Informal Land Delivery Processes and Access to Land for the Poor: A Comparative Study of Six African Cities

Carole Rakodi and Clement R. Leduka

International Development Department School of Public Policy The University of Birmingham England

Informal Land Delivery Processes in African Cities in Informal Land Delivery Processes Department of Geography National University of Lesotho Roma

Lesotho Policy Brief - 6 Contents

Summary 1

Introduction 3 - Why research informal land delivery processes? - Aims of the research - Starting points - The comparative study

Delivery channels : Land for residential use in African cities 13 - Allocation of public land - Purchase of land through the market - Delivery of customary land through state-sanctioned channels - Delivery of land through customary channels to members of the group - Allocation by officials - Purchase of customary land - Self allocation

Conflict or harmony? Relations between informal and formal 24 institutions and actors - Conflicts - The tactics of non-state actors - State tactics

Conclusion 37 - Main conclusions - Policy implications

Footnotes 43

The research was funded by the UK Department for International Development. DFID supports policies, programmes and projects to promote international development. It provided funds for this study as part of that objective but the views and opinions expressed are those of the authors alone.

International Development Department School of Public Policy, J G Smith Building, The University of Birmingham,, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK

Website: www.idd.bham.ac.uk Summary

To improve policy and practice, a better „ membership of an indigenous landowning understanding is needed of how the informal systems community (e.g. Enugu, Maseru) through which half or more of the residential land in „ settlement in hazardous areas (e.g. Kampala) African cities is delivered operate, are evolving and „ allocation of customary land or a serviced plot interact with formal land administration systems. This in Gaborone study analysed the characteristics of informal land „ payment for informally subdivided land in delivery systems in six medium-sized cities in instalments Anglophone Africa: Eldoret (Kenya), Enugu „ pooling resources to purchase a plot, for (Nigeria), Gaborone (Botswana), Kampala example in areas subdivided by landbuying (Uganda), Lusaka (Zambia) and Maseru (Lesotho). companies in Eldoret Its aims were to „ some local residents in regularised informal „ assess the strengths and weaknesses of alternative settlements in Lusaka. land delivery mechanisms, especially with respect Women generally get access to land through to the extent to which they enable the poor and marriage. In older-established areas women plot women to access land with secure tenure holders are mostly widows. Women with means „ increase understanding of the institutions that increasingly purchase land through informal channels. underpin and regulate transactions and are used to resolve disputes in land iii. For many new households in contemporary The main conclusions were that African cities, especially the poor, the only way i. Informal land delivery systems are in part a of becoming the owner of a plot on which to continuation of earlier land administration build a house is through subdivision or inheritance practices and in part a response to the failures of of a parent’s plot. In practice, most poor the formal tenure and land administration systems. households are tenants. These failures include the low levels of iv. Informal land delivery processes are often compensation paid by government when it effective in delivering land for housing, because expropriates land, as well as cumbersome and of their user-friendly characteristics and social costly regulatory procedures. legitimacy. This legitimacy derives from the widely ii. Informal systems of land delivery are the main understood and accepted social institutions that channels of housing land supply. In the past, in regulate transactions in these informal systems. many cities, they enabled all but the poorest to These institutions are generally derived from access land for self-managed house construction. customary institutions, but have evolved over Today, non-commercial channels for obtaining time. In particular, in urban contexts, they have land are restricted and the vast majority of often borrowed from and mimic formal rules and households who obtain land through informal procedures, or take advantage of ambiguities and channels purchase it. The plots are supplied inconsistencies in formal rules. through subdivision and sale of land held under v. Urban growth and development increase the customary tenure (Enugu, Gaborone, Maseru), pressure on such social institutions, and in some by owners and tenants of mailo land (Kampala), cases, they weaken and break down, leading to by the shareholders in landbuying companies increased tenure insecurity. In such situations, (Eldoret), and semi-officially by party and local actors in land transactions and disputes seek to government officials in and adjacent to regularised use formal institutions to protect their rights and informal settlements (Lusaka). It is no longer investments. The extent to which formal legal and possible for poor households to access land for administrative systems recognise and work with new residential building, with a few, often minor, or resist informal practices varies. exceptions: 1 c I T AFRICAN E S

Policy implications „ Security can be enhanced by public sector agencies accepting innovations in procedures i. Informal land delivery systems play a significant and documentation that have emerged in and effective role in urban residential land supply informal systems, because these are popularly in African cities and so should be tolerated and understood, widely accepted, cheap and accommodated. Their strengths should be procedurally simple. recognised and built on. However, their „ Threats to women’s security of tenure should shortcomings should also be identified and be tackled through matrimonial as well as addressed. property law. ii. To encourage investment in both owner- iii. The poor layouts and inadequate services that occupied and rental housing, the tenure security often characterise informal settlements can be available to those who access land through addressed by recognising such areas, paving the informal delivery channels should be enhanced. way for working with subdividers and sellers to In some circumstances, this may imply individual improve layouts and enabling the early provision titling, but wholesale titling is often not of basic services. appropriate, for three main reasons: iv. As well as making it possible to charge users for „ Titling massively increases the value of urban land, making it even less accessible to low- services, the registration of occupiers enables income groups local governments to generate tax revenue. „ There is rarely capacity in the formal regulatory v. To build on the strengths and address the system to adjudicate, survey and register large weaknesses of informal delivery systems in numbers of individual titles. Rather than issuing varying local contexts, the formal land titles to a minority of landholders, the administration system should be decentralised, resources available should be used more in particular to provide for local registration of strategically, to guide urban development land rights and transactions. „ Owner-occupiers are unlikely to mortgage their homes in order to release the capital tied vi. Revised compensation provisions are needed, up in property for other purposes. The reasons requiring governments to pay adequate and fair include the absence of developed financial compensation when they expropriate land for systems, as well as the priority households public purposes from private or customary rights give to livelihood security and their desire to holders. This would bequeath urban property to their successors. „ Deter premature informal subdivision intended In many countries, alternatives to universal to preempt arbitrary and under-compensated individual plot titles are available under existing expropriation (e.g. Enugu and Maseru) legislation. „ Improve the operation of some state-led subdivision and allocation processes (e.g. In addition, threats to security often arise from tribal Land Boards in Gaborone) government action, especially evictions. „ Increase the ability of governments to provide „ Governments should provide basic short-term land for infrastructure or industry without security to residents in informal settlements antagonising local land rights holders (e.g. and, in the vast majority of cases, should cease Enugu) to evict settlers and demolish houses „ Enable governments to increase the supply of serviced land for low income housing. 2 Introduction

Why research informal land In the early years of rapid rural-urban migration many households, including poor households, were delivery processes? able to get access to land to manage the construction The colonial powers in Africa introduced urban land of their own houses for little or no payment, through administration systems that were modelled on the ‘squatting’ or similar arrangements. Following systems of their home countries. The extent to which research in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a feeling indigenous tenure systems were understood, that the processes of ‘squatting’ and the allocation recognised and incorporated varied from colony to of customary land by legitimate rights holders were colony, but it was generally believed that only a fairly well understood. Upgrading projects of the 1970s and 1980s were designed and implemented formal system based on a European model could on this basis. provide a framework for urban development and protect the rights of urban property owners (who at Most countries have now reversed some of the most that time were expatriates). These land extreme versions of state intervention, but other administration systems, which were inherited at components remain despite serious implementation independence, are governed by formal rules set out failures. There is considerable doubt about whether in legislation and administrative procedures. recent attempts to improve land management will However, the legislative provisions and the be any more successful than previous approaches. administrative systems that were established to In part, pessimism about the prospects for efficient implement them proved quite unable to cope with and equitable urban land management arises from the rapid urban growth that occurred after the continued lack of resources and capacity in independence. government, but it also stems from doubts about the appropriateness of the principles and concepts The state-led approaches to development favoured on which recent urban land policies have been based. in the 1960s and 1970s were associated with large- scale public intervention in urban land delivery Much research on land and property in African systems. However, the cost of implementation and towns and cities assumes that the state has both the compliance has been too high for low-income duty and the capacity to take on a major countries, cities and inhabitants. At their extreme, interventionist role in land management. It land and property markets were perceived as concentrates on documenting and explaining the ineffective or exploitative. These views were failures (and more rarely successes) of state translated into attempts to de-marketise land by interventions. Despite their significant role in nationalisation and/or government control over land providing land for urban development, there has market transactions. Whether or not the concepts been relatively little recent in-depth research on processes of informal land delivery or the institutions on which such land policies were based were sound, (rules and norms of behaviour) that enable them to limited capacity at national and municipal levels operate and that govern the relationships between ensured their failure. The subdivision and allocation the actors involved. of residential plots by governments has very rarely met demand and attempts to regulate and register Informal systems for delivering and accessing land all transactions in land and property have been operate according to a variety of social rules that universally unsuccessful. As a result, most land for are understood and complied with by actors in the urban development has been supplied through system. These can be conceptualised as institutions alternative channels1. that enable transactions to occur and regulate relations between actors. They have been

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documented for indigenous land tenure systems, However, the ways in which informal land delivery generally with reference to the rural areas. However, processes are evolving in contemporary cities have not only do indigenous land tenure arrangements been little studied. As a result, the land policy and change over time in rural areas due to changing administration reforms on which many countries have social, political and economic circumstances, they embarked since the 1970s have not only also change when they come face to face with the concentrated on rural land but have also often been demands of urban growth. In part the changes are ill-informed and ineffective with respect to urban reactions to the demands for small plots for land. In addition, they have lacked legitimacy, giving residential development by both indigenes and rise to difficulties of compliance and enforcement, strangers. However, they are also adaptations to the in part because they are not based on an introduction by colonial and post-colonial understanding of the social rules governing how governments of land tenure changes and formal rules people act in partly commercialised informal land intended to regulate urban land development. Thus systems. To improve policy and practice, a better in urban areas, the social institutions that regulate understanding is needed of how both formal and transactions in land and relations between the actors informal systems operate, interact and are evolving. involved are hybrids of formal and informal rules.

Maseru Aims of the research the poor and other vulnerable groups (especially women) to access land with secure tenure The aim of the project was to improve understanding „ to increase understanding of the institutions that of contemporary informal land delivery processes underpin and regulate transactions and disputes in six African cities and their relationships with formal in land, and land administrative systems. It analysed the „ to identify and explore implications for policy. characteristics of informal land markets and delivery systems Six medium sized cities in Anglophane Africa were studied: Eldoret in Kenya, Enugu in Nigeria, „ to assess the strengths and weaknesses of Gaborone in Botswana, Kampala in Uganda, alternative land delivery mechanisms, especially Lusaka in Zambia and Maseru in Lesotho. In all of with respect to the extent to which they enable these cities informal land delivery systems are 4 c I T AFRICAN E S

important. They also typify different colonial and Social structure and the agency of social post-colonial policies, legal frameworks, governance actors arrangements and urban management experiences. Many studies assume that the state plays a dominant In this summary paper, the empirical and theoretical role in society and analyse urban development in starting points for the research are first outlined, terms of actors’ compliance with formal state rules. followed by the analytical and methodological It is assumed that the state has access to resources approach adopted. Each of the main channels of that enable it to exercise power over other social land delivery is then discussed in turn, and their actors, who respond passively2. In practice, strengths and weaknesses identified, with reference although power is unequally distributed, no actors to a common set of criteria. The paper draws on are powerless. Even dominated social groups selected empirical examples from the case study possess resources that enable them to actively cities to illustrate ways in which the social institutions engage with other actors. These resources give them governing relations between actors in informal land agency and therefore power, perhaps enabling them delivery systems have evolved, as a result of conflict to influence the actions of dominant groups. For or accommodation. Finally, the main conclusions example, apparently powerless actors can re- and policy implications are identified. interpret, use or challenge the formal rules specified by the state, creating opportunities for changes both Starting points to the rules themselves and to the relationships between state structures and non-state actors, in this Much research on urban land and property in African instance with respect to urban land and property3. towns and cities assumes that the state has both the If we are concerned to understand not just the obligation and the capacity to intervene in land exercise of power by the state and elite social groups management. As a result, analyses often focus on but also what happens when apparently less powerful failures to comply with formal state law and groups take action themselves, we need to regulations, thereby elevating formal state law over understand the nature of relationships between other socially embedded rules on which actors draw various social actors. Institutional analysis can assist to regulate transactions in land. In this research, we in developing such an understanding. attempted to give non-statutory law and custom, as well as social relations between actors in informal Analysing social institutions or rules land delivery systems, equal status with state law Social institutions govern the social, economic and and organisations, and to focus on the predominant political relations between individual actors and, contemporary processes of land delivery and not together with resources of various types, make it merely the weaknesses of public land administration. possible for social systems to exist and function. To understand how the processes of land delivery They may be divided into formal and informal operate and how transactions and disputes are institutions. regulated, we drew on insights from three types of social analysis. Formal institutions are rules of the game that are explicitly drawn up and defined, in particular state law. They specify rules to be followed in performing certain activities or fulfilling obligations, in theory enforceable because of state access to legal and coercive power.

