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informal rights may have “informal proofs” of rights, i.e., documents
accepted by the community but not by the formal state administration.
An enforcement or protection component is essential to effective
land administration since rights to land are valuable when claims to

them can be enforced. Such a component allows a person’s recognized
rights to be protected against the acts of others. This protection may
come from the state or the community through social consensus. A

stable land tenure regime is one in which the results of protective
actions are relatively easy to forecast. In a formal legal setting, rights
may be enforced through the system of courts, tribunals, etc. In a
customary tenure environment, rights may be enforced through

customary leaders. In both cases, people may be induced to recognise
the rights of others through informal mechanisms such as community
pressures. People who know their rights, and know what to do if those

rights are infringed, are more able to protect their rights than those
who are less knowledgeable.
Land administration is implemented through sets of procedures to

manage information on rights and their protection, such as:
 Procedures for land rights include defining how rights can be
transferred from one party to another through sale, lease, loan, gift and

inheritance.
 Procedures for land use regulation include defining the way in
which land use controls are to be planned and enforced.
 Procedures for land valuation and taxation include defining

methodologies for valuing and taxing land.
Efficient procedures allow transactions to be completed quickly,
inexpensively, and transparently. However, in many parts of the

world, formal land administration procedures are time-consuming,
bureaucratically cumbersome and expensive, and are frequently non-
transparent, inaccessible to much of the rural population, and are
handled in languages and forms that people do not understand. In such

cases, high transaction costs may result in transfers and other dealings
taking place off-the-record or informally.
Finally, land administration requires actors to implement the

procedures. In customary tenure regimes, the customary leaders may
play the principal role in land administration, for example in
allocating rights and resolving disputes. In a more formal setting, land

administration agencies may include land registries, land surveying,
urban and rural planning, and land valuation and taxation, as well as

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