Globally, more people now live in cities and towns than in rural areas
Africa is now the World’s fastest urbanizing region and by 2050, 55% of Africans will be living in urban areas (from 38% in 2000)
Over 90% of new urban development in Africa is taking the form of slums
About 70% of urban population in Africa presently live in slums, and yet occupy less than 10% of urban and peri-urban lands
Research shows that in Africa about 60% of GDP is created in cities and towns
Formal land registration and administration have been unable to cope with rapid urban growth and as a result, between 50-70 percent of urban land in Africa is delivered through informal practices
In Zimbabwe, on 19 May 2005, with little or no warning, the Government embarked on an Operation to 'clean-up' its cities. It was a 'crash' operation known as Operation Murambatsvina and affected over 700,000 people.
In Ghana, some 800 people also had their homes destroyed in Legion Village, Accra, in May 2006, while approximately 30,000 people in the Agbogbloshie community of Accra have been threatened with forced eviction since 2002.
In Kenya, at least 20,000 people have been forcibly evicted from neighbourhoods in or around Nairobi since 2000.
In Equatorial Guinea, at least 650 families have been forcibly evicted from their homes since 2004, when the government embarked on a programme of urban regeneration in Malabo and Bata.
In Luanda, the capital of Angola, at least 6,000 families have been forcibly evicted and have had their homes demolished since 2001.
In Sudan, more than 12,000 people were forcibly evicted from Darusalaam camp in August 2006.
58 per cent of all households in South Africa are living without security of tenure.
In Nigeria, some 2 million people have been forcibly evicted from their homes and many thousands have been made homeless since 2000.
More than 3 million Africans have been forcibly evicted from their homes since 2000.
In Trinidad and Tobago, the 1998 Regularization of Tenure Act established a Certificate of Comfort that can be used to confer security of tenure to squatters as the first step in a process designed to give them full legal title.
Some 25,000 evictions are carried out annually in New York City alone.
In Atlanta, some 30,000 people were forcibly evicted prior to the 1996 Olympic Games, while the oldest public housing project, Techwood Homes, was deliberately de-tenanted because it stood in the way of a 'sanitized corridor' running through to CNN headquarters and the city centre.
Between 40 and 70 per cent of the population of Brazil’s main cities are living in irregular settlements.
Some 720,000 people were forcibly evicted in Seoul and Inchon, Republic of South Korea, prior to the 1988 Olympic Games.
The number of people forcibly evicted to give way to dams in India alone since 1950 has been estimated at 50 million.
The economic boom in China has significantly reduced security of tenure. Rapid urban growth is a major cause of forced evictions. 1.7 million people have reportedly been evicted in Beijing (China) in the run-up to the 2008 Olympic Games.
Everyone who returned to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, after the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime was a squatter.
In Sri Lanka, large numbers of those displaced by the tsunami in late 2004 are still prevented from returning to their original homes and lands.
The Government of Myanmar forcibly evicted more than 1 million residents of Yangon, Rangoon.
An restitution programme in Kosovo has provided legal clarity regarding tenure and property rights to 29,000 disputed residential properties in the province since 2000.
GLTN Project description
Project Title:
Global Land Tool Network (GLTN)
Project Code:
FS/FLO/07/SXXG051
Total Cost:
US$10,560,863
Donor:
Governments of Norway and Sweden
Partners:
CASLE (Commonwealth Association of Surveying and Land Economy), COHRE (Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions), FAO (The Food and Agriculture Organization), FGF (Federation des Geometres Francophones), FIG (International Federation of Surveyors), GRET (Groupe de recherche et d’échanges technologiques), Habitat International Coalition (HIC), Huairou Commission, IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development), ILC (International Land Coalition), HIS (Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies), ITC (International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation), Lantmäteriet (National Land Survey of Sweden), Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, RDI (Rural Development Institute), SDI (Slum/Shack Dwellers International), Statens kartverk (Norwegian Mapping Authority, Cadastre and Land Registry), Terra Institute, UEL (University of East London), UN-HABITAT (United Nations Human Settlements Programme), UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme), World Bank.
Starting date:
June 2006
Completion date:
December 2011
Background and Objectives
The main objective of the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) is to contribute to poverty alleviation and the Millennium Development Goals through land reform, improved land management and security of tenure.
The Network has developed a global land partnership. Its members include international civil society organizations, international finance institutions, international research and training institutions, donors and professional bodies. It aims to take a more holistic approach to land issues and improve global land coordination in various ways. These include the establishment of a continuum of land rights, rather than a narrow focus on individual land titling, the improvement and development of pro-poor land management, as well as land tenure tools. The new approach also entails unblocking existing initiatives, helping strengthen existing land networks, assisting in the development of affordable gendered land tools useful to poverty-stricken communities, and spreading knowledge on how to implement security of tenure.
The GLTN partners, in their quest to attain the goals of poverty alleviation, better land management and security of tenure through land reform, have identified and agreed on 18 key land tools to deal with poverty and land issues at the country level across all regions. The Network partners argue that the existing lack of these tools, as well as land governance problems, are the main cause of failed implementation at scale of land policies world wide.
