In Brasil, 1 percent of the population owns 49 percent of land. Source (Financial Times, 0 April 2010)
In Britain, 0.3 percent of the population owns 69 percent of land. Source (Financial Times, 0 April 2010)
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 Newsletter August 2008
Dear [NAME],
Welcome to GLTN News!
We hope that you find the newsletter an informative update on GLTN events and other pro poor land related activities world wide. The purpose of GLTN News is to give an overview of the Global Land Tool Network as well as to inform you about upcoming events and activities.
Over the last few months GLTN has been involved in several capacity building activities such as the Transparency in Land Administration Training in Tanzania and Namibia as well as training on Urban Land Markets held in Nairobi. A workshop was held in Tanzania for Land Professionals on Gendering Land Tools and another workshop was held in Italy on Voluntary Guidelines on Land and Natural Resource Tenure co-organised by FAO (A follow up Expert Group Meeting will be held 25-26 November 2008) and an expert group meeting was held in Geneva on post disaster guidelines. Furthermore, GLTN contributed to the FIG Working Week in Stockholm in June on a special session on Improving Slum Conditions through Innovative Financing.
GLTN also launched a new publication on How to Establish an Effective Land Sector as well as a research report on Land Tools for All Age Groups as per information below. The GLTN supported research on Social and Economic Impacts of Land Titling Programmes in Urban and Peri-urban Areas has been concluded as per the report below.
Please also find below information regarding the e-discussion on Establishing Evaluation Criteria for Gender-responsive Land Tools which is to be held at the GLTN website between 8 September and 15 October 2008.
The GLTN website contains an inventory of interesting land related initiatives worldwide, in total some 827 initiatives are included in the database covering Asia, South and Central America, Caribbean and Africa. Under the advanced search options you will hopefully be able to find information as per your specific request.
We thank you for your interest in our work and encourage your involvement in GLTN.
Best regards,
Ulrik Westman
GLTN Coordinator, on behalf of the GLTN Secretariat in Nairobi
Nairobi, 3 September
Establishing Evaluation Criteria for Gender-responsive Land Tools E - discussion
The Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) is facilitating an e-discussion forum as part of ongoing consultations on Establishing Evaluation Criteria for Gender-responsive Land Tools.
Please find attached the flyer regarding the e-discussion which is to be held at www.gltn.net/forum between 8 September and 15 October 2008. The forum is open to GLTN members, as well as all concerned stakeholders, but registration is necessary to reply and post new topics. Read more...
Developing land tools for all age groups
Land and housing policies often fail to be inclusive because they focus almost exclusively on adults at the expense of the rights and development needs of the majority of the world’s population – children, youth and older persons. While children and youth represent the majority of the urban population in many countries, the dramatic population shift through increase in life expectancy, smaller family sizes and changing household structures also calls for increased policy focus on older people. Though age groups are commonly slotted into chronological boxes, age too is constructed through socio-cultural, economic and political processes. As such, there are geographical, class, income, gender, ethnicity and other variations in land access and security as well as housing conditions of children, youth and older persons the world over. Read more...
How to Establish an Effective Land Sector
How to Establish an Effective Land Sector provides an overview on the factors to consider and tools to apply in fostering institutional harmonisation in the land sector. Experiences informing this booklet are drawn from work in Kenya by UN-HABITAT and the Global Land Tool Network. They are complemented by experiences from other sectors (such as water, governance and decentralisation), other African countries and from state as well as non-state actors. Read more...
Land Professionals Workshop on Gendering Land Tools A Land Professionals Workshop on Gendering Land Tools was successfully held in Bagamoyo, Tanzania from 10-11 March 2008, jointly organized by the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) and UN-HABITAT. The Workshop, which brought together 12 land professionals from Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia-Pacific and Europe, drew on professional expertise in land tenure, land administration, land law, urban planning, surveying and engineering through a two days of participatory exchange. Read more...
Social and economic impacts of land titling programmes in urban and peri-urban areas:
International experience and case studies of Senegal and South Africa
GLTN co-funded this research project together with Swedish Sida and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The study seeks to assess the social and economic impacts of land titling and home ownership programmes in urban and peri-urban areas of developing countries. These programmes have been widely promoted by governments and international agencies for the last two decades, despite limited empirical evidence of their benefits/impacts. The research has demonstrated that when titling programmes are undertaken for primarily economic reasons, they have generally failed to realise their objectives. Investment in land and housing, access to formal credit and municipal revenues have not increased noticeably more than under other tenure regimes, including many unauthorised settlements, and there is no significant evidence to date of poverty levels being reduced.Read more...
Improving Slum Conditions through Innovative Financing
Global Land Tool Network contributed to the FIG