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Informal institutions, on the other hand, are compliance12. This does not mean that such groups embedded social norms and practices, including are autonomous with respect to society as a whole customary rules4. They are revealed through actors’ – each is also embedded “in a larger social matrix everyday practices, transactions and disputes5. This which can, and does, affect and invade it..”13. implies a pluralist view of law, which sees non-state Members of such a group may, however, jointly fail legal forms, whether or not recognised in state law, to comply with rules that do not suit their interests, as relevant to understanding practices and relations in particular state or formal rules. relating to land and does not give one system of law greater standing than another6. The idea of societal non-compliance arises from acknowledging the agency of individual social actors. Institutional analysis evolved to explain the operation Sometimes termed a ‘weapon of the weak’, non- of markets. It stresses the importance of institutions compliance may be exercised by those without overt or rules because of their roles in minimising the cost power in order to subtly challenge the actions of of transactions or proscribing certain actions and those with formal political or organisational power14. behaviour, thereby enabling markets to work If non-compliance becomes sufficiently widespread, 7 effectively . It has been used to explain land disputes it may even produce changes to government policy 8 in informal settlements in Jordan ; land and housing and practice, as Tripp argues it did in Tanzania with 9 markets and informal credit in Trinidad ; the respect to government attitudes towards informal provision of infrastructure services to informal sector activity15. settlements in Turkey and Egypt10; and the strengths and weaknesses of informal land management The interaction between land market actors may take systems in Tanzania and Lesotho11. a variety of forms: direct confrontation between social groups and state agencies, attempts by the In urban studies, institutional analysis has primarily disadvantaged to capture property rights or power focused on the efficiency of rules in enhancing or from the rich, or ‘covert’ non-compliance with formal constraining market transactions, but has been rather rules. Direct challenges or protests by the poor, for silent on issues of equity and power relations example through land invasions, are risky. An between market actors. While sociological theory alternative may be to seek political patronage, in acknowledges, as suggested above, that the poor order to access state resources, obtain redress for actively engage with the better off and with the state, grievances or provide backing for challenges to we need a way of understanding how such groups private property rights. Probably more often, quiet organise themselves and exert influence on more individualistic actions, with no discernible powerful social actors. organisation or planning, are taken, in which actors aim to avoid direct confrontation with the authorities. Understanding the actions of social groups Informal settlements in the cities of developing To analyse how apparently powerless social groups countries are often the outcomes of a combination can organise themselves and assert their own of tactics. To Razzaz, the most compelling attribute interests against more powerful groups, including the of those involved in gaining access to land through state, it is helpful to conceive of a social group with informal channels is their ability to take advantage few formal resources as nevertheless capable of of inconsistencies in state rules and enforcement generating informal norms and rules of behaviour, strategies16. with which its members can induce or enforce

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Hypotheses uncertain – in some instances, state agencies can enforce compliance, for example, through eviction Based on insights drawn from this wider body of and demolition, but in other cases, informal actors literature, the starting hypotheses of this research may prevail, perhaps by sheer weight of numbers, were, first, that the success of informal land delivery leading to recognition and upgrading of informal systems in supplying between a half and seventy per settlements. cent of all land for urban residential development, including land for the poor, can be attributed to their In their interactions, both state and non-state actors practical attributes and their social legitimacy17. The may adhere to the formal rules of state law and practical attributes, it was suggested, make the regulation, but may also be influenced by informal arrangements more suited to the needs of urban land social norms and ways of regulating transactions. rights holders and those seeking land for housing, The relations between state structures and informal including the poor, while wide understanding and actors are, therefore, complex and dynamic, acceptance of the social rules governing relations because, although formal state rules are in theory between actors in the system serve to secure wider omnipotent, in practice they are negotiable19. compliance than is common for formal land Understanding the circumstances in which regulation. accommodation rather than conflict occurs is potentially important in identifying workable Second, it was hypothesised that, as urban improvements to urban land delivery systems. development proceeds, the informal institutions that regulate land transactions and use change over time, vary between residential areas and sometimes break down. The pressures generated by urban property markets and increased demand result in changes in traditional social institutions in order to make them more suited to the circumstances of urban areas. In newly urbanising areas, as shown by research in Dar es Salaam, modified versions of traditional social institutions underlie quite smooth processes of conversion of agricultural land for urban uses. However, this research also showed that, as areas consolidate and the density of development increases, the informal social rules used to regulate transactions and resolve disputes become increasingly strained, and may eventually break down altogether18. Third, the relations between disadvantaged groups seeking land and state agencies are likely to involve both conflict and accommodation. A distinction needs to be made between cases where non- compliance leads to conflict and where it leads to accommodation, identifying the reasons for these different reactions. The outcomes of conflicts are Busega, Kampala

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The comparative study traditional authorities, vary between the countries and the responsibilities for urban land delivery, Coordinated by Carole Rakodi of the University of regulation and tenure registration are differently Birmingham and Clement Leduka of the National allocated between government levels and agencies. University of Lesotho, the research was comprised of in-depth studies of six cities. The criteria for It was decided to avoid the largest cities, partly selection of the cities are explained first, followed because they have already been relatively well by a summary of the methodological approach studied, partly because their very active property adopted. Some basic information on each city is also markets are not necessarily typical of cities in general, given. and partly because researching land in situations where land issues are highly politicised is very difficult. Even within countries, the circumstances in different Thus the research focused on six medium-sized cities vary. International comparisons are even more cities, some capitals of relatively small countries, and complex, because of the enormous variation in the others secondary cities. The cities and the local characteristics of cities, their land markets and their researchers are shown in the box opposite. administrative arrangements. In order to make it possible to draw conclusions from comparative The aims of the project and the methodological analysis, it is desirable to hold some factors relatively approach were jointly developed by the researchers. constant. In this research, it was considered that one The local teams studied such critical factor was the principles on which the a) The context for urban development, including formal legal system is based and it was, therefore, socio-political and economic conditions, the legal decided to select cities from Anglophone Africa. and administrative framework for land These include cities from eastern, southern and west administration and the actors in land development Africa, but exclude cities where recent or current research on related issues is already under way20. b) Land delivery systems, including the volume, types and regulation of land transactions in each The cities are located in countries with different delivery channel21. Although the research colonial policies with respect to land and urban focussed on informal land delivery, formal development, arising in part from whether a system systems were also investigated (mainly using of direct or indirect rule was adopted. They also secondary sources). It is well known that, represent countries with very different post-colonial although the performance of formal delivery economic and land policies. These vary from free- systems is variable, they have often not delivered market oriented Kenya to heavily state-led land with appropriate characteristics and in Botswana and Zambia, and include countries which sufficient volumes to meet the demand for housing have been subject to military or single party rule in land. A review of their effectiveness was, the period since independence (Nigeria, Zambia, however, felt to be necessary as a basis for Kenya, Lesotho) as well as a country which has comparison with informal delivery channels. been a multi-party democracy throughout Moreover, there is often no clear division (Botswana). between formal and informal systems. Some had attempted to nationalise land and introduce c) The characteristics of those accessing land other reforms in the 1970s (although many of these through the alternative delivery systems, in order reforms had subsequently been reversed) and some to assess whether the channels identified did in had not. The governance arrangements at both the past and continue today to supply land to the national and local level, including the role of 8 c I T AFRICAN E S

Eldoret, Kenya Rose Musyoka, Department of Physical Planning, Government of Kenya Enugu, Nigeria Cosmas Uche Ikejiofor, Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Gusau, Zamfara State, Nigeria Gaborone, Botswana Faustin Kalabamu, Department of Architecture and Planning, and Siamsang Morolong, Department of Law, University of Botswana Kampala, Uganda Emmanuel Nkurunziza, Department of Surveying, Makerere University Lusaka, Zamba Leonard Chileshe Mulenga, Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Zambia Maseru, Lesotho Clement Leduka, Department of Geography, National University of Lesotho

urban poor and other disadvantaged groups, drawing on both secondary sources and primary especially women. data collection. In each of the case study settlements, a sample survey of plotholders was d) The authority structures, both those vested in the carried out using a structured questionnaire. The state and those associated with other social survey was complemented by key informant institutions, and their roles in land transactions interviews and a series of focus group discussions. and dispute resolution Finally, each team enlisted the services of a lawyer e) The institutions regulating transactions and to provide background on law and court cases disputes in land, including an assessment of the relevant to understanding urban land issues in general extent to which these function well and are and the resolution of disputes in particular, including legitimate in the eyes of actors in land delivery cases initially dealt with through informal or f) The effects of urbanisation pressures on land customary mechanisms. market operation and regulation, and the extent Findings and policy issues were discussed at to which the channels through which most land is workshops in each of the cities, to obtain feedback delivered for residential use can be relied on to from relevant stakeholders and make a contribution continue to meet the demand for secure tenure to current debates about land policy and in appropriate locations as urban growth administration in each of the countries studied. The proceeds. research teams generally identified some of the policy In each city, a city-level analysis was complemented implications of their findings rather than making by detailed studies in three informal settlements – a detailed recommendations, because the researchers peripheral developing area, a partly consolidated all believe that policy formulation and legislative area in which active subdivision and development change should be negotiated processes involving all was still under way, and a consolidated inner city the stakeholders in land management. Following area with a relatively high density, where pressures the workshops, full reports of the studies and policy on land might be expected to produce a higher level briefs were published and are listed on p. 45. of problems and disputes. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was used, 9 c I T AFRICAN E S

Eldoret, Kenya Enugu, Nigeria With a population of about 197,000 in 1999, Originally a coal mining town, Enugu later Eldoret is the fifth largest town in Kenya and became more important as a railway and a major regional administrative, commercial, administrative centre. Its population in 1991 educational and industrial centre. It is the was just under half a million and today may centre of Uasin Gishu District and is be between 800,000 and 1,000,000. Capital administered by an elected Municipal Council. since 1991 of Enugu State, today the city has Located on poor quality land in an otherwise administrative, educational, industrial and high potential agricultural region in the so- commercial functions. The city is currently split called ‘white highlands’, it developed as an between three Local Government Councils, agricultural service and agro-processing each with a directly elected Chairman and councillors elected on a ward basis. However, centre for the surrounding European many important land-related and utility commercial farming region. Selected as a services are provided by State agencies. growth centre and politically favoured in the 1980s, it attracted public investment in Indigenous landholding groups ceded some infrastructure and industries. land for mining, railway and housing development in the early years of Enugu’s Although the publicly owned land on which development. However, the colonial system the town initially developed has mostly been of indirect rule left most land in the hands of built on, the urban boundary has been the indigenous groups. Today, there is little extended to incorporate privately owned undeveloped land in public ownership and farmland. Today, there is limited public land public agencies use expropriation powers for subdivision and a cumbersome formal land under the 1978 Land Use Decree to obtain delivery system. land for public purposes, including industrial estates and major infrastructure. The availability of formerly European-owned farms in and around the urban boundaries and The indigenous groups and families have post-independence encouragement to formally subdivided and leased large tracts Kenyans to purchase private landholdings of their land. Nevertheless, they retain have led to the purchase of farms by ownership of much land both within the built landbuying companies formed for the up area and on the outskirts of the city. Family purpose. Transfer of freehold title is followed heads and traditional rulers of the various by subdivision and sale: formal in the case of landowning communities have to secure high-income developments, or informal for agreement of the family or group to the middle and low-income purchasers. Large disposal of farmland, while homestead land numbers of plots have been provided in this is retained for use by the family and its way. descendants. Farmland is subdivided and sold to individuals or speculators. A large volume of informally subdivided land for residential development is thus provided for group members as well as middle and upper income purchasers.

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Gaborone, Botswana Kampala, Uganda Gaborone is the capital of Botswana and had Kampala is the capital of Uganda, with a 2002 a population of about 186,000 in 2001. It population of 1.2 million. Capital of the has mainly developed on state land, enabling Buganda kingdom since the 1700s, colonial rapid and large-scale subdivision of publicly rule transformed it into a divided city, part owned land for housing for all income groups, governed by the Kabaka (king) and part by assisted by buoyant government revenues a local council established by the colonial government to administer the European derived from Botswana’s mineral wealth. section of the city. Much land was ceded to Surrounded by privately owned commercial the Crown, while the Baganda chiefs were farms, when additional land has been transformed into a ruling landed oligarchy, required, the government has been able to exercising extensive control over mailo land, purchase a large farm and has also at the expense of both the Kabaka and the occasionally acquired areas of tribal land. peasantry. While colonial indirect rule initially With the exception of Old Naledi, an early depended on the chiefs for local administration, by 1920 they had become less labour camp, which has since been regularised necessary and their power declined, although and upgraded, informal settlements within the they retained their status as big landlords. urban administrative boundary have not been tolerated. The obstacles faced by households The Kabaka’s attempts to retain control over wishing to obtain a residential plot are the kingdom’s land and administrative power, the chiefs’ determination to protect their own considerable. They include a ban on new interests, and the peasantry’s struggles to construction between 1982-7 because of restore the land rights eroded by colonial water shortages, long waiting lists and advancement of the chiefly class have been infrastructure costs. important in both the pre- and post- As a result, in recent years there has been independence periods. The destructive rule rapid subdivision and development in areas of Idi Amin from 1971 to 1979 led to a rapid of tribal land outside the administrative expansion of the informal economy, urban- rural migration and near-collapse of the civil boundary to the west and east of the city service. The current regime has struggled to (Mogoditshane and Tlokweng respectively). restore economic growth and state institutions. In theory this development is under the control of Tribal Land Boards established by the A unified administration for the city of Kampala was established in 1966/7, and government for this purpose, although the lower layers of local government put in place system does not operate smoothly. The by the current regime in 1986. However, elected Gaborone City Council and the two parallel systems of land tenure and district councils within whose boundaries the administration persist and little progress has main areas of informal settlement lie been made with implementing the 1998 Land (Kweneng and Southeast) have limited Act provisions intended to regulate the resources. As a result, central government ownership and use of land and simplify retains the main policy and administrative roles ownership and occupancy systems. related to land.

