This document is a report on the session that focused on the role of universities in participatory informal settlement upgrading at the workshop titled "Bottom-up city Wide planning in Gobabis", which took place on 11-13 May 2017, in Gobabis. The event was convened by the Namibia Housing Action Group (NHAG) and the Shack Dwellers Federation, with support from Shack Dwellers International (SDI).

Namibia is compelled to observe and to undertake efforts to realise the right to adequate housing, since it has ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1994.

There has been rapid growth in urban populations in Namibia (Pendleton et al, 2014). This growth is amongst predominantly amongst less educated, poorer migrants from rural areas in search of opportunities in urban areas. From the data available the estimated shortfall of either titled land or houses appears to be above 150 000 and increasing at about 11 000 per year (Weber, 2017). This trend of urbanisation is occurring not only in Namibia but across the world, particularly now in developing countries.

Ancestral land refers to ‘land of ancestors’. That is the land occupied by ones’ forebearers for generations and left something behind of value for current and future generations. There are usually contestations as to which ancestors the land

belongs because of the history of internal migration and of displacements by stronger nations (tribes).

Namibia is moving towards an urbanised country. This is illustrated by the fact that at independence Namibia was only 28% urbanized by 2011 urbanization has already grown to 42% and current projections are that by 2020 urbanization would by 66% and more than 70% by 2030. As the urban population is growing the need for serviced land and housing is also growing. As Namibia has failed to respond through appropriate strategies to facilitate this change in the human geography of the country it resulted in the growth of poorly serviced informal settlements.

Les conflits fonciers et leur résolution à l’échelle locale dans un contexte de marchandisation de la terre. Une étude de cas dans les Hautes Terres à Madagascar.

Land use development and transformation in informal settlements have been taking place because informal settlements have been alternative way of providing affordable housing to low income people. Many governments use strict regulations to deny informal settlements from infrastructure services but in Tanzania informal settlements are provided with such services. This paper presents the findings on how land use transformation is taking place and publicly used spaces disappear overtime in the informal settlements, the context behind and their outcomes.

Abstract: To avoid illegal occupation of people in areas where construction is forbidden and the development of informal settlements, municipal authorities must anticipate city planning. The implementation of layouts and cadastral plans, plays a broad range of uses in: taxation, land development, land registration, urban planning and design of infrastructure necessary to improve the living conditions of the population. This paper aims to demonstrate that, the integration of images of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is an alternative solution to the production of cadastral maps.

In the early 1990s to date, the private sector has continued to gain momentum in urban planning and service delivery. Among others, the penetration of neo-liberal ideology in policies and legislations empowered the engagement of private sector in urban planning domain. Subsequently many private firms have dominated the process of the preparation of details schemes including regularization of informal settlements in different cities, municipalities and towns in Tanzania.

This working paper by Tikvah Breimer previously of the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS) and Mark Napier previously of Urban LandMark, analyses the provision of core housing in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, specifically taking into account the residents' response to the state's delivery of core housing. It aims to explore to what extent the South African government's approach to providing large-scale housing addresses the relevant demands in the context of rapid urbanisation.

A Serrinha, trata-se de uma área de terra da União Federal, grilada e denominada Fazenda Serrinha, na Gleba Garimpo. A área foi ocupada em 15 de maio de 2012, por 34 famílias sem-terra da região de Araguaína/TO e Barra do Ouro/TO. A Serrinha está situada na Gleba Serrinha, no município de Barra do Ouro, distante 12 km do centro urbano e aproximadamente há 130 km de Araguaína.