Between 50 and 70 percent of land for housing in African cities is supplied informally. The social institutions that regulate transactions in land and relations between the actors involved are a mix of formal, customary and informal rules. Attempts to improve urban land administration often fail, partly because the social rules governing how people act in land markets are poorly understood.

Research from the University of Birmingham’s International Development Department sought to better understand how informal systems of housing land delivery operate, are evolving and interact with formal land administration systems.

The aim was to improve understanding of contemporary informal land delivery processes in six medium-sized cities in Anglophone Africa: Eldoret (Kenya), Enugu (Nigeria), Gaborone (Botswana), Kampala (Uganda), Lusaka (Zambia) and Maseru (Lesotho).

The study found that:

• Formal public or private land delivery systems provide only a limited supply of plots (except in Gaborone), which are rarely accessible to poor people.
• Informal land delivery systems are partly a continuation of earlier ‘customary’ land administration practices and partly a response to the failures of the formal tenure and administration systems.
• Informal systems are the main channels of supplying housing land. In the past they enabled all but the poorest people to access land for self-managed house construction.
• Today, non-commercial channels for obtaining land are restricted and the vast majority of those who obtain land through informal channels purchase it. Access to land, therefore, is restricted mainly to middle and upper income households.
• Most women members of indigenous groups only obtain access to land through men, but women with means can buy informally subdivided land.

For many new households in African cities, especially poor ones, the only way of becoming the owner of a plot on which to build a house is through subdivision or inheritance of a parent’s plot. In practice, most poor households are tenants. Informal land delivery processes are often effective in delivering land for housing because they are accessible and socially legitimate. However, urban growth increases the pressure on existing social rules and practices used to regulate transactions and resolve disputes in land. Sometimes they adapt, often copying and borrowing from formal rules, but sometimes they weaken and break down.

The research concludes that informal land delivery systems do and should play a significant and effective role in urban residential land delivery but their shortcomings should also be identified and addressed:

• To encourage investment in both owner-occupied and rental housing, the tenure security available to those who access land through informal delivery channels should be enhanced.
• Governments should provide at least short-term security to residents in informal settlements and, in the vast majority of cases, cease to evict settlers and demolish houses.
• Security and formal land administration can be enhanced by public sector agencies accepting innovations in procedures and documentation that have emerged in informal systems.
• The poor layouts and services that often characterise informal settlements can be addressed by acknowledging the existence of such areas, permitting work with subdividers to improve layouts and enable the early provision of basic services.
• Registering occupiers enables governments to generate tax revenues and charge users for services.
• Formal land administration should be decentralised, in particular to provide for local registration of land rights and transactions.
• To deter informal subdivision revised compensation provisions are needed, requiring government to pay adequate compensation when it expropriates land from private or customary rights holders.

Source(s):
‘Informal land delivery processes and access to land for the poor: a comparative study of six African cities’, University of Birmingham, School of Public Policy, International Development Department, Informal Land Delivery Processes in African Cities, Policy Brief 6 by Carole Rakodi and Clement Leduka, 2004. Full document.
‘Informal land delivery processes and access to land for the poor in Enugu, Gaborone, Eldoret, Maseru and Kampala’, University of Birmingham, School of Public Policy, International Development Department, Informal Land Delivery Processes in African Cities, Policy Briefs 1-5, by Cosmas Uche Ikejiofor, Faustin T. Kalabamu, Rose Musyoka, Clement R. Leduka, Emmanuel Nkuranziza, 2004 Full document.
‘Informal land delivery processes and access to land for the poor in Enugu, Gaborone, Eldoret, Maseru and Kampala’, University of Birmingham, School of Public Policy, International Development Department, Informal Land Delivery Processes in African Cities, Working Papers 2-6, by Cosmas Uche Ikejiofor, Faustin T. Kalabamu, Rose Musyoka, Clement R. Leduka, Emmanuel Nkuranziza, 2004 Full document.

Funded by: Department for International Development, UK R8076

id21 Research Highlight: 17 August 2005

Further Information:
Carole Rakodi
International Development Department
School of Public Policy
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham B15 2TT
UK

Tel: +44 (0)121 414 7232
Fax: +44 (0)121 414 7995
Contact the contributor: c.rakodi@bham.ac.uk

International Development Department, University of Birmingham, UK

Clement Leduka
Department of Geography
National University of Lesotho
P.O. Roma
Roma 180
Lesotho

Tel: +266 (0)2234 0601
Fax: +266 (0)2234 0000
Contact the contributor: rc.leduka@nul.ls

Department of Geography, National University of Lesotho

Other related links:
'Sticking with tradition: How effective are new customary land delivery systems?'

'Can urban housing regulations be pro-poor?'

'Kick starting South African township residential property markets'