The GLTN is a demand driven network where many individuals and groups have come together to address this global problem. The GLTN Secretariat is facilitated by UN-HABITAT. For further information, and registration, visit the GLTN website at www.gltn.net.
Activities:
A range of GLTN activities have been carried out at both the global and country level, including the following types of activities:
Development of normative approaches for the purpose of increasing security of tenure for the urban poor in Member States.
Advocacy – presentation of findings in range of forums.
Expert Group Meetings (EGMs) and Regional workshops for the transfer of knowledge.
Commissioning of key research and tool development.
Interactive conferences via Internet and ongoing website development.
Publications – recurrent and non recurrent.
Management of knowledge (dissemination, data base development of contacts, filing, library etc).
Building partnerships and research associates, including with grassroots organisations (NGOs, CBOs).
Improvement of implementation methodologies especially in regard to grassroots and gender.
Results:
GLTN has established a network of global and regional partners to improving land administration for poverty alleviation. There are currently 36 key global partners registered to the network and 58 member organisations and 626 individual members registered. Some key results include:
Tool Development
The Land Administration Doman Model, a land administration tool capable of documenting both customary and statutory land rights and claims has been presented to the International Standards Organisation (ISO). The Ethiopian Government is reviewing the possibility to test this approach using their current LIMS and certification processes.
GLTN grassroots mechanism to scale-up successful grassroots practices to operate at city-wide and national levels has been developed, including recommendations for capacity-building;
Gender Evaluation Criteria have been developed to facilitate the evaluation of land tools from a gender perspective;
Policy Guidelines and Support
Supported the African land policy framework and the development of land indicators for security of tenure;
Secure Land Rights for All – an overview of land policy issues (English, French and Spanish)
Policy Makers Guide to Women’s Land, Property and Housing Rights (English, French and Spanish)
Shared Tenure Options for Women (English and French)
How to develop a Pro-poor Land Policy (English, Spanish and French)
How to Establish an Effective Land Sector (English)
Guidelines for Addressing Land Issues after Natural Disasters (English)
Training
Transparencyin Land Administration: regional trainings have been held in Ghana, Tanzania, Namibia and Senegal together with local training institutions and Universities and the International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC).
Training in land issues has been organised for UN-HABITAT headquarters and regional office staff in Nairobi and China;
Training in Urban Land Markets was held in Nairobi in 2008.
Documentation and Research
Global inventory of land related initiatives has been expanded to include 159 initiatives from Africa. In total there are 827 initiatives listed in the GLTN database. This is currently being expanded to include initiatives from the Arab States.
Land Law and Islam an overview of concepts and issues in English and Arabic;
Country level support
In line with UN-HABITAT’S Medium Term Strategic and Institutional Plan, and its Enhanced Normative and Operational Framework, Shelter Branch is undertaking activities which link normative and operations together at country level, in collaboration with RTCD, Disaster Management Programme and Training and Capacity Building Branch in the following initiatives.
Gender implications of the rural land certification process in Ethiopia;
Rural land inventory in Botswana and its performance in peri-urban areas as well as the links between customary and statutory systems;
City-wide planning in Haiti, situation analysis to be developed into a guideline for local and central governments;
Research on the social and economic impacts of land titling programmes in urban and peri-urban areas in Senegal and South Africa;
Scoping study and a series of seven case studies on specific natural disasters in Grenada, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Mozambique, Pakistan and the USA.
A study of urban land markets in Mozambique;
Harmonisation, Alignment and Coordination, Chairing the land sector in Kenya, for national land policy formulation and implementation.
Identification of future activities for land governance in Liberia, and affordable land records and spatial infrastructure in Ethiopia.
GLTN Events: 2,324 people attended various GLTN events, including Internet Forums (1,552), Expert Group Meetings (626) and training events (146), with a 60/40 split in male/female participation. Some of the reports available include:
Improving Slum Conditions through Innovative Financing – FIG/UN-HABITAT seminar June 2008
Expert Group Meeting on Post-Disaster Land Guidelines, Geneva, Switzerland
Expert group meeting on Land for Sustainable Urbanisation in Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
UN Commission on Sustainable Development, CSD-16, NYC, USA
Land Professionals Workshop on Gendering Land Tools, Bagamoyo, Tanzania
Grassroots Mechanism, Nairobi, Kenya
Information on these and other activities is available at the GLTN website: http://www.gltn.net Since April 2006, the site has had more than 38,000 unique visitors from 148 countries.
Delivering through partnerships
In terms of tool development at national level GLTN works through member states and partners to support the implementation of land policies. A key criteria for GLTN engagement is the potential to achieve systemic, pro-poor reform. In this context, GLTN is identifying priority countries for focused engagement, though UN-HABITAT staff will still provide backstopping support to countries on a needs-driven basis and in line with UN-HABITAT’s Enhanced Normative and Operational Framework (ENOF). In-house agreements between divisions and branches have been put into operation to facilitate improved internal coordination and collaboration.
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