In January 2015, ten years after the initial launch of USAID’s Ethiopia Strengthening Land Tenure and Administration Program (ELTAP) and Ethiopia Land Administration Program (ELAP) which issued second level land use certification for more than 588,000 parcels, the endline data collection for a rigorous impact evaluation was launched. The evaluation is motivated by and will attempt to answer the question “Does second level land certification marginally increase tenure security and improve rural livelihoods as compared to first level land certification?” Beyond contributing to the evidence base, this impact evaluation serves as a conduit to strengthen Ethiopian local capacity in the data collection sector.
Data collection will take place in Amhara, Oromia, Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples, and Tigray regions and is being conducted by the Ethiopian Inclusive Finance Training and Research Institution. The firm, which is locally owned and operated, hired eight supervisors and 43 enumerators to carry out the household surveys. The team has a wealth of experience, and supervisors train less- experienced enumerators to strengthen skillsets. Further, supervisors and enumerators alike are sensitized to the subject matter of the evaluation. One supervisor, Line Kinfe shared, “I think I will gain a lot of experience from this survey [on land issues]. Land issues is a big issue in our country.”
This data collection offers the opportunity for the data collection team to learn and expand on their knowledge of CSPro—an open-sourced computer-assisted personal interviewing software package developed by the U.S. Government. They are also building their knowledge of geographic information systems (GIS), as handheld GPS devices are being used to track which households are involved in the data collection and associate geographic and other geodata with these households.
USAID’s impact evaluations are not only building the evidence base to strengthen the knowledge and information used to determine the most appropriate and effective interventions in the land tenure and property rights sector, but are also strengthening local capacity and building skills and knowledge which can be used in the future..
Release Date: Wednesday, April 1, 2015