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Lusaka, Zambia Maseru, Lesotho The capital of Zambia, Lusaka originated as With a 1996 population of 140,000, Maseru an agricultural service centre on the railway is the capital of Lesotho. The innermost part line leading to the Copperbelt. Along the of the city, within the original 1905 railway, a belt of land was taken into Crown ownership and subdivided into commercial administrative boundary, developed on farms for Europeans. Only at some distance colonial government reserved land. This was from the urban centre was there any land in inherited as public land at independence. indigenous ownership, and much land in and The city is surrounded by villages and around the town was retained in public extensive informal settlements have developed ownership. In addition, much of the land near on former agricultural land held under the central business district was retained in customary tenure arrangements. Families public ownership because it was unsuitable for farming and costly to develop. As retain ownership and use of their homestead independence neared, some European land, while masimo (fields) are subdivided farmers permitted shack development on their for sale. Approximately 70 per cent of all land land, while many European farms were demand is met outside the formal state delivery abandoned. system. The government’s reaction has The relaxation of migration controls and post- generally been benign neglect, punctuated with independence growth in wage employment instances of intolerance marked by evictions led to rapid population growth. Many of the and demolitions. These have usually occurred new households were able to obtain free land when the government has had financial and to manage the construction of their own resources for land servicing and development, houses, although the provision of infrastructure mainly from donor funds. in the informal settlements had to await In order to curb the process of informal land regularisation and upgrading, starting in the 1970s. development and loss of agricultural land, especially in the peri-urban areas, new It was important to the rival political parties legislation was put in place in 1980, the Land of the 1960s and 1990s (and to UNIP under Act 1979. This Act effectively nationalised all the one-party state of the 1970s and 1980s) land, with rights to be leased from the state. to secure the support of residents in informal It also extended the urban boundary to settlements. Thus party and City Council incorporate large areas of informal settlement, administrative structures developed side by with the intention of establishing controls over side in these areas. Despite their designation as Housing Improvement Areas, Zambia’s further subdivision. Dogged by ambiguities economic and political difficulties and the lack and implementation problems, few of its aims of local government financial and have been achieved. A new land bill has been administrative capacity have hindered the drafted, but has yet to be enacted into law. achievement of improved living conditions for their residents.

12 Delivery channels Land for residential use in African cities

The studies identified the different channels through to obtain plots through non-commercial channels, which land for new residential development is made through squatting on publicly owned land or land available in each of the cities and assessed the abandoned by private owners, or membership of strengths and weaknesses of these alternative indigenous rights-holding groups. The availability of channels. This assessment used a number of criteria such channels enabled many relatively poor suggested, first, by the research questions and households to obtain a plot (although not necessarily hypotheses, and also by the research participants’ the poorest). Today, the research showed that it is responses with respect to the attributes that they no longer possible for poor households to access value in urban residential land. These criteria were: land for new residential building in urban areas, with some relatively minor exceptions: i. Scale: has the channel delivered land in sufficient volume (and in appropriate locations) to meet „ Members of indigenous land owning families and the demand for housing land from a rapidly communities in Enugu growing urban population, is it continuing to do „ Individuals in Kampala who claim wetland areas, so today, and what are the prospects of it initially for cultivation and then for building, at continuing to do so in future? considerable risk to themselves and their ii. Cost: has the channel delivered housing plots at investments a cost that can be afforded by people seeking „ People who pool their resources to buy a share land for housing, especially those with middle or or part of a share in a land buying company in low incomes? Is it continuing to do so? Eldoret iii.Security of tenure: has the channel delivered „ Poor households who are allocated land for free housing plots with sufficient security of tenure to by the tribal Land Boards on the periphery of encourage owners to invest in housing? What are Gaborone, although the process operates very the threats to security and can owners deal with slowly because the Boards lack the resources to these threats and retain their rights? speed it up iv. Access to disadvantaged groups: has the „ Those allocated a plot in a public-private channel in the past and today delivered residential partnership serviced plot programme in plots to disadvantaged groups, especially poor Gaborone, although they are only able to access households and women (whether they are heads such a plot after a long wait of household or not)? „ Locally resident households with good party v. Service provision: has the delivery of land political or official connections in areas in Lusaka through each channel been accompanied by the where party or local government officials are provision of infrastructure and services, either in semi-officially subdividing publicly or privately advance, on subdivision or subsequently? owned land in or adjacent to informal settlements vi. Dispute resolution: are there widely available designated as Housing Improvement Areas. and socially legitimate means of dispute resolution The vast majority of households in contemporary available to those accessing land through each cities obtain land for residential use through purchase. channel? The sources of plots include

The research bore out the general view that most „ Sales of customary land in Maseru, Enugu and landholders in Africa’s cities both in the past and Gaborone today obtain access to housing plots through informal „ Informal subdivision by land buying companies channels of land supply. In the past, many were able in Eldoret

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„ Informal subdivision by mailo owners and tenants Allocation of public land in Kampala „ Informal subdivision and ‘sale’ by party or local The allocation of public land for housing is of varying government officials within or adjacent to significance. In Gaborone, it always has been and settlements designated for regularisation in continues to be the main source of residential land Lusaka within the urban boundary. There have been serviced „ Purchase of undeveloped land from existing plot programmes in Maseru, Eldoret, Lusaka and plotholders. Kampala, often when external funding is available, but their scale is limited. In Kampala, customary Access to land, therefore, is restricted very largely occupiers of land taken over by the Crown under to households with the necessary financial means to the 1900 Buganda Agreement retained their usufruct purchase it. These are primarily middle and upper rights and subsequent legislation has reinforced income households. Low-income households that protection of their rights. Today, land administered have some income (not the poorest) can often by the Kampala District Land Board (municipal land negotiate flexible methods of payment for land – 15 percent of the city’s area) and the Uganda Land delivered through informal channels, including Commission (government land – 20 percent) is fully instalments. In some cases, the payments are token subdivided and occupied. ‘fees’ to party or government officials rather than a Because of the historical development of Enugu, the market ‘price’ for the land. Nevertheless, for many public sector has never owned much land in the city newly formed households, especially the poor, the and land for public purposes has to be purchased only way of accessing land is through from private rights holders, curtailing the „ plot sharing, either from the outset (e.g. by buying government’s ability to subdivide land for housing. half a share and thus half a plot in an informal In addition, the charges for allocation of plots include subdivision in Eldoret) or through the subdivision an application fee, survey fee, development premium of a plot by a parent for a child (Eldoret, (supposedly to cover the cost of infrastructure Kampala, Maseru). installation) and fees for the preparation of the „ inheritance, at least until the plots are too small certification of occupancy. The total amount payable for further subdivision and sharing amongst places such plots, even if available, beyond the reach children, at which point the prospect of being of low-income households. able to inherit a plot will decrease. The reasons for the large contribution of this channel In practice, most poor households are tenants. in Gaborone include government capacity, the nature of the political regime and the patterns of land Many households who are unable or do not wish to ownership on the outskirts of the urban area. The acquire land to construct their own houses purchase government of Botswana (and, by extension, existing properties, often in informal settlements. The Gaborone City Council) has been relatively well relative importance of markets in secondhand houses endowed financially because of the discovery of increases as cities and settlements age, but these diamonds. The country has had a relatively stable markets were not the main focus of this research. regime, based on multi-party democracy, peaceful The grounds for the main conclusions will now be transitions of power and elite consensus. This has elaborated by examining the alternative channels for enabled it to manage its economic resources relatively land delivery in turn. well, buy in expertise when required and adopt developmental policies that have spread the benefits

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Ha Matala in Maseru of revenue from diamond exports broadly within household qualify for publicly provided plots in all society. In addition, much of the land on the outskirts the cities studied, although they are often under- of the city is divided into large commercial farms in represented in actual allocations because they find private ownership, which has enabled the government it more difficult to satisfy eligibility criteria such as to purchase a farm when land is required for urban wage employment or a minimum income. In some extension. One or more of these conditions are absent circumstances, the regulations governing allocation in all the other cities studied. allow women who are not heads of household to obtain land in their own names, although there is Thus in Gaborone, public land allocation has resulted considerable social resistance on the part of both in a significant volume of land for residential officials and women and their husbands to exercise development, but this does not apply in the other this right, since for a woman to acquire land in her cities. When available, subdivided public land own name is considered to indicate a weak provides a plot with security of tenure (formal freehold marriage. However, women married in community or leasehold title), but the process of allocation is of property (especially in Lesotho) cannot register susceptible to the discretion of those responsible and land in their own names without the permission of therefore sometimes to favouritism and corruption their husbands. (see box). Land provided by the government is more likely to be serviced, but the standards adopted and There are normally provisions for individuals with therefore the cost is likely to reduce access to such complaints against the system of public land land by low income groups and never provides access allocation to appeal and for disputes to be resolved for the poorest (for example in Maseru). A further or redress sought through the formal court system. problem is that the system of public land supply is However, bureaucratic unresponsiveness, arcane often not well known and transparent, so that people language, lack of court capacity and the cost mean with low levels of literacy and little knowledge of the that the official channels for obtaining redress are bureaucracy are marginalised. This is likely to include difficult to access, slow and costly. poor people and many women. Women heads of 15 c I T AFRICAN E S

Strengths Weaknesses Significant land supply (Gaborone) Insignificant land supply (other cities) Security of tenure Susceptible to discretion/corruption More likely to be serviced Standards/cost reduce access by the poor Mechanisms for dispute resolution/complaints Opaque processes Access to women Redress hard to obtain Married women discriminated against (Maseru)

Purchase of land through the plotholders occupied their plots more recently and the status of those who have inherited from ‘lawful market or bonafide’ occupants is unclear. Nevertheless, the In two of the cities studied, purchase of land through 45 percent of Kampala’s land under mailo tenure the market was the most important means of is today the main source of new housing land supply. accessing land for housing for all income groups. In In both Eldoret and Kampala, private sales of land Eldoret, informal (as well as some formal and semi- to individual purchasers provide a significant volume formal) subdivision by land buying companies has, of housing plots, but in other cities it is unimportant since independence, provided plots for both initial (see box). It affords some access to land by the shareholders in the companies and subsequent poor, for example, through purchasers combining purchasers of plots. to buy a single share in a land buying company in In Kampala, by far the largest source of land is mailo Eldoret and subsequently subdividing the plot, or – the freehold land conferred on the King of through arrangements to pay in instalments. Buganda and his chiefs under the 1900 Buganda However, in no cases did this channel enable the Agreement, in which allotments were measured in poorest households to access land and most of the English square miles. The tenure rights of pre- purchasers are those with middle level incomes. colonial occupiers of this land were downgraded to Although the initial owners of the land may have tenancies-at-will and the rights of clan heads to hold formal rights of ownership, they rarely have individual and allocate it eroded. Political turbulence, conflict title. In Kampala, given the contested tenure rights and population movements in the 1970s and 1980s, of many occupiers and the complex land as well as inconsistencies in the land law and state administration system, title registration is slow and collapse, enabled people to acquire or sell land in difficult. In Eldoret, the title is generally held jointly which the ownership of rights was unclear. Land nationalisation in 1975 resulted in further confusion before it was reversed in the 1995 constitution and 1998 Land Act, which attempted to improve the security of occupiers of various types of land. Mailo tenure was again defined as freehold, subject only to the rights of ‘lawful or bonafide’ occupants of the land, including longstanding tenants, purchasers and people who had occupied land for at least twelve years prior to 1995 without challenge by the owner. In Kampala, the tenure security of many in the latter category is uncertain because a large proportion of Mbuya, Kampala 16 c I T AFRICAN E S by all the shareholders of a land buying company. identified by approbation rather than a formal However, the processes of obtaining official election) at the neighbourhood level in Eldoret. permission for subdivision and house construction However, both Local Council chairmen and village are slow and the standards required are often elders may be partial, favouring one party over considered unsuitable by the actors involved, so the another for reasons to do with politics, ethnicity or subdivisions do not comply with formal subdivision other factors, or they may be corrupt and susceptible and development regulations. to bribery. In these circumstances, title cannot be transferred Land buying companies formed by shareholders of or registered following a transaction and typically a mixed income groups appear to be a uniquely letter of agreement is used instead. Such letters are Kenyan phenomenon, which emerged in the period usually witnessed (by local leaders, neighbours etc). around independence, when President Kenyatta Their validity is generally respected by other actors stressed that Kenyans could not expect to get land in the land delivery process, including the formal land for free, and the purchase of land from departing registration agency if title is applied for and the courts settler farmers was encouraged. The ease with if a dispute is taken to court. However, it is possible which a company can be established in Kenya for an owner to sell a plot more than once, using a facilitates the mechanism, and high levels of trust different set of witnesses to a subsequent sale. between shareholders in the land buying companies in Eldoret are based on shared ethnicity – the vast Women can purchase land through this channel, if majority of companies are formed by members from they have means. However, married women are a single ethnic group. Some low-income people constrained from purchasing land in their own name are able to access land by the purchase of a part- by its social unacceptability, as noted above. share or subdivided plot. However, membership Disputes over transactions are rare, but when they based on shared ethnicity by definition excludes do occur, they are often resolved by local leaders – members of other ethnic groups from becoming initial the elected chairmen of the lowest level of local shareholders of plots in purchased farms (although government (effectively neighbourhood councils) in not from subsequently buying land from the original Kampala and the village elders (leaders usually shareholders)22.

