Increased global demand for land because of higher and more volatile food prices, urbanization, and use of land for environmental services implies an increased need for well-designed land policies at the country level to ensure security of long-held rights, to facilitate land access, and to deal with externalities.  Establishing the infrastructure necessary to proactively deal with these challenges can require large amounts of resources.  Yet with land tenure deeply rooted in any country’s history, a wide continuum of land rights, and vast differences in the level of socioeconomic development, the benefits to be expected and the challenges faced will vary across and even within countries, implying a need to adapt the nature and sequencing of reforms to country circumstances.

Ethiopia's performance on land governance is assessed using the Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF), which is a diagnostic tool developed by the WB and its partners. The aim of the assessment is to look the land governance status of the country and suggest ways on how to make corrective measures in those areas that are found weak and very weak performances and how to strengthen those performances that are found strong and very strong. Information are collected from existing record, administrative reports, reviewing existing policies and legal frameworks and institutional setups at federal and regional levels by nine professional experts assigned for each panel.

The Kenya Land Governance Assessment Framework was conducted in 2014-2015 against the backdrop of a new Constitution, new land laws and new institutions. It takes stock of progress in lanreforms and assesses the status of land governance in Kenya. The Assessment covered nine thematic areas,namely:Land tenure recognition; Rights to forest and common lands & rural land use regulations; Urban land use, planning, and
development; Public land management; Process and economic benefit of transfer of public land to private use; Public provision of land information; Land valuation and taxation; Dispute resolution; and Institutional arngements and policies.

From March 2013 to August 2013, the South Sudan Law Society (SSLS), with the support of the World Bank, conducted a comprehensive assessment of land governance in South Sudan. The research was structured around the Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF), a tool
developed by the World Bank and its partners to evaluate the legal framework, policies and practices relating to land governance in a given country

This report was written nearly one year ago, a few weeks before a conflict erupted in Juba on 15 December 2013 and spread throughout much of the Upper Nile region.  In the early days of the conflict, publishing a report about land governance hardly seemed like a priority.  But a closer examination would have shown that a number of long-standing problems, including tensions overland, were among the factors that set the stage for the conflict.  Since obtaining regional autonomy in 2005, the Government of South Sudan has struggled to establish functional land governance systems.  Instances of land grabbing by political and military elites and dysfunctional land administration processes have been sources of frustration for many years.

The Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF) is a iagnostic tool for the evaluation of the legal framework, policies and practices regarding land and land use. The LGAF is based on a comprehensive review of available conceptual and empirical material regarding experience in land governance.