Modernizing Land Administration : A Coverage-First Agenda for Digital Transformation

Overview & Synopsis

Governments and development partners have invested heavily in digitalizing land administration, often treating front-end digital services as the primary route to improved land market outcomes. Using World Bank’s Business Ready (B-READY) 2025 data for 101 economies, this Brief test whether land registry and cadaster coverage or digital public services are more closely associated with firms’ reported constraints in access to land (Enterprise Surveys, range 0-15). A multivariate regression controlling for income groups finds that coverage remains a significant predictor of land access outcomes while digital public services lose significance. Digital public services, however, are strongly associated with transparency in land administration, and interoperability between registries is associated with shorter times for property transfer. Several middle-income economies match or exceed high-income peers on a composite digital infrastructure score, pointing to the progress that does not depend on income level alone. These findings support a sequenced reform agenda: strengthen coverage and interoperability first and then layer high-impact digital services on top. The analysis focuses on the property transfer and land administration components of the Business Location topic and uses the Enterprise Surveys indicator on access to land being a major constraint as a perception-based outcome measure.