Strengths Weaknesses Significant supply (Eldoret & Kampala) Insignificant supply in some cities Affords some access to land for the poor Does not provide access to land for the poorest Letters of agreement generally witnessed, Possibility for multiple sales using different respected and recognised in applications for witnesses title Record-keeping by lowest level of government Access to land for women with means poor (Kampala) Disputes often resolved by Local Councils Married women’s access to land constrained by (Kampala) or elders (Eldoret) social rules and customs Trust between shareholders in landbuying LCs/elders may be partial or corrupt companies based on shared ethnic origin Excludes other ethnic groups from membership of landbuying companies

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Delivery of customary land customary rights holders. In addition, plots are supposed to be surveyed and serviced prior to through state-sanctioned channels allocation, but the Boards lack the financial and The extent to which customary systems of tenure technical resources needed to achieve this. and land administration were formally recognised in Therefore demand exceeds supply, encouraging law and policy has varied between countries both in customary rights holders and prospective acquirers colonial times and since independence. In Botswana, to seek ways around the system, and tempting one of the channels by which land is made available Board members to favour those with something to for housing can be termed state-sanctioned offer. 23 customary land delivery . As noted above, some If the Board officially allocates a plot with a of the land on the outskirts of the city of Gaborone certificate, then the acquirer has security of tenure, was subdivided into privately owned commercial including the right to pass on the land to heirs and to farms. However, in other directions, land under the mortgage it. Although in principle the Board is administration of customary authorities adjoins the entitled to demand the return of land, the legislation urban boundary. Under current government policy, does not spell out the timing or conditions of any this land has been vested in Land Boards (one for such return, and in practice it has not occurred and each tribal area) on behalf of all citizens of Botswana. is not likely to occur. Women heads of household The Boards acquire land from individual rights can obtain land through this system, with a certificate holders, subdivide it and allocate plots to individuals in their own name, and in theory married women for an indefinite period, with a customary land could do so also. However, in practice social norms 24 certificate . held by both purchasers and Board officials mean In Gaborone, although there has been a significant that the latter would not do so in practice without supply of publicly subdivided and serviced land the explicit permission of their husbands. available for both high and low income households As in all the other channels of land delivery studied, within the city boundary, the eligibility criteria and disputes are uncommon and are normally resolved allocation process have resulted in the formation of at local level between neighbours or families. When, very long waiting lists. In addition, large numbers of relatively rarely, they cannot be easily settled, plots have been allocated but remain undeveloped, disputants appeal to the local Customary Court. and the adoption of higher standards in recent years Many of the disputes are between customary have made the serviced plots unaffordable to low owners or plot acquirers and the Land Board over income households, even though no charge is made ownership rights or compensation. While sometimes for the land itself. As a result, much new housing resolved by an approach to the Board, few trust land is being made available, acquired and developed this organisation and most litigants prefer to take in a few areas under the administration of tribal Land their grievances to the Customary Court. In the late Boards outside the city boundary. 1990s, a Land Tribunal was established to hear The study concentrated on land delivery in appeals from or against the Land Boards. Generally, Mogoditshane to the west (see also p.24-25). In both the Customary Courts and the Tribunal adopt such areas, a significant volume of land for housing a more conciliatory approach than the formal court has been made available in recent years. However, system, favour customary owners and those to acquisition of land by the Boards is hindered by whom they have sold land rights over the Boards, disputes over the level of compensation payable to and are trusted by land market actors.

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Strengths Weaknesses Significant land supply (Gaborone) Acquisition of land hindered by disputes over Security of tenure compensation Women household heads entitled to land, and Requirements for survey and servicing prior to in theory married women also allocation restricts supply Dispute resolution mechanism available Excess demand strains capacity and encourages (Board, Customary Court, Tribunal) rent-seeking Boards can demand return of the land In practice, married women are not allocated land without their husbands’ permission

Delivery of land through to land in contemporary cities. Men allocated plots through this channel have security of tenure, although customary channels to members there is some vulnerability to government action. For of the group example, the Government of Nigeria has powers under the 1978 Land Use Decree to expropriate Only in some of the case study cities was there land land required for public purposes, which it has not in customary ownership on the outskirts of the urban hesitated to use on quite a large scale (for example area in the past or today, and today, even in these for industrial areas and the airport in Enugu). cities, supply of free land through this channel is However, access to land in customary tenure is increasingly limited. It primarily occurs in Enugu, restricted almost entirely to men, and women can where land is effectively ‘owned’ by families (who only gain access to such land through their have often registered their title), and members of relationships with men (normally their husbands). It the family are often still able to obtain land for new is a straightforward way of obtaining land, since the housing in family homestead areas. It also occurs in eligibility criteria are well known and the processes Maseru, although the supplies of new land available simple. through this channel are increasingly limited. Nevertheless, inheritance is a significant way of The social institutions governing land transactions obtaining family land for new households. and dispute resolution are widely understood and generally respected within the group in both Enugu This land is often supplied free (or in exchange for a and Maseru. However, the amount of land available token of appreciation), and so it is one of the only through this channel is shrinking. In inner city Enugu, ways in which poor households can obtain access

Strengths Weaknesses Often free Access to unmarried men restricted (Maseru) Access to poor members of the group Access to all/majority of women only through men Security of tenure for men Limited supply for groups in built-up area Fast (Enugu) Institutions widely understood and generally Vulnerable to government intervention to respected within the group acquire land for public purposes (Enugu) Dispute resolution mechanisms effective and Restrictions on the sale of customary land respected, with some exceptions inhibit choice

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for example, the land belonging to some communities they are nevertheless market prices (except for has long been built up and they no longer have members of the group), which precludes poor people undeveloped land to allocate to new households from accessing land through this channel. However, formed within the group. In addition, there are it does facilitate access to land for women, especially occasional threats to the security of tenure of those where customary rules exclude them. to whom land is allocated through this system and Markets in this type of land may become more examples of the customary dispute resolution efficient if institutions emerge to improve information procedures being challenged. flows. For example, brokers have started to operate in Kampala and Enugu. In addition, whereas in the Purchase of customary land past transactions were verbal, increasingly, written In both Maseru and Enugu, the sale of land held by evidence of a transaction is secured. Initially such customary rights holders is the predominant means agreements involve lay witnesses such as senior of delivering land for new residential development. family members, neighbours and local officials. Later, In Enugu, this channel can be subdivided into lawyers are often employed to draft and witness an informal subdivisions and planned layouts, in which agreement of sale. the landowning community decides to formally Although letters of agreement are exchanged, tenure subdivide and sell part of its farmland. Both these may be relatively insecure if sales have to be processes have been central to the development of concealed or if evictions are in progress anywhere the city for decades and continue today (see also in the urban area. For example, evictions of p. 26). In Kampala, the subdivision and sale of purchasers in one neighbourhood in Maseru (on the customary land is also important, but in terms of grounds that the subdivision and sale is illegal) make volume contributes less than subdivision of mailo purchasers in other areas jittery. In Enugu, although land (see also p. 16-17). In Gaborone, it is also in many cases consultations within the family or significant in the periphery of the built-up area. community precede the sale of land, where these However, it is officially prohibited and so sellers and have not occurred (and sometimes even if they buyers disguise it as ‘inheritance’. have), challenges from family members may arise at The sale of customary land thus contributes a a later date. In addition, systems of keeping records significant volume of plots for housing development are undeveloped, which tends to cause more in many cities, and those acquiring plots through this problems as time passes. channel are confident that they have de facto security of tenure. However, sellers do occasionally sell the same plot to more than one buyer if the first buyer has not developed it, and government intervention restricts supply in Gaborone. The sale of customary land provides access to non-members of the group, in other words those who would normally not be entitled to free allocation, but may also make it possible for members of indigenous groups that have no remaining undeveloped land to obtain a housing plot. The prices are lower than for plots with title purchased through the formal private market, but Ogui Nike, Enugu

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Strengths Weaknesses Significant supply Possibilities for multiple sales of the same plot Providers access to land to non-members of Market price restricts access by the poor the group as well as members Insecure, especially if sales have to be Relatively cheap concealed Facilitates access to land for women with Government intervention may restrict supply means Systems of keeping records undeveloped Efficiency of the market increases as Documents not always valid/trusted – owners institutions emerge to improve information try to upgrade to state-sanctioned titles flows (brokers in Kampala, Enugu) Insecurity leads purchasers to seek legal title Written evidence of transactions (mainly Enugu) Formal legal system accepts these types of Despite obtaining family/group agreement, written evidence some sales challenged by family members Institutions supporting system widely understood Often family/group agreement precedes sale

The social institutions underpinning this system are services. By 2002, 22 of the 37 settlements in the widely understood and generally respected, city had been regularised. Today in such areas, including by the formal legal system, which often despite the establishment of non-party political accepts letters of sale and written agreements as Residents’ Development Committees, the dominant valid evidence of transactions. However, the political party still exercises considerable power, documents produced are not always valid or trusted, although service improvements generally depend on leading some purchasers to attempt to upgrade their the availability of external funding. sale agreements to state titles, especially in Enugu. Informal subdivision and allocation of plots occurs on both publicly and, in some circumstances, Allocation by officials privately owned land. In the early years of a In Lusaka, precedents for the operation of land settlement’s life, newcomers are encouraged by both delivery mechanisms today were set by widespread party officials and the original settlers, since increased squatting on publicly and privately owned land, numbers reduce the likelihood that the government informal subdivision by occupiers given permission will attempt to demolish houses and evict the to build a house on land by its owner (often their residents. Once an area has de facto security because former employer), the issue of land cards by the of its large population or following its designation as Minister of Lands when areas were outside the urban a Housing Improvement Area, the process of administrative boundary and the exercise of many informal subdivision becomes more commercialised. governance functions in informal settlements by the Thus newcomers seeking land for house local party political organisation. In addition, construction obtain plots from early settlers, party legislation in the mid-1970s provided for the leaders or local government officials, both within and designation of informal settlements as Housing adjacent to the boundaries of the designated area. Improvement Areas. This entitled house owners to Payment is often expected, but is generally not the Occupancy Licences (30 year renewable use rights) equivalent of a market price, since the officials are and provided for the extension of infrastructure not entitled to sell the land. Some (e.g. local residents

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who are supporters of the political party in control procedures than with limited Council administrative of the settlement) may be allocated plots free or for capacity and lack of enforcement mechanisms a reduced payment. (unless an owner wishes to sell the plot). However, most of those without Licences have documentary Today, in practice, especially in the older-established evidence of ownership, generally a letter of areas, the majority of plot holders have purchased agreement between seller and buyer, and many invest or inherited a house. Residents and prospective plot considerable amounts in house construction and owners have become so used to the major role improvements. played by party organisations that they accept controls exercised by the party controlling an informal Disputes, most of which appear to be over settlement, even though the one party system of the boundaries or encroachment on adjacent plots or 1970s and 1980s has been succeeded by a multi- access ways, are generally resolved between party system. neighbours, with appeal to the party branch chairperson or the Local Court. However, an Designation as a Housing Improvement Area aggrieved owner is constrained from taking an provides security of tenure, through registration of unresolved dispute further because a premium is plot holders in local government records, even placed on neighbourliness by households conscious though many occupiers never complete the of their dependence on others during times of administrative procedures required for issue of an difficulty. In addition, households with little political Occupancy Licence. Nevertheless, significant influence may not be able to secure intervention by minorities claim that they have an Occupancy a party official to resolve a dispute. Licence or registered title. The obstacles to universal issue of Licences are less to do with inappropriate

Strengths Weaknesses Significant land supply (Lusaka) Subdivision may encroach on land in private Relatively cheap (and free to some) ownership, designated for non-housing uses or Women can obtain access to land unsuitable for building Written evidence of transactions In desirable regularised areas, payments tend to Tenure generally secure following exclude the poor regularisaction or because of semi-official Most plot-owning women are widows sanctions Issue of occupancy Licences constrained by Local dispute reduction limited local government capacity Infrastructure provision inadequate Households without party political connections disadvantaged

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Ngombe, Lusaka Self allocation topographical conditions make the sites difficult to service. There is little opportunity in contemporary cities for people to obtain land through non-commercial In Maseru, women may allocate themselves plots channels by their own actions. It occurs through of family farmland without the permission of their different mechanisms in three of the case study cities, families. As noted above, under customary rules of but only on a small scale. access, women are not normally allocated land in their own names and divorced or never married In Kampala, some households settle on wetlands in women may not be able to obtain family land. valley bottoms. This strategy provides one of the However, the number of women taking matters into few ways in which poor households can obtain their own hands is small. access to land for free, but it has problems from the point of view of both settlers and the government. In Gaborone also, family members may occupy an Settlers face extreme insecurity, since building in these area of family land to which they consider themselves areas is prohibited and houses may be demolished entitled without obtaining the express permission of (especially if they have not sought the permission of those with decision-making power. This process is the Local Council officials). In addition, in the early labelled ‘squatting’ by the government and made out years, until further infill and drainage has occurred, to be widespread, although in practice it appears to their living conditions are very unhealthy and their occur only on a very small scale. By using the houses liable to flooding. The land is officially in pejorative term, the government is probably government ownership so not only is settlement expressing its disapproval of the more widespread forbidden for environmental reasons, but also if the subdivision and sale of land by customary rights initial settled area is later subdivided and sold, such holders, which is informal in the sense that it is done sales are illegal. Moreover, even if the settlement without obtaining permission from the Land Board becomes extensive and semi-permanent, the (see above).

