Recently, new community-level institutions have emerged in Zambézia province, Mozambique, through land rights registration. Numerous rural groups have delimited their acquired land rights and established community-level management systems. This paper assesses the rise of these ‘new’ institutions and whether they have replicated, replaced, or been added on to the existing pattern of state and nonstate institutions and processes.The new communities have registered large swathes of land, but have had had a limited impact on development processes.