Land in an urbanising world
- a contentious and complex web of widely varying rules around the world
By Clarissa Augustinus

A new housing development for the urban poor in South Africa. Photo © The South African Homeless People's Federation

There are few more contentious and complex problems in the world than those dealing with land and secure tenure. Many religions have firm rules on land and inheritance, most local communities have deeply ingrained cultural traditions, and every government faces the challenge of land differently with its own vast array of laws.
In many countries, the rules work against women owning land because of religious and cultural traditions. Yet, in north-east India, for example, traditionally only the youngest daughter can inherit and only women can own land.

This contentious and complex web of widely varying rules is further exacerbated by unfair land distribution. The United Nations Development Programme in its Poverty Report states that governments have failed to "squarely address the sources of inequality such as unequal distribution of land." In many cities in the world, such as Nairobi, Kenya, the poor live on 5 per cent of city land, yet they constitute more than 60 per cent of the city's population.

In wealthy countries, land records cover most of the territory and are generally well kept. But few developing countries have more than 30 per cent of their land accounted for by land records. Land records are usually linked to the middle and higher classes. In many countries, there is large-scale corruption associated with land. In post conflict societies, land is a key issue which needs special management and often a fresh start. At the heart of it all is personal security, and where that is lacking it can lead to unrest as countless examples around the world show.

From Afghanistan to Kosovo and Timor Leste, to name a few, UN-HABITAT runs numerous programmes around the world. Through its flagship Global Campaign for Secure Tenure it is working to bring land and secure tenure to the forefront of the agenda. It has recently launched the campaign in a number of countries including Brazil, Namibia, The Philippines, Jamaica, South Africa and India. UN-HABITAT's Cities Without Slums programme which currently focuses on slum upgrading in eastern and southern Africa, addresses the issue of land. Most of UN-HABITAT's programmes are designed so that the allocation of land and property is managed by taking into account the needs of the poor, equal access to land, fair distribution, gender equality and partnerships with the slum dwellers themselves.

Simply stated, dealing with land in many towns and cities around the world could be a nightmare.

In South Africa, in one province alone, there are over 1,000 laws applying which need to be understood when dealing with land delivery. In Brazil, land is sometimes controlled by drug lords in the favelas or slums. In Indonesia, the Ministry of Forestry controls most of the country's land, including large numbers of human settlements -- but this is not their core business. In many countries of French-speaking Africa there are tensions over land between the customary authorities and local authorities. Poorly managed reforms involving rapid and large-scale privatisation in the Transition Countries of the former Soviet Union, has led to increasing impoverishment in the cities, and especially in the secondary cities. Many countries worldwide are still using colonial land laws which are expensive, appropriate only to the middle classes, and which fail to take into account local land custom.

In a speech celebrating the restoration of land to a local community in South Africa in 1998, former President Nelson Mandela said: "The experience of all countries everywhere is that if such wrongs are not put right, then the bitterness lives on for many generations. Our land reform programme helps redress the injustices of apartheid. It fosters national reconciliation and stability. It underpins economic growth and improves household welfare and food security."

Land is like a diamond - it has to be understood from numerous facets or approaches simultaneously.

Strategic action plans for countries undertaking land reform have to cover a wide range of policies. These include social aspects such as gender, HIV/AIDS, technical and human capacity building, governance and restructuring, development of a regulatory framework, and of course the financing of implementation. In post-conflict societies this takes in the management of disputes that could lead to further crisis and ethnic cleansing. Uganda, for instance, found that after the development of its new land law which incorporated the principles of good governance and security of tenure, the cost of financing made implementation impossible at the national scale.

Land taxation can be the key source of income for cities, and for slum upgrading where land is a critical component. UN-HABITAT is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all.

Under the United Nations Millennium Declaration, the agency is coordinating the work of the UN system in improving the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2020. Although this number may seem huge, the 100 million represent only 10 per cent of the present worldwide slum population, which, if left unchecked, will increase to 2 billion by the year 2030. The challenge is made more daunting by the fact that, according to UN-HABITAT recent research, the world's slum population has already grown by 75 million in barely three years since the Millennium Declaration.

Often, land and security of tenure explain the existence of slums. The regulatory framework used in the city should enable its local authorities to treat all its citizens equally. Often, the national land laws create inequality among the citizens. These laws need to be reformed. Many countries have focused on titling as the only form of delivering secure tenure to the poor. Yet titling systems are generally slow, unaffordable and inflexible. In Peru, land delivery of a single parcel can take over 20 years.

The development of innovative forms of tenure that are affordable to the poor, and especially to women, combined with affordable land management and administration systems, are among UN-HABITAT's main areas of focus. In regions such as Asia, the decentralisation of land management functions, as well as resources, to the local government is the key to ensure this affordability.

Lessons learned from Brazil and India show that for slum dwellers to get security of tenure on private land often requires pressure from the local government and sometimes this pressure requires unconventional interpretations of the law. Also slum upgrading means that decision- makers need information about the slums _ their location, who occupies them, rights and claims, existing services, etc. This information needs to be structured in an appropriate land information system. It should include land use rights, claims and disputes over land, and be user-friendly for the slum dwellers themselves. It should serve to help city managers engage with the slum dwellers in upgrading the slums.

There is no sustainable human settlement development where there is no security of tenure for all the citizens of a country.

As Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), the renowned American philosopher, teacher, writer and environmental campaigner, once stated: "We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a commodity to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."

Clarissa Augustinus is the Chief of UN-HABITAT's Land and Tenure Section.