23 Conflict or harmony? Relations between informal and formal institutions and actors

The purpose of this section is to provide further insights into the ways in which formal and informal Gaborone: land rights in a institutions and actors relate to each other in terms of land delivery. The examples deepen our state-sanctioned customary understanding of how the social rules governing tenure system transactions in land operate and are understood by Before 1970 chiefs, through ward headmen, the actors involved, how and why conflicts occur, allocated tribal land in the areas surrounding and how day-to-day practices evolve as a result of Gaborone. Since 1970, control over land both conflict and accommodation. They provide subdivision and allocation in tribal areas has pointers to promising innovations and trends, on been vested in a hierarchy of tribal Land which future policy and practice can build, as well Boards, which are, as described on p. 17, as problems that need to be addressed. Selected supposed to re-acquire land from field examples of interactions between formal and informal owners, plan its subdivision and provide institutions and actors from each of the cities are infrastructure before the plots are allocated. presented in the boxes on from p. 24 to 36. Until the late 1980s, however, the land board in Mogoditshane, on the outskirts of the city, Conflicts merely rubber-stamped allocations of arable Attempts by the state to enforce formal rules by land agreed by headmen, who were paid eviction and demolition of houses built by settlers ‘thank you fees’ for their services. they regard as illegal result in overt conflicts. Given Alarm at the rapid subdivision and sale of plots state monopoly of coercive power, informal in the older parts of Mogoditshane, subdividers and settlers generally cannot win in such increasingly to non-tribespeople, led to the conflicts, as demonstrated by recent evictions in board demarcating a semi-circular road as a Gaborone (see box p. 24-25) and Maseru. Legal boundary beyond which further subdivision provisions that enable public agencies to appropriate would not be permitted until it had re-acquired land from customary owners with compensation the land and subdivided and serviced it. levels equivalent to the value of unexhausted Following a Presidential Commission of improvements on the land also give rise to conflicts Inquiry in 1991, detailed layout plans were with landowners, especially when the land so prepared for these areas. However, existing acquired is not, in the eyes of its former owners, plot boundaries and buildings were ignored used appropriately. Again, owners cannot win in and no local consultations undertaken. overt conflicts with the state, as illustrated by the Between 2000 and 2002, a number of houses experience in Enugu (see box p.26), Gaborone and that did not comply with the new plans were Maseru. Elsewhere (for example, in Kampala), the demolished. problem for those who believe themselves to have ownership rights is that tenure complexity and failure The result has been silent confrontation to satisfy planning standards makes it difficult for between the state and tribal land (masimo) them to prove and register their rights. owners in peri-urban areas. Masimo owners have continued to privately subdivide their land into residential plots for sale, with the collusion of headmen and purchasers, often

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disguising the transfer as ‘inheritance’. The decisions seem to confirm that informal conflicts between the Mogoditshane Land conversion of masimo land to predominantly Board and customary owners or plot residential uses without land board acquirers, as well as the tactics used to evade authorisation is lawful, negating the land Board controls and requirements, are boards’ claim that masimo owners are today outcomes of unclear, even unfair, state land only entitled to usufruct rights25. acquisition rules and lack of land board In addition, the Mogoditshane board’s capacity. While the state pays handsome inability to issue Certificates of Rights to all compensation when it acquires freehold land, those granted plots by headmen has resulted it pays virtually nothing for the acquisition of in lack of clarity over rights to individual plots. tribal land, save for unexhausted The demolitions of 2000-2 temporarily halted improvements, such as standing crops, new construction. However, the board’s boreholes and buildings. inability to acquire, subdivide and service Land Boards argue that tribal land is a free sufficient land to keep pace with demand has good, the market value of which is difficult to encouraged continued subdivision by masimo determine beyond the loss of unexhausted owners. Further plans for demolitions, long improvements. They are reluctant to use the waiting lists and alleged land board favouritism unit price of freehold land as a guide to the and corruption encourage owners and amount of compensation to be paid. purchasers to find ways around the board’s Inadequate compensation has encouraged attempts to enforce the legislation. pre-emptive action by masimo owners and In particular, Kalabamu and Morolong argue headmen and fuelled the informal subdivision that inheritance claims have been used to justify and sale of masimo land in Mogoditshane and occupation of land without due authorisation other peri-urban areas. or to resist eviction by the land boards. The formal rules (the 1970 Act) recognise land The land boards are also unwilling to pay acquisition through inheritance, and also seem compensation because they claim that, to put such inherited land outside the according to the 1970 Tribal Land Act, tribal jurisdiction of the land boards. Kalabamu and land rights are vested in them and masimo Morolong cite numerous court cases where owners have only usufruct rights. These the land tribunals have ruled in favour of people disappear upon change of use by the tribal who the land boards claimed to be unlawfully holder or when the land is no longer suitable occupying and using land in peri-urban areas. or required for the purpose for which it was All these cases rested on the counterclaims initially granted i.e. agriculture. However, on of the accused that they were the lawful heirs the basis of their pre-1970 rights, individual of the individuals from whom they had masimo owners assert ownership as well as informally acquired the land. The success of use rights. These conflicting claims have led such cases, according to Kalabamu and to numerous court challenges between tribal Morolong, has encouraged people to claim land boards and masimo owners. In the fictitious blood relationships in order to majority of cases, the courts and land tribunals circumvent the rules of the land boards. have decided in favour of masimo owners. Amendments to the law have apparently done Kalabamu and Morolong argue that these little to change the situation.

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Enugu: the interface between occurring was not part of the original layout but has since been subdivided and surveyed indigenous, market and by its indigenous owners – here plots are sold government systems leasehold. Direct sales to individuals are preferred. Although land brokers increasingly The 1978 Land Use Decree provided for the operate as go-betweens, they are perceived government to appropriate land from as driving up land prices and are regarded as communal owners for public purposes, a necessary evil rather than a desirable including subdivision and supply for low information channel. Documentation of income housing, on payment of compensation transfers takes the form of letters of agreement equivalent to the value of the unexhausted accompanied by receipts, legal improvements on the land. Not only are the memorandums of agreement or titles. levels of compensation regarded as Disputes are rare, in part because transactions inadequate, but also payment is often delayed. are accompanied by elaborate rituals. In addition, communities resent the fact that much of the land is not used for the stated In theory purchasers of land should obtain a purposes but is parcelled out to individual building permit from the local government and users (‘big men’) for private rather than public pay a once-off development levy and annual use and that the land seized pays no attention property tax. In practice, as soon as a buyer to the location of ancestral homes. begins to develop a purchased plot, officials Resentment of the powers the Act confers on of the local planning authority arrive at the site government and of the limited compensation with an order to stop work. The developer paid has fuelled informal subdivision and sale pays the required levies in order to obtain a of community land, especially in Emene, in building permit and resume work. Seemingly, the east of the city, where large amounts of local governments regard this process land have been appropriated in the past for primarily as a way of generating revenue infrastructure and industry. Nevertheless, rather than regulating development. However, indigenous communities feel powerless to owners have little success in holding them to resist such compulsory acquisition. account for their failure to provide the infrastructure ostensibly funded from the Many sales by indigenous communities in proceeds of the development levy. Instead the Enugu are semi-formal. For example, in indigenous selling community considers buyers Achara in the early 1960s, indigenous responsible for obtaining utility connections landowning families requested the Enugu and extending road access26 . Town Planning authority to prepare a planning scheme for areas of their farmland, in accordance with which individual plots (typically 20x30m) have been demarcated and sold freehold, often for the construction of blocks of apartments for rent as well as owner-occupation. The extension in which active subdivision and construction is currently

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The tactics of non-state actors The LA 1979 also extended the boundaries In reaction to the exercise of coercive power by the of Maseru town to cover many peri-urban state, non-state actors have devised a variety of traditional villages, most of which still had strategies, including evasion, non-compliance and extensive areas of masimo land (fields), which the development of clientelist relationships with were quickly being informally subdivided into political and government officials. The illustrations residential plots for sale. As indicated earlier, given in this section show that land rights holders the government had hoped that, by extending devise tactics based on false compliance, appeal to the town boundaries, the informal subdivision sympathetic components of the state and preemptive of masimo land would cease. In practice, action. local customary chiefs and masimo owners continued to subdivide and sell masimo land False compliance as if no law existed. However, to maintain a The use of backdated Form Cs in Maseru (see box show of compliance with the legislation, albeit p. 27) and inheritance claims in Gaborone (see p. false compliance, Form C certificates were 25) are examples of sellers and purchasers of plots, (and still are) routinely dated prior to June th with the collusion of chiefs and headmen, using 16 1980. A primary reason for this practice dissimulation to increase the apparent legality of is that, until 1986, no compensation was transactions that are, strictly, illegal. payable by the state for the acquisition of land held under customary use rights, save for crops and other improvements. Amendments to the LA 1979 in 1986 and 1992 resulted in Maseru: documenting virtually no change to the status quo. A new transactions and de facto land bill is now in place, but is yet to be rights through ‘false enacted into law. compliance’ Under Lesotho law, a certificate of ownership of customary use rights to rural land (a Form Appeal to sympathetic components of the state C) was issued by the customary chief (in When in dispute with an official body, land market consultation with his advisory committee, but actors appeal to the mechanisms most likely to decide often alone) after allocating land to a subject. in their favour, including local informal mechanisms Introduced in 1965, this provision was carried (administrative or political officials, customary th through to subsequent Acts. On June 16 authorities), customary courts or formal tribunals. 1980, the LA 1979 came into force. All In, Kampala, LCI officials, and in Lusaka, local party Form Cs issued in respect of allocations made officials, play an important intermediary role. In prior to this date were considered lawful, and Gaborone a Land Tribunal has been established to those that were issued for allocations after this resolve disputes between plot holders and tribal 27 date were considered illegal . Land Boards. (see p. 24-25)

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Preemptive action Khubetsoana on the periphery of the city. The To prevent compulsory acquisition of land with state successfully appropriated the land inadequate compensation, customary owners, with without compensation, which was one of the the collusion of the relevant traditional authorities, objects of the SDA declaration. However, subdivide and sell their farm (not homestead) land. although the land acquisition process in Such sales are generally informal (as in Maseru – Khubetsoana was uneventful, the experiences see box, Mogoditshane in Gaborone, and Emene in of masimo owners had telling repercussions Enugu, and on mailo land in Kampala). Occasionally in adjacent areas, which in turn frustrated they are formal (as in the layouts prepared by further state land appropriation efforts. indigenous communities in Enugu – see box p. 26). Sometimes, such actions seem reasonable and One such area was Ha Mabote, which is checks and balances on abuses, such as multiple separated from Khubetsoana only by a main sales or chiefs profiting at the expense of their road. Ha Mabote was declared an SDA in subjects, still appear to operate. However, 1984 for the purpose of a mixed income site- elsewhere, as in Ha Mabote in Maseru, the actions and-service project co-sponsored by the then of customary owners are designed to exploit the British Overseas Development Administration opportunities for excess profits arising from state (ODA) and the government of Lesotho. actions (see box p. 28). Private (informal) subdivision in this area was encouraged by the appropriation of land without compensation in neighbouring Maseru: expropriation of Khubetsoana. farmland for public purposes In Ha Mabote, the state attempted to evict so-called ‘illegal’ occupants using police In order to curb the process of informal force, but called off the attempt when it development of land, especially in the peri- transpired that one of the local customary urban agricultural areas around Maseru, a new chiefs had solicited assistance from the armed land law was put in place on the eve of June forces, members of which had acquired plots 16th 1980, the Land Act of 1979 (LA 1979). from him at concessionary prices. As a result, This act effectively nationalised all land, with the enforcement strategy changed from rights to be leased from the state. In order to eviction to accommodation, which entailed the facilitate the acquisition of land for public state undertaking to recognise existing (albeit purposes, the LA 1979 made provision for illegal) occupation in the process of the designation of areas for development as implementing the project. The change of Selected Development Areas (SDAs). The enforcement strategy by the government effect of SDA declaration is to extinguish opened up an opportunity for private existing interests in land, pending the grant of (informal) subdividers to compile fictitious lists substitute rights by the minister responsible of plot buyers, burdening the project with for lands. accommodating the excess demand for plots. One of the first areas to be declared an SDA In the end, many field owners were able to in 1980 for the purposes of a World Bank make significant profits, as were their local financed low-income housing project was customary chiefs, who charged a fee for every

