Security of land tenure for the urban poor is now a major problem for developing cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America. This book presents and analyzes the main conclusions of a comparative research programme on land tenure issues. It looks at how solutions can be found and implemented to respond to the demands and needs of the majority of squatters and informal settlements, and analyzes how urban stakeholders, with different social, legal and economic constraintes, find innovative and flexible solutions. The book is intended to fill a gap in the literature on comparative research on tenure policies and should be useful to reserachers and professionals involved in defining and instigating tenure upgrading policies and programmes.

Urban and peri-urban land markets in rapidly expanding West African cities operate within and across different coexisting tenure regimes and involve complex procedures to obtain or make land available for housing. Because a structured framework lacks for the analysis of such systems, this book proposes a systemic approach and applies it to Bamako and its surrounding areas. The framework revolves around the description of land delivery channels: starting from the status of tenure when the land is first placed in circulation for residential use, it identifies the processes whereby tenure can be improved, the types of transactions that take place along the way, and interactions between land delivery channels. The analysis of the system shows that land is initially provided through a customary land delivery channel--which predominates in peri-urban areas where land is being transformed from agricultural to residential use--and through a public and para-public channel, which involves the administrative allocation of residential plots to inhabitants and the transfer of land to developers. These two channels feed into the formal private channel which delivers serviced plots with ownership title at much higher prices. Plots in the various channels may be traded successively, with a degree of informality varying according to tenure, legality and registration of transactions. Whereas the development of the formal market is hindered by structural factors, the informal land market provides little tenure security. Targeted towards low and middle-incomes, it also attracts wealthy and well-connected buyers who have access to information and administrative and political power and can more easily formalize tenure. The sustained increase in land prices, numerous conflicts over land, high transaction costs and time-consuming formalization procedures, together with the involvement of a large number of stakeholders, combine to reduce affordability significantly and make access to secure land very difficult for the urban poor.

Les marches fonciers urbains et periurbains des villes d'Afrique de l'Ouest en expansion rapide operent dans des contextes ou coexistent des regimes fonciers differents et ou les procedures d'acces aux terrains sont complexes. Un cadre d'analyse faisant defaut jusqu'ici, ce livre propose une approche systemique et l'applique a la zone urbaine et periurbaine de Bamako et a son hinterland rural. La methode repose sur une analyse des differentes filieres d'approvisionnement en terres et identifie, depuis la mise en circulation des terres agricoles pour repondre aux besoins en terrains a usage residentiel, les changements de tenure et types de transactions qui accompagnent le passage aux terrains urbains, ainsi que les interactions entre les differentes filieres. L'analyse montre que l'approvisionnement en terre est a l'origine assuree par la filiere coutumiere, qui predomine dans les zones periurbaines, et par la filiere publique et parapublique ou l'Etat alloue des terrains a usage d'habitation aux individus ou les cede a des societes de promotion fonciere et immobilieres. Ces filieres alimentent la filiere privee formelle qui met ensuite sur le marche, a des prix eleves, des parcelles viabilisees avec titre de propriete. Les parcelles peuvent etre cedees successivement, avec un degre d'informalite qui depend de la tenure, de la legalite de la transaction et de son enregistrement. Alors que le developpement du marche formel est entrave par des facteurs structurels, le marche foncier informel offre peu de securite.

Security of land tenure for the urban poor is now a major problem for developing cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America. This book presents and analyzes the main conclusions of a comparative research programme on land tenure issues. It looks at how solutions can be found and implemented to respond to the demands and needs of the majority of squatters and informal settlements, and analyzes how urban stakeholders, with different social, legal and economic constraintes, find innovative and flexible solutions. The book is intended to fill a gap in the literature on comparative research on tenure policies and should be useful to reserachers and professionals involved in defining and instigating tenure upgrading policies and programmes.