Kenya is going through a period of intense transition. The country's main development policy, Vision 2030, is just entering the second Medium Term Plan of Implementation from 2013. The development priorities focus extensively on large scale investments, for industrial, irrigated agriculture, utilization of newly discovered natural resources, and infrastructure development. Land is therefore a central commodity for realization of the sought after socioeconomic transformation.

Kenya is currently implementing a number of large scale infrastructure and development projects aimed at trans forming the country into a newly industrializing, middle-income country. For this, the government has had to compulsorily acquire large tracts of land upon which the infrastructure is set.

The Land Act, 2012

The Land Registration Act, 2012

The National Land Commission Act, 2012

The Environment & Land Court Act, 2011

The Urban Areas & Cities Act, 2011

The acquisition of land by foreigners in developing countries has emerged as a key mechanism for foreign direct investment (FDI). FDI is defined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as the category of international investment that reflects the objective of a resident entity in one economy to obtain a lasting interest in an enterprise resident in another economy.

Land acquisitions, either driven by foreign investments or domestic investment needs have continued to polarize opinions. When this research was proposed, it was premised on arguments by scholars Ruth Meinzen-Dick and Helen Markelova, who had analysed agricultural land deals, and argued that there were potentially two schools of thought about foreign acquisitions over agricultural land.

Fiscal instruments are tools that governments use to manage revenue and expenditure and therefore influence the growth (or stability) of the various sectors of the economy. Government revenue is derived primarily through taxation. In Kenya, land taxation has contributed less than 1% of government revenue for the past three years. The Sessional Paper No.

An Act to provide for the compulsory acquisition of lands for public purposes and in connection with housing schemes.

Land is a cross-cutting theme in most contemporary development challenges. Contemporary literature shows that land governance benefits the broader administration and governance of society. Tools enabling evaluation of land governance, however, are often focuses on national or supranational levels. Ethiopia provides a case in point: rapid urbanization and urban poverty are an issue; however, limited studies assess urban land governance from a multi-stakeholder perspective. Citizens and government representatives at different levels are the sources of information.

A compendium of four doctoral theses on land administration. 

In various countries around the world, land expropriation is considered as a major tool used by governments to assemble tracts of land for various activities aiming at public interest. However, determination of compensation which is regarded as a pre-requisite for land expropriation has been a source of controversy in this process. This paper attempts to find out how land valuation for compensation during expropriation is carried out in Rwanda, considering two expropriation projects in Kigali city.

This paper examines regulatory approaches for informal livelihood activities within cities. Informality is generally conceptualised in terms of activities, workers and governance. Scholars have concentrated much advocating development of micro enterprise and improvement of capital goods. Little focus has been put on the conceptualisation of regulatory approaches for informal livelihood activities spatially, which sought to be the aim of this paper.

The shifting of national capitals from old cities to new sites was fashionable from the 1956 to 1990s. While in the past this move was politically motivated, in the later decades this shift has been motivated by economic and innovation attributes to establish centres for building states and national identity. Tanzania declared its intention of shifting the national capital from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma in 1973. This declaration and the recent establishment of large institutions in Dodoma fuelled its expansion from a small town of about 45,000 people in 1973 to 410,956 people in 2012.