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Recognition and reform of customary false Form C certificate that they issued. practices When the ensuing chaos could not be Sometimes, colonial practices accompanying resolved, the ODA withdrew its support and indirect rule resulted in the recognition of customary the project collapsed. tenure and land administration practices. Tolerated since independence, in some cases post- independence governments have, for political or State tactics pragmatic reasons, formally recognised the rights of As noted above, sometimes the state attempts to customary owners and the arrangements used to enforce formal rules through the exercise of administer land in customary tenure, even formalising administrative or coercive power. More commonly, such arrangements by legal and administrative the large scale of non-compliance with formal rules changes. Examples in the case study cities include and regulations, in the face of limited public sector the Buganda Land Board in Kampala and the tribal capacity and the need to secure political support, Land Boards in Botswana. However, the experience leads the state to adopt a strategy of accommodation in Gaborone demonstrates that successful rather than conflict. Some parts of the state intervention is hard to achieve (see box p. 24-25). apparatus may refuse to compromise, hoping that one day illegal land transactions will be halted and Toleration of informal subdivision only those subdivisions and buildings that comply In many cities, the activities of informal subdividers with formal requirements will be regularised. are tolerated, especially if the legal provisions are However, many other parts of the state apparatus ambiguous. Toleration is also common where the are prepared to tolerate, compromise with and even activities of those engaged in informal land delivery recognise land subdivision and transactions that do are directly or indirectly sanctioned by the politically not comply with one or more legal requirements. influential, local officials sympathise with them, or government employees (such as surveyors) are prepared to act in a private capacity to facilitate transactions. In Kampala, complex and uncertain tenure rights and political imperatives have led to widespread tolerance of informal settlements (see box p. 30).

Farmstead in Mogoditshane, Gaborone

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Compromise Kampala: formal and The state may compromise with informal actors to

informal actors colluding in „ secure political support (e.g. Lusaka – see box compliance and non- p. 30) compliance „ provide services to prevent epidemics „ obtain external finance which is conditional on Subdivision and building consents depend on the regularisation of informal areas (e.g. in Lusaka the production of a registered title, as well as and Eldoret) compliance with complex bureaucratic „ raise revenue from registration of plot holders in requirements and high standards. As a result, such settlements (e.g. in Eldoret – see box p. regulations are unknown, ignored or evaded. 31). Either evasion or obtaining permission is likely to entail the payment of bribes to officials at both senior and street levels. Not surprisingly, Lusaka: conflict and the majority of households who had accommodation with private subdivided their plots had neither sought permission from the lower level councils (LC landowners 1s) nor the Kampala City Council (KCC), Originally a compound for workers in the as required by law. paddock of a ranch, new occupiers were Nkurunziza argues that, despite elaborate permitted to join the original inhabitants of legal powers at the disposal of the KCC, Ng’ombe when ranching declined in the planning officers confessed powerlessness in 1960s. Gradually, settlement encroached on controlling the development and use of private more of the land belonging to the ranch owner land, particularly mailo land. This and an adjacent church. In the mid-1990s an powerlessness was partly due to limited indigenous NGO started to support material and human resources and partly to infrastructure installation and a Residents’ lack of political muscle to confront the vested Development Committee was established. interests of different actors. Moreover, strong Eventually, in 1999, the owners surrendered evidence exists that KCC planners and part of their land, in order to prevent further surveyors undertake subdivision and survey encroachment. work privately and, because of their The area taken into public ownership was knowledge of how the system operates, declared a Housing Improvement Area. This approval of their subdivision plans is virtually paved the way for the issue of occupancy guaranteed. Therefore, it is not only the poor licences and service improvements. It also who are implicated in informality, but also state fuelled further subdivision and plot allocation bureaucrats and the well-connected, who are by party and local government officials in the well able to stand astride the divide between undeveloped parts of the designated area. In state rules and everyday practices outside addition, the area’s desirable location and 28 state rules . recognised status attracted further settlers, leading to further encroachmention to

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adjacent areas still in private ownership. This accept such letters for the purpose of granting time, however, the owners felt that their consent to subdivide. The Board’s inflexibility agreement with the Lusaka City Council gave has encouraged landowners to follow the them sufficient legal and political standing to informal route. evict the settlers and demolish their houses. However, because the Municipal Council has been willing to compromise, it raises revenue from property taxes set at rates related to the level of services it provides in particular areas. Eldoret: recognising letters of This has enabled it to incrementally improve agreement for property tax services, exercise a limited degree of control purposes over development and negotiate with occupiers to reserve land for improving Officially, the Eldoret Municipal Council can access or providing social facilities. only collect property tax on properties with In one large informal settlement (Langas) a registered title. However, a large proportion longstanding dispute over the original title has of all housing is in informally subdivided areas prevented regularisation of title and hindered belonging to landbuying companies, where infrastructure upgrading. Today, plot-holders there are significant constraints on tenure in this area are trying to use the Municipal regularisation. As a result, Musyoka argues, Council’s recognition of their ownership for an unwritten understanding has evolved property tax purposes as leverage to resolve between the municipality and plot-holders in this problem. They are threatening to withhold unregistered areas to use letters of rates payments, demanding that titles to their agreement as evidence of ownership. plots are issued and municipal services Most owners of subdivided plots in Eldoret, improved29. especially where the original company title is not disputed, consider that they have secure tenure and many invest considerable Such compromises may take the form of resources in house construction. Their sense of security is buttressed by the widespread „ de facto recognition of informal settlements, adoption of written documentation of „ regularisation despite non-compliance with transactions in land. Most of those who have formal standards (e.g. in Eldoret – see box p. purchased land have letters of agreement, 32), or by the Buganda Land Board in Kampala typically witnessed by neighbours, family – see box p.33), members and/or local elders. While the courts „ the introduction of legislation containing specific accept such letters of agreement as evidence and appropriate provision for regularisation (e.g. of transactions when settling disputes over in Zambia) land, the Eldoret Municipal Land Control „ acceptance by the formal (state or customary) Board, which is responsible for giving court system of oral traditions and testimony and/ permission to subdivide farmland, refuses to or informal letters of agreement as evidence of land transactions and ownership rights (e.g. in Enugu – see box p.34). 31 c I T AFRICAN E S

The original residential portion of Kamukunji, Eldoret

Eldoret: compromising over and/or for further subdivision and sale. The slow speed and cost of obtaining subdivision planning standards to and development permission, together with regularise informal planning standards that are regarded as subdivisions inappropriate, mean that all such subdivision is undertaken outside the formal rules, In Eldoret, formal land delivery has been although it is not necessarily unplanned. Some hampered by the limited supply of land in public shareholders employ professionals to prepare ownership, high planning standards, and layouts, while others attempt to adopt good corrupt and costly formal procedures for practices such as leaving land for access to delivering and registering land. As a result, each plot and sites for community services, urban land supplied through formal channels such as markets and schools. In such is beyond the reach of the majority of the poor circumstances, title to individual plots can only because access requires economic means and be registered if the plot is surveyed. Not only socio-political patronage. Lack of capacity is this costly, but it is also impossible if the to provide adequate land through the formal plot does not satisfy the planning standards. system has been compensated for by tolerance of informal delivery systems, which In some areas, negotiations between the co-exists with elements of exploitation and/ shareholders, plot purchasers and the official or manipulation. bodies have eventually resulted in compromise, followed by the issue of titles The formal title for land purchased by for individual plots. landbuying companies is transferred jointly to the shareholders in the company, who subdivide the land in proportion to their original shareholding, for their own occupation

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Kampala: impediments and Purchasers of subdivided plots (especially those that satisfy the official minimum plot size incentives to regularisation of standards) may further increase their security tenure by obtaining a cadastral survey of the plot – the first step in registering a title (they may Uncertain tenure rights and complex titling even instal beacons without a survey). procedures mean that plot occupiers and However, many owners stop once a plot has purchasers rarely comply with full procedural been surveyed and beacons installed, since requirements. In colonial times, the Kabaka the presence of a surveyor and beacons of Buganda ceded large areas of land to provides public evidence of their claim, and various churches and missionary groups. potential challengers need never know that Today, for an occupant of church land, the they have failed to pursue the subsequent first step in obtaining title is to obtain proof of steps necessary to obtain a registered title. user rights from the Local Council and many The main motivation for those who do take do not proceed beyond this stage because the process further is to protect the claims of they feel that LC consent guarantees them their descendants. tenure security. Few mailo owners take the complicated and costly steps needed to obtain In contrast, following the restoration of Buganda kingdom properties and the title to their land and so subdivision and sale Kabaka’s private assets in 1993, the Buganda proceeds informally, subject only to informal Land Board has, albeit without direct legal written agreements or endagaano. These are sanction, devised relatively simple and user typically witnessed by members of the local friendly procedures for occupiers and LC 1 executive, as well as elders, religious purchasers from existing occupiers to leaders, relatives or neighbours, and are regularise their tenure by obtaining leases, accompanied by a sketch map. although relatively few occupiers (especially Baganda) feel the need to do so.

Apartment blocks in Achara, informal subdivision, Enugu

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Enugu: legitimising informal transactions. Only if they have obtained a survey and title to the plot being bought and transactions sold do they feel confident that their claims In Emene, the Amechi, Oguru and Otuku can be defended in a court of law. However, communities were allocated land in perpetuity state institutions accept the letters of by the traditional ruler of Nike. In the 1940s, agreement associated with initial transactions each of these communities arranged for a as evidence of valid ownership. boundary survey of their land. From long practice, these communities have developed skills in laying out and measuring plots, and Supporting informal actors they try to maintain registers of land sales. Sometimes, governments have supported actors in Every letter of agreement (so-called lease informal land delivery systems even when not legally certificate) must carry the signature of the empowered to do so. Examples include the lessee and ten members of the land selling registration of property owners in order to charge community, including its ruler. Today they are rates (property taxes) in Eldoret (see p. ?) and often drawn up by lawyers, and are accepted dispute resolution mechanisms in which formal by government as evidence of ownership if a systems recognise the functions and decisions of buyer wishes to obtain a certificate of informal dispute resolution mechanisms, including the occupancy or formal leasehold title. If a buyer evidence they use and the decisions they reach. wishes to re-sell, consent must be obtained Examples from Kampala, Eldoret and Enugu are from the community that originally sold the given in the boxes. land. Nevertheless, differences of opinion do surface within landowning communities, especially between those who have benefited from land sales in the past and young men Kampala: linking formal and who fear being deprived of their land rights, informal rules and systems for and the actions of the latter may threaten dispute resolution particular transactions. Reduced lease periods in recent years have emerged as a strategy to In Kampala, disputes were more common in reduce family members’ opposition to land the highest density settlement studied, where sales, although they are unpopular amongst 22 percent of landowners had experienced a buyers. dispute, compared to 9 percent in the newest and least densely settled area. Increased While levels of trust in the initial transactions dispute occurrence seems to be associated between indigenous communities and with a period of intense activity in the land purchasers of subdivided plots are high, market in the 1990s. Dispute’s mostly concern subsequent transactions in the purchased plots are purely market transactions, and are not ownership or boundaries, with inheritance governed by social obligations and processes. disputes more important in the oldest area. Actors involved in such transactions therefore Until 1998, LC 1 chairmen and their courts feel obliged to use the provisions of state law were entitled to hear and resolve land disputes, to protect their interests and register referring them to Magistrates’ Courts if

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necessary. The Land Act withdrew In a boundary dispute, members of the LC 1 jurisdiction from both LC and Magistrates’ court were able to combine the roles of jurists, Courts and bestowed it on land tribunals. land surveyors and community leaders. The However, the latter have not been established procedure adopted to resolve the boundary and in 2000 the powers of LC and dispute mimicked the formal approach of Magistrates’ Courts were restored to enable ‘boundary opening’ undertaken by qualified them to clear the backlog of cases. surveyors. Using tape measures borrowed from local builders and the sketch LCs have continued to perform this function, accompanying the plaintiff’s original written treating fresh disputes as though they were agreement, the LC members were able to outstanding in 2000. In practice, LCs continue retrace the original boundary. In passing their to deal with land matters, some in ignorance judgement, they adopted a ‘traditional’ of their legal position, and most LC approach by emphasising reconciliation and chairpersons regard the settlement of land imposing a ‘beer’ fine (a symbolic cash fine). disputes as part of their administrative roles and community leadership obligations. The In another boundary dispute, the LC court system operates at a local level and is relatively adopted a similar procedure to confirm a quick and informal, generally using the local boundary, but also observed that the language. Although the LCs are supposed to defendant had failed to leave a setback keep written records, they often do not do between the plot boundary and his so – this speeds up the process but does pose development for access by his tenants. In this difficulties if a litigant appeals against a example, the LC mimicked formal planning decision. Before 1998 appeals moved up the approaches by devising local ‘byelaws’, ladder from LC1 to LC2 and LC3 levels, although the setback standard used was more before reaching the Magistrate’s Court. With affordable than the official one (0.9m the removal of these provisions, appeals have compared to 3m in the Public Health Act). to be referred directly to the High Court, Since legislative changes have removed the although to avoid this, some disputants solicit powers of LC courts to enforce their assistance from the Resident District Commissioner (a central government decisions, LC arbitration now often aims to appointee) instead. obtain agreement and conciliation between disputants. However, their lack of legal Specific examples illustrate the ways in which standing also makes it more difficult for the LC dispute resolution links formal and LCs to charge court costs or for the aggrieved informal rules and administrative systems. For to hold LC court members to account. example, in one case an official valuation surveyor was employed in a private capacity to arrive at a compensation figure for occupants who had not been notified of a land sale by an owner.

