'Securing rights to land benefits the poor'

Facts

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.