Abstract:
Sound land administration needs effective and good governance, which has become a major area
of focus for the government of Ethiopia. However, there is still a gap in applying the principles
of good governance to urban land administration. The objective of the study was to assess the
practices and challenges of urban land governance in the Ambo Town Land Administration
office. To achieve this objective, the study has applied a two-stage representative sampling
technique. The researcher has employed a descriptive research design, and both quantitative and
qualitative methods were adopted and binary logistic regression model to see the determinants
of urban land governance. The study used 124 systematically selected sample households from
two sampled kebeles. The primary data was collected from city municipal officials and experts,
participants in focus group discussions, and households by the researcher with the help of
enumerators, and secondary data were collected from rules and regulations, documents
concerning land and property registration systems, different documents on good governance
principles, and official records. Five (5) key informants from sectoral offices concerning urban
land governance were interviewed. The researcher has also organized two focus group
discussions with six (8) purposefully selected participants in each group, comprising the
residents of Ambo Town. Qualitative data were analyzed through narration, while quantitative
data were analyzed through descriptive statistics. The cumulative findings revealed that there is
an absence of transparency, less participation of people, a problem of responsiveness and
inefficient as well as ineffective land administration systems, and administrative, technical, and
capacity problems were the major challenges in the study area. Finally, the study recommends
improving the participation of people, striving for high level integration between service
rendering departments and offices, instituting a pro-poor land allocation and management
system, strict controlling and evaluation systems for employees, applying the modern cadastral
system of land registration, balancing employees-customers' ratios, and setting clear and
uniform work procedures as recommendations based on the findings of the study