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Eldoret: linking informal and Enugu: customary and state formal dispute resolution mechanisms for dispute mechanisms resolution Disputes over land are relatively rare in In Enugu, disputes are, if possible, resolved Eldoret, with only one in ten plot owners in through customary arbitration, relying on informal settlements reporting a dispute. Most families, elders and traditional rulers, who are disputes had been settled by local elders - considered to be knowledgeable with respect to the customs and traditions regulating land unpaid leaders identified at community level, tenure in a community. A litigant may take a usually acceptable to the local administration, case to the Customary (Native) Court (Sharia and generally having social legitimacy in the Court in northern Nigeria), from where appeal eyes of local residents. Although they lack legal is possible to the Customary Court of Appeal. or coercive powers, in taking on dispute Sitting in judgement in a Customary Court is resolution roles, they draw on understanding a government-appointed president, who is of the traditional role of elders in village society. usually an indigene of the area where the court Where the elders are unable to resolve a has jurisdiction and is versed in local customs dispute, it is referred first to the local chief or and traditions. Even purchasers of land from sub-chief (administrative officers appointed by indigenous communities prefer to use these the national government). Only then is channels where possible, rather than resort recourse had to the District Officer (the chief’s to the formal court system, because of the superior) or the Land Tribunal, from where high cost of litigation and delays. In practice, the dispute may be referred to the courts. disputes are rare – no plot owners in Emene Formal and informal rules coincide in the (a developing peripheral area) reported a resolution of disputes over ownership, dispute and one in ten or fewer in the other conferring it on the first buyer of a subdivided areas studied. plot, especially where that person has Both oral and documentary evidence is used constructed a building. Owners’ knowledge in dispute resolution, as well as oath taking. of this rule and their confidence that it will be The formal court system admits oral evidence upheld by both the formal and informal based on family history or communal tradition, systems, together with the written agreements the decisions of Native Courts, and that are commonly used, provide them with a documentary evidence such as letters of relatively high degree of perceived de facto agreement. However, juju oaths are not security of tenure. accepted unless there is sufficient supporting evidence.

36 Conclusions Conclusions and policy implications

Main conclusions The main channels of housing land supply Informal delivery systems are the main channels of Five main conclusions emerge from this overview housing land supply. Widespread non-compliance of detailed studies of housing land delivery in six has, in the face of limited government capacity for cities. Inevitably, conclusions drawn from a enforcement of regulations and the need to secure comparative international study emphasise common political support, generally led to accommodation features of the case study cities and some of the rather than overt conflict. contrasts are downplayed in this summary. In the past, in many cities, informal delivery Informal land delivery systems build on mechanisms enabled all but the poorest to access earlier practices and respond to state failures land for self-managed house construction. Today, non-commercial channels for obtaining land are Informal land delivery systems are in part a restricted and the vast majority of households who continuation of earlier land administration practices, obtain land through informal channels purchase it. especially those associated with customary tenure The plots are supplied through subdivision and sale systems, whether or not these were recognised and of land held under customary tenure (Enugu, codified by colonial or post-colonial governments. Gaborone, Maseru), by owners and tenants of mailo They directly involve indigenous communities in cities land (Kampala) and by the shareholders of land where such groups hold customary tenure rights buying companies (Eldoret). In Lusaka they are also over land ripe for urban development. The continued sold by original settlers and allocated semi-officially social legitimacy and organisational capacity of such by party and local government officials, who may social groups enables them to exercise considerable or may not expect payment. agency, and to enforce social institutions amongst It is no longer possible for poor households to access both their own members and many of the non- land for new residential building, with a few, often members purchasing their land. Even where minor, exceptions. These include subdivision of land by groups with customary tenure „ membership of an indigenous landowning rights is not possible, the practices associated with community – some male members of indigenous customary tenure systems influence the assumptions landowning communities in Enugu and Maseru and actions of many actors in both the formal and can still claim their entitlement to a plot of family informal land administration systems. land Informal land delivery is also a response to failures „ settlement in marginal or hazardous areas, such of the formal tenure and land administration systems. as in wetland areas in Kampala These include the low levels of compensation paid by government when it expropriates land, which lead „ allocation of customary land or a serviced plot in landowners and customary rights holders to resist Gaborone, the former by tribal Land Boards and such acquisitions. They also include the cumbersome the latter by government in serviced plot and costly procedures that prevent many aspiring programmes landowners from complying with formal regulations „ payment for informally subdivided land in for subdivision, registration and construction. instalments

„ pooling resources to purchase a plot, for example, in areas subdivided by land buying companies in Eldoret

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„ allocation of free land to some local residents Informal systems are effective in delivering with good political or official connections in or land for housing adjacent to regularised informal settlements in Bearing out the first hypothesis stated in the Lusaka introduction, it is clear from our detailed empirical Women generally obtain access to land through their evidence that informal systems are often effective in husbands, and increasingly by inheritance. Most delivering land for housing, because of their user- believe that informal social roles provide them with friendly characteristics and social legitimacy. sufficient rights and protection. Legal provisions for „ User friendly features include simple locally- joint registration of ownership, consultation before witnessed written agreements between sellers and matrimonial property is sold, and inheritance of the buyers, informal recognition of transactions from matrimonial home are quite common (though not neighbourhood power holders, use of customary universal). However, social attitudes deter women and local mechanisms for dispute resolution, from exercising their rights. Increasingly, women with standards adjusted to suit local realities and means purchase land through informal channels. affordability, and use of customary materials for demarcating plot boundaries. New and poor households face severe difficulties in accessing housing land „ Their legitimacy derives from the widely understood and accepted social institutions that However, for many newly formed households in regulate transactions. These tend to be derived urban areas, especially the poor, the only way in from customary institutions, but have, as which they can access a plot or house today is hypothesised in the introduction, evolved over through their parents. This may be through a process time, and often are very different from those that of plot sharing, in which parents allow a son or daughter to build a house on part of the parents’ operated in pre-colonial times in rural areas. In own plot, or through inheritance of the parents’ plot particular, in the urban context, they have often or house. Scope for the former will decrease in borrowed from and mimic formal rules and future, as plots become too small for further procedures. In addition, they may take advantage subdivision, a situation that has already been reached of formal rules, especially where these are in some densely settled areas in Kampala and Enugu. ambiguous or inconsistent. In practice, most poor households are tenants. Institutional analysis has provided a potent tool for understanding the widely understood informal social rules with which actors engaged in informal land transactions comply, their interpretations of formal rules, and the ways in which they exercise agency to use and adapt formal rules when appropriate.

Informal social institutions are under pressure Many of the social institutions revealed are resilient. However, as hypothesised at the outset, urban growth and development increase the pressure on them, and in some cases they weaken and break Kamwokya, Kampala down, leading to more frequent disputes and increased tenure insecurity. In such situations, actors 38 c I T AFRICAN E S in land transactions seek to use formal institutions to Policy implications protect their rights and investments, for example regularising their ownership of a plot by title The findings of the study were fed back to the local registration. As shown in the previous section, the communities studied, to validate the findings and extent to which formal legal and administrative obtain their comments on some of the policy issues. systems recognise and work with or resist informal The conclusions of the study were also discussed at practices varies between cities and over time. policy workshops in each of the case study countries, and at an international comparative Informal land delivery systems have both strengths workshop. The conclusions and policy implications and weaknesses. Their strengths include their ability have, therefore, drawn on feedback from both key to provide land in significant volumes to meet the informants at the local level and those in the public housing needs of various socio-economic groups that and private sectors with the relevant expertise and sometimes include the relatively poor and women. responsibilities. Although not all those attending these Their weaknesses include the inappropriate locations events would agree with all the policy implications in which settlements are occasionally located, the identified below, all have support from some actors poor layouts that sometimes emerge and the almost in the case study cities and countries. The land policy universal infrastructure and service deficiencies. and legislative reviews that are under way in all the Arguably, however, these weaknesses stem as much countries studied will provide opportunities for from their relationships with inappropriate formal further assessment of their relevance and tenure and land administration systems and appropriateness to local circumstances. ineffective government agencies as from their own shortcomings. Informal land delivery systems play a larger role in residential land delivery in most African cities than formal and public sector led systems. The delivery of over half the land needed for middle and low income housing by informal systems has not resulted in chaos. Such systems play a significant and effective role in housing land delivery systems. They should, therefore, be tolerated and accommodated. Their strengths should be recognised and some ways in which their positive features can inform future action are explored below. However, their shortcomings should also be identified and policy should concentrate on addressing these weaknesses without compromising the positive contribution they make to housing land supply.

Informal land delivery systems should be tolerated and accommodated, building on their strengths but also identifying and addressing their weaknesses.

Shared Water supply in Ogui Nike, Enugu

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Urban residents and house builders seek security of experience of countries such as Zambia (block tenure – even without well-developed housing surveys, occupancy licences) can inform future finance systems, this often leads to substantial development of policy and practice. investment in housing for both owner occupation and One of the main threats to tenure security is often rental. One priority should therefore be to improve the action of governments themselves, particularly the tenure security available to those accessing land evictions. Thus one of the most obvious ways of through informal delivery channels. In some improving tenure security is for governments, in the circumstances, this may imply individual titling, but vast majority of cases, to cease to evict settlers and wholesale titling is often not appropriate, for three demolish their houses. main reasons: „ Governments should provide basic short-term „ Titling massively increases the value of urban security to residents in informal settlements, land, making it even less accessible to low- perhaps by a simple statement that residents will income groups not be evicted. In some instances, (construction „ There is rarely capacity in the formal regulatory on privately owned land, land needed for other system to adjudicate, survey and register large public purposes, or land that is completely numbers of individual titles. Rather than issuing unsuitable for residential use), it will not be titles to a minority of landholders, the resources possible to tolerate informal settlements. In such available should be used more strategically, to cases, eviction (accompanied by suitable guide urban development. This may include arrangements for resettlement) may be the only investment in main access roads and water supply, option. However, generally governments should and surveying the boundaries of large land cease to evict settlers and demolish houses. parcels, within which non-state actors can subdivide and sell land. „ Security can be enhanced by public sector agencies accepting innovations in procedures and „ Owner-occupiers are unlikely to mortgage their documentation that have emerged in informal homes in order to release the capital tied up in systems, because these are popularly understood, property for other purposes, such as business widely accepted, cheap and procedurally simple. investment. One reason is the absence of They include witnessed letters of agreement and developed financial systems that might enable local registers of transactions, as well as ways in owners with title to release equity in their which formal and informal systems work together properties . In addition, middle and low-income to solve problems and resolve disputes. households in African cities give high priority to livelihood security and are reluctant to jeopardise Threats to women’s security of tenure should be this by becoming indebted. Further, urban tackled through matrimonial as well as property law. households attach high importance to ensuring Because there is considerable resistance to increasing the future wellbeing of their children and regard the rights of married women in practice, advocacy their ability to bequeath urban property as and changes in social attitudes will also be needed. important to achieving this goal. In many countries, alternatives to universal individual plot titles are already available under existing legislation. Experience with implementing alternative forms of tenure, usually based on usufruct, varies. However, the legislative base and implementation

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To encourage investment in both owner- The poor layouts and inadequate services that occupied and rental housing, the tenure often characterise informal settlements can be security available to those who access land addressed by recognising such areas, paving through informal delivery channels should be the way for working with subdividers and enhanced. In most cases, this implies sellers to improve layouts and enabling the recognition of informal settlements and ceasing early provision of basic services. to evict settlers. In some circumstances the most appropriate way of increasing tenure security is to extend individual titling. As well as generating user charges for services, the However, given limited state capacity and the registration of occupiers makes it possible for local threat posed to middle and low-income government to generate tax revenue. However, households’ ability to access land by price recognition of informally settled areas and acceptance increases and speculation, alternatives to of their occupants should be designed in such a way individual titles may be more appropriate. that, wherever possible, the poor are not further disadvantaged by the imposition of unaffordable costs or gentrification. The difficulty of ensuring this Recognition of areas in the process of being settled should not be under-estimated. Earlier sites and through processes of informal subdivision and sale services programmes were often small-scale and can pave the way for working with subdividers and unaffordable by low income households, and some sellers to improve layouts, ensure the reservation of local governments’ ability to provide serviced plots access ways and sites for social facilities, and make is constrained by the limited land remaining in public it possible for the early provision of a basic level of sector ownership. Nevertheless, strategies to reduce services. Local initiatives have instituted such a poverty and improve livelihoods in urban areas must flexible approach in Eldoret, even when external include ways of ensuring access to adequate shelter. funding for regularisation and upgrading has not been This entails providing land for low-income housing, available. Recognition can also contribute to as well as giving policy attention to rental housing. incremental improvements in service provision, since As private land delivery becomes increasingly once areas are de jure or de facto recognised, utilities commercialised, it may be necessary for can be provided on a full or partial cost recovery governments to revisit sites and services approaches. basis, as demonstrated by some utility providers in the case study cities (commonly electricity, often water, more rarely other infrastructure).

