This paper discusses the importance of maps in urban planning and the consequences for cities planned within a'non existent maps context', when the power of decision belongs to the dwellers.
The housing sector including its institutions, laws and regulations, touches every single aspect of the economy of a country and has interface with practically every social development sector. People living in adequate homes have better health, higher chances to improve their human capital and seize the opportunities available in urban contexts. At the same time, a housing sector that performs well acts as a ‘development multiplier’ benefiting complementary industries, contributing to economic development, employment generation, service provision and overall poverty reduction.
This article examines the relations between practices in informal land transactions under customary tenure and spatial differentiation among suburbs in the periphery of the city of Pointe-Noire, Congo- Brazzaville. Urban sprawl is a permanent feature of urbanisation in Congo-Brazzaville that not only propagates slums for low-income dwellers but also entails locally embedded ways of building the city in the absence of state-led planning.
On 5 March 2021 the Namibian Ministry of Land Reform issued 988 land holder titles to nine associations in Freedom Square;an informal settlement in Gobabis municipality;with an additional 122 to be printed in due course. This is a huge milestone to the residents of Freedom Square and to the stakeholders championing the improvement of tenure security of middle and low-income groups residing in different informal settlements of Namibia.
This book re-considers property law for a future of environmental disruption.
A detailed situation analysis reveals key linkages between meagre services, insecure land tenure, and unjust governance institutions in Nairobi’s informal settlements. In addition to exploring alternative models of service delivery, the analysis examines the “poverty penalty” and the types of service provision specific to Mukuru settlement, where residents are forced to pay for poorer services. Private holdings in Mukuru should be converted to community land, using provisions from the Constitution, Land Act, and the draft community land bill.
This report presents the dissemination and communication activities for the period February – September 2015 of the 2 year IDRC funded action research project entitled “Improving Access to Justice and Basic Services in the Informal Settlements of Nairobi”.
This policy brief provides details of the United Nations Special Rapporteur recommendations regarding how governments can upgrade informal settlements within a human rights-based framework. A human rights-based approach will require that residents are ensured security of tenure over the land on which they live. States are legally required to set in motion policies and plans which have as their end goal the fulfilment of the right to adequate housing. Upgrading can reduce poverty, promote economic development and prosperity, and improve the health and well-being of residents.
Over the next 15 years, over Kshs. 89.09 billion will be paid by slum-dwellers to informal service-providers for low-quality and high-cost services. This situation is replicated in almost all informal settlements within the city of Nairobi. Developing affordable shelter for the urban poor, and thereby
realizing the Constitutional right to housing, will require new forms of pro-poor shelter finance
and supportive policies at the urban level. But most of Nairobi’s residential construction
Recientemente se ha constituido una agenda urbana de desarrollo sostenible que tiene como fundamentos los diagnósticos y compromisos asumidos en diversos acuerdos internacionales que han tenido lugar en los últimos años. Entre estos resaltan la Agenda 2030, la Nueva Agenda Urbana Mundial y el Acuerdo de París.
This paper examines the various ways in which migrant settlers have gained and maintained access to land in the informal urban settlements of Wewak, the provincial capital of East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea (PNG). Urban population growth in PNG and in Pacific Island states more generally is predicted to grow rapidly over the next two decades. Given the limited availability of formal housing for lower income people, it is likely that many will live in informal urban settlements on land owned by customary landowners.
The spread of COVID-19 in South Africa and other countries in the region has again brought to the fore the fact that very dense, under-serviced, mostly informal, settlements are not healthy places to live. They are also places where the spread of a disease is difficult to prevent or manage.
The kind of emergency response that was required to address the imminent spread of COVID-19 highlighted the widespread vulnerability of the poorest, compounded by highly unequal access to services and ongoing unhealthy living conditions.