The ‘Price Penalty’ exists where a poor person pays an above-average price per unit of the facility, product, or service. The ‘Quality Penalty’ refers to the provision of a facility, product, or service of low quality, which is still offered at a price similar to that of higher-quality.
Providing formal titles to residents in densely populated informal settlements without fuelling conflict or encouraging gentrification presents several challenges. It has been argued that, in some contexts, forms of collective tenure such as a Community Land Trust may help to overcome some of these problems. This paper analyses one attempt to legalise informal tenure arrangements, minimise relocation and prevent gentrification by introducing collective titling in an informal settlement in Nairobi.
The Constitution of Kenya provides that every citizen has the right to property. The provision ensures that an individual or group of people that acquire land have the protection to own this property if acquired lawfully. Individuals living in informal settlements then have a right to have property when acquired through proper means. Even though there are processes in progress to address the issue of securing tenure rights in informal settlements by the government.
Four years ago, I was part of a research team looking at access to land and basic services in informal settlements.
We conducted field interviews in Mukuru slums in Eastlands. We were amazed at the levels of development in the area. People were constructing permanent structures despite the fact that they were under the impression that informal settlements are characterised by temporary structures.
Four years later, there are ongoing discussions to address the plight of informal settlements. A fundamental starting point is to address issues of tenure security.
Formal land administration systems in developing countries have failed to cope with the wide range of land rights that have evolved under non-formal land tenure arrangements. Urban informal settlements in particular pose a challenge to existing land administration infrastructure in these countries. The tenure types, land rights and spatial units found in such settlements are inconsistent with the provisions of existing land law. Conventional land administration approaches can not work in these settlements.
The current paper derives from work conducted in the context of the Revision of the Mass Housing Development
Programme (MHDP) that the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development (MURD) commissioned to the Integrated
Land Management Institute (ILMI) at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST). The paper
contains only publicly-available information and was prepared for public dissemination of issues related to the
work undertaken for the Ministry in the context of this project.
This document provides the focus for an integrated approach to research in the land, livelihoods and housing sectors in Namibia. Its thematic approach seeks to facilitate multi-disciplinary research projects that will reflect the wide range of skills existing in the School of Natural Resources and Spatial Sciences (SNRSS) at the Polytechnic of Namibia (PoN). It is unique in that it has all land related disciplines in one School and is therefore well placed to become a leading research centre.
The current paper derives from work conducted in the context of the Revision of the Mass Housing Development
Programme (MHDP) that the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development (MURD) commissioned to the Integrated
Land Management Institute (ILMI) at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST). The paper contains
only publicly-available information and was prepared for public dissemination of issues related to the work
undertaken for the Ministry in the context of this project. More information about this project can be found on
The initiative to investigate the housing situation of teachers in Namibia was triggered by teacher
Gertrude Mujoro, who discussed the matter with her fellow colleagues who brought the matter to the
attention of the leadership of the Teachers Union of Namibia (TUN). In 2014 the Trade Union Congress
of Namibia (TUCNA), the umbrella federation that TUN belongs to, developed a document titled
“TUCNA Development Policy Proposals” (TUCNA, 2014), which contains a section on housing. In line
Women need secure access to and control of land in order to realise their human rights. In order for the women to realise their land and inheritance rights it is important for the policy makers to have in place mechanisms and institutions to guide practice. This report sets out the status of women’s land and inheritance rights in Lesotho. The aim is to provide a consolidated baseline which can inform policy making, implementation and monitoring.
At its fifty-sixth session the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human
Rights, in its resolution 2004/2, welcomed the progress report of the Special Rapporteur and
requested the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to circulate
the draft principles on housing and property restitution for refugees and displaced persons
contained therein widely among non-governmental organizations, Governments, specialized
agencies and other interested parties for comment, and requested the Special Rapporteur to take