Informal settlement on the outskirts of Maseru 41 c I T AFRICAN E S

Local governments should register occupiers To build on the strengths and address the in informal settlements. As well as making it weaknesses of informal delivery systems in possible to charge users for services, this can varying local contexts, the formal land enable local governments to generate tax administration system should be decentralised, revenue. in particular to provide for local registration of land rights and transactions.

Laws relevant to the administration of urban land include tenure laws, planning and development Legislation providing for compulsory acquisition of control legislation and provisions for land taxation land to which indigenous groups claim tenure rights and dispute resolution. In each case, the basic gives rise to many problems, exacerbated by legislation is accompanied by regulations and provisions for the compensation payable to be based procedures that govern administration and practice, on the value of improvements on land rather than its sometimes decided centrally and sometimes market value. Not only does this seem unfair to specified in local bye-laws. Much of the legislative rights holders, particularly in the case of peri-urban framework for the administration of urban land has land, but also delays in payments and government been inherited from laws introduced by British failure to use the land for the public purposes for colonial governments, influenced by the system of which it was ostensibly acquired increase their rule adopted and the colonial administration’s resistance to such acquisitions, especially in relationships with the indigenous authorities. Much Gaborone, Enugu and Maseru. Although of this legislation is inappropriate and outdated. governments claim that their resources are insufficient Post-independence land reforms have often to pay higher rates of compensation, the current neglected the realities of land markets, limited provisions encourage owners to take matters into government capacity and political interests, especially their own hands, with adverse results for the pattern in the large constituencies constituted by informal of urban development. settlements. In addition, they have often concentrated on rural issues and neglected urban Revised compensation provisions are needed, land. As a result, they have also often been requiring governments to pay adequate and fair inappropriate and ineffective. Nevertheless, despite compensation when they expropriate land for public implementation problems, not all the existing purposes. This would legislation is inappropriate. „ Deter premature informal subdivision intended Current reviews of land policy should consider to preempt arbitrary and under-compensated whether the existing legislation, including laws, expropriation (e.g. Enugu and Maseru) regulations and administrative arrangements, provides an adequate framework for guiding urban „ Improve the operation of some state-led growth and development. To build on the strengths subdivision and allocation processes (e.g. the and address the weaknesses of informal delivery operations of Land Boards in Gaborone) systems in the local context, much of the relevant „ Increase the ability of governments to provide legislation is likely to need revision. In addition, as land for infrastructure or industry without agreed in most of the country policy workshops, antagonising local land rights holders (e.g. Enugu) there is a need for the formal land administration system to be decentralised, in particular to provide „ Enable governments to increase the supply of for local registration of land rights and transactions. serviced land for low-income housing. 42 Footnotes

1 Rakodi, C. (1997) “Residential property markets growth: an historical introduction”, World in African cities” in Rakodi, C. (ed) The Urban Development, 17(9), p. 1319-1332. Challenge in Africa, Tokyo: United Nations 8 Razzaz, O.M. (1994) “Contestation and mutual University Press, p. 371-410. adjustment: the process of controlling land in 2 Giddens, A. (1984) The Structure of Society, Yajouz, Jordan”, Law and Society Review, 28(1), Cambridge: Polity Press p. 7-39. 3 Healey, P. and Barrett, S.M. (1990) “Structure 9 Pamuk, 2000, op.cit. and agency in land and property development 10 Leitmann, J. and D. Baharoglu (1999). “Reaching processes: some ideas for research”, Journal of Turkey’s spontaneous settlements: the institutional Planning Education and Research, 27(1), p. 89- dimension of infrastructure.” International 104; Tripp, A.M. (1997) Changing the Rules: Planning Studies 4(2), p. 195-212; Assaad, R. The Political Economy of Liberalisation and (1996). “Formalising the informal? The the Urban Informal Economy in Tanzania, transformation of Cairo’s refuse collection London and Los Angeles: University of California system.” Journal of Planning Education and Press; Mbiba, B. and M. Huchzermeyer (2002). Research 16(2), p. 115-26. “Contentious development: peri-urban studies in 11Kombe, W. (2000) “Regularising housing land sub-Saharan Africa.” Progress in Development development during the transition to market-led Studies 2(2), p. 113-31. supply in Tanzania”, Habitat International, 4 Pamuk, A. (2000) “Informal institutional 24(2), p.167-84; Kombe, W. J. and V. Kreibich arrangements in credit, land markets and (2000). Informal Land Management in infrastructure delivery in Trinidad”, International Tanzania. Dortmund, University of Dortmund, Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 24(2) SPRING Research Series No. 29; Leduka, R.C. p. 379-96; Van Horen, B. (1999) “The de facto (2000) The Role of the State, Law, and Social rules: the growth and change of an informal Actors in Illegal Urban Development in settlement in Durban, South Africa”, Third World Maseru, Lesotho, Unpublished PhD dissertation, Planning Review, 21(3), p. 261-82. Cardiff: University of Wales, Department of City 5 Razzaz, O.M. (1998) “Land disputes in the and Regional Planning. absence of ownership rights: insights from Jordan”, 12Moore, S. (1973). “Law and social change: the in Fernandes, E. and Varley, A. (eds) Illegal semi-autonomous social field as an appropriate Cities, London and New York: Zed Books, p. subject of study.” Law and Society Review 7, p. 69-88. 719-46. 6 Rakodi, C. and Leduka, C. (2003) Informal 13Moore, 1973, ibid, p. 720. Land Delivery Processes and Access to Land 14Razzaz, 1994, op.cit.; Scott, J.C. (1985) for the Poor in Six African Cities: Towards a Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Conceptual Framework, Birmingham: Peasant Resistance, New Haven and London: International Development Department, School of Yale University Press. Public Policy, Informal Land Delivery Processes 15Tripp, 1997, op.cit. in African Cities, WP 1; Benda-Beckman, F. von 16Razzaz, 1994, op.cit. (2001) “Legal pluralism and social justice in 17Rakodi and Leduka, 2003, op.cit. economic and political development”, IDS 18Kombe, 1994, 2000, op. cit.; Kombe & Kreibich, Bulletin, 32(1), p. 46-56; Benton, L. (1994) 2000, op.cit. “Beyond legal pluralism: towards a new approach 19Rakodi and Leduka, 2003, op.cit. to law in the informal sector”, Social and Legal 20Maputo and Luanda: Jenkins, P. and H. Smith Studies, 3, p. 223-42. (2004). “Collaborative approaches to knowledge 7 North, D.C. (1989) “Institutions and economic development: action research in urban land issues 43 c I T AFRICAN E S

in Mozambique and Angola.” International in Kenya. The smooth process in Eldoret may be Development Planning Review 26(1), p. 25- due to the ability of plot supply to keep pace with 46 demand because of the ready availability of farm Dar es Salaam: Kironde, J. M. L. (2000). holdings for purchase, compared to the pressure “Understanding land markets in African urban on land in and around other Kenyan cities. areas: the case of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.” 23The situation in Ghana, especially in Kumasi, is Habitat International 24(2), p. 151-66; somewhat similar. Kombe, 2000, op.cit.; Kombe, W. J. (2005). 24In Kampala, the Buganda Land Board, which was “Land use dynamics in peri-urban areas and their established by the Buganda Kingdom, also has a implications on the urban growth and form: the statutory right to allocate land to individuals on case of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.” Habitat behalf of the Kingdom. However, today it International 29(1), p. 113-36; Kombe and regularises land occupied by mailo tenants or those Kreibich, 2003, op. cit; Lupala, A. (2001). Peri- to whom they sell, rather than allocating new plots. urban Land Management for Rapid 25Kalabamu, F. and Morolong, S. (2004) Informal Urbanisation - The Case of Dar es Salaam. Land Delivery Processes and Access to Land Dortmund, University of Dortmund, Faculty of for the Poor in Gaborone, Botswana, Spatial Planning, SPRING Research Series 32. Birmingham: International Development Accra: Gough, K. and P. W. K. Yankson (2000). Department, School of Public Policy, University “Land markets in African cities: the case of peri- of Birmingham, Informal Land Delivery Processes urban Accra.” Urban Studies 37(13), p. 2485- in African Cities, WP 3. 500; Larbi, W. O., A. Antwi, P. Olomolaiyi (2003). 26Ikejiofor, C.U. with input from Nwogu, K.C. and “Land valorisation processes and state intervention Nwanunobi, C.O. (2004) Informal Land in land management in peri-urban Accra, Ghana.” Delivery Processes and Access to Land for the International Development Planning Review Poor in Enugu, Nigeria, Birmingham: 25(4), p. 355-72. International Development Department, School of South Africa: Royston, L. (2002). Security of Public Policy, University of Birmingham, Informal urban tenure in South Africa: overview of policy Land Delivery Processes in African Cities, WP 2. and practice. In Durand-Lasserve, A. and Royston, 27Leduka, 2000, op. cit.; Leduka, R. C. (2004). L. (eds) Holding Their Ground: Secure Land Informal Land Delivery Processes and Access Tenure for the Urban Poor in Developing to Land for the Poor in Maseru, Lesotho. Countries. London, Earthscan, p. 165-81; van Birmingham, International Development Horen, 1999, op.cit. Department, School of Public Policy, Informal 21The small proportion of land delivered through Land Delivery Processes in African Cities, WP 5. formal channels and officially registered, as well 28Nkurunziza, E. (2004). Informal Land Delivery as the general inadequacy of data on population, Processes and Access to Land for the Poor in land transactions and construction meant that it Kampala, Uganda. Birmingham, International was not possible to undertake quantitative analyses Development Department, School of Public Policy, of the land markets in these cities. University of Birmingham, Informal Land Delivery 22There is a longstanding dispute between original Processes in African Cities, WP 6. shareholders in one company. This concerns the 29Musyoka, R. (2004). Informal Land Delivery title to the farm concerned. Disputes over the title Processes and Access to Land for the Poor in held by shareholders in other companies in Eldoret Eldoret, Kenya. Birmingham, International appear to be rare, as are disputes over subdivided Development Department, School of Public Policy, plots. By all accounts, the operations of land buying University of Birmingham, Informal Land Delivery companies give rise to more conflicts elsewhere Processes in African Cities, WP 4. 44 Publications

Informal Land Delivery Processes in African Cities

Working papers 1. Rakodi, C. and Leduka, C. (2003) Informal Land Delivery Processes and Access to Land for the Poor in Six African Cities: Towards a Conceptual Framework. 2. Ikejiofor, C.U. (2004) Informal Land Delivery Processes and Access to Land for the Poor in Enugu, Nigeria 3. Kalabamu, F.T. and Morolong, S. (2004) Informal Land Delivery Processes and Access to Land for the Poor in Greater Gaborone, Botswana 4. Musyoka, R. (2004) Informal Land Delivery Processes and Access to Land for the Poor in Eldoret, Kenya 5. Leduka, R.C. (2004) Informal Land Delivery Processes and Access to Land for the Poor in Maseru, Lesotho 6. Nkurunziza, E. (2004) Informal Land Delivery Processes and Access to Land for the Poor in Kampala, Uganda 7. Mulenga, L.C. and Rakodi, C. (2004) Informal Land Delivery Processes and Access to Land for the Poor in Lusaka, Zambia

Policy briefs 1. Ikejiofor, C.U. (2004) Informal Land Delivery in Enugu, Nigeria: Summary of Findings and Policy Implications 2. Kalabamu, F.T. (2004) Land Delivery Processes in Greater Gaborone, Botswana: Constraints, Opportunities and Policy Implications 3. Musyoka, R. (2004) Informal Land Delivery in Eldoret, Kenya: Summary of Findings and Policy Implications 4. Leduka, R.C. (2004) Informal Land Delivery Processes and Access to Land for the Poor in Maseru, Lesotho 5. Nkurunziza, E. (2004) Informal Land Delivery Processes in Kampala, Uganda: Summary of Findings and Policy Implications 6. Rakodi, C. and Leduka, R.C. (2004) Informal Land Delivery Processes and Access to Land for the Poor: A Comparative Study of Six African Cities

Publications can be obtained by either telephoning Carol Fowler on 44 (0) 121 414 4986 or Email: [email protected] and also downloaded as a PDF file from http:// www.idd.bham.ac.uk/research/researchprojs.htm

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