The Primacy of Land Conflicts

Peri-urban areas in Southern and East Africa are characterised by: rapid change and spiraling socio-economic polarisation; divergent claims, competing interests and identities; and conflicts, disputes and tensions concerning the access, control and use of land resources.

Research by South Bank University and African partners in the Urban and Peri-Urban Research Network (Peri-NET), shows that land resource based conflicts are critically important in peri-urban transformations - whether in Kampala, Lusaka, Nairobi, Durban or Johannesburg.

Land use planning for urban development can result in pressures on peri-urban areas, due to:

• land invasions and subdivisions by dealers, speculators and developers
• conflicts concerning contested lands within the freehold sector, within the customary sector, and between the freehold and the customary sectors
• conflicts concerning the use and access to public lands
• policy and administrative conflicts and compensation disputes.

What are the results of these pressures and conflicts?

• A rising level of segregation and polarisation in peri-urban areas. In Nairobi, the collapse of service delivery (water, refuse removal, health, security etc.) has sharpened inequalities as only those that pay receive decent services.
• Marginalised inhabitants of informal settlements (e.g. Soweto, Mathare, Kibera, Dagoretti, Dandora etc.) resort to their own means of self-provisioning, often including violence.
• Further environmental damage.
• Reduced investment in urban areas, lost opportunities for growth, and increased poverty at all levels.

External interventions by market forces and development agencies can exacerbate these tensions. Also, local agents and communities often feel that violent re-distribution of assets is the most effective way to deal with the situation. An 'urban political gridlock', where ruling parties that control central government and national resources have lost political control of metropolitan areas to opposition parties, can also further compound the conflicts.

It is critical that researchers, planners, and policy-makers focus on the conflicts surrounding land in urban and peri-urban areas; as well as paying greater attention to conflict analysis, management and resolution.

Beacon Mbiba
Urban and Environmental Studies
Faculty of the Built Environment
South Bank University
London SW8 2JZ

T +44 (0) 207 815 8385

mbibab@sbu.ac.uk

See also
'Review of Urban and Peri-Urban Transformations and Livelihoods in East and Southern Africa', Peri-NET Working Papers 1-6, Faculty of the Built Environment, South Bank University, London, 2001

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