population for the questionnaire. A total of one hundred thirty two households were participated in the focus group discussions. The data collected through questionnaire were analyzed quantitatively; whereas data collected through focus group discussions and interviews were compiled, summarized and interpreted qualitatively by cross checking with responses of questionnaires. The findings of this study show that in Menz Gera Midir District rural land registration and certification program ensured tenure security.

Ethiopia experienced different land tenure systems. Without further going to old times and only looking at the past one century, it is possible to classify the land tenure systems of the country into two. Pre-1974 period could be characterized as a feudal system where a mixture of private, government, church and communal land holdings coexisted. These land tenure systems had various kinds of landholding arrangements. The two prominent kings of the country in the contemporary era – Emperor Minlik and Emperor Hailesilassie introduced written land laws, which were believed to benefit certain land lords and to affect majority of the farming communities (Solomon 1994 and Witten 2007:158). However, the laws during the emperors’ time allowed sale, exchange and mortgage of individual holdings.