It is no secret that registering land in Indonesia can be a very difficult process, as it is both time consuming and costly. This is evident in that until 1992 only 12 million land parcels had been registered (22% of the total number of land parcels in Indonesia at that time). This phenomenon is not unique to Indonesia, similar cases have also appeared in other developing nations as reported by Hernando de Soto in his latest book ''The Mystery of Capital".

In order to speed up the land certification process, in the 1994/95 budget year the Indonesian government introduced the Land Administration Project (LAP) using loan funds from the World Bank. The first stage of the project lasted five years, and has just been completed. This edition highlights the results of SMERU's research on the implementation of the LAP, aiming to answer the following questions: What is the impact of the project? How is the project being implemented and what are the results? And, what is required for the project to be continued? In this edition, we have included the main findings from both SMERU's qualitative and quantitative research as well as individual case studies from the LAP.

Pieter Evers, a legal expert on land administration, enriches our understanding of land policy in Indonesia with his article on land administration requirements and the challenges we have to face with land issues. Finally, an article from SMERU's Decentralization and Local Governance Division is provided on the role of the National Land Agency (BPN) under regional autonomy, as well as the perceptions of the regions regarding the LAP.