Abstract (EN)

The Malagasy reform ongoing since 2005 belongs to a new generation of land reforms in Africa. Two major innovations have emerged: decentralized land management through the creation of local land offices at commune level and land certification. The land reform objective is to overcome the pitfalls of the former land titling system and to provide tenure security to a majority of households thanks to a low cost, easy and participatory registration process. However, contrary to similar land reform in other African countries such as Ethiopia or Rwanda, land certification is “on demand” and not based on a systematic demarcation process. Is the Malagasy certification really massive and inclusive? To explore this issue, the paper analyzes the evolution and the determinants of land certificates demand. It puts a special emphasis on the forms of offer (promotional campaigns) and its impacts on the level and distribution of demand for land certificates. Policy implications to foster inclusivity and local and offices sustainability are debated. The paper uses first-band data that were collected through two specially designed survey conducted on a large sample of rural households in 2011 and 2015 (1 834 with 1 551 households in panel) in nine communes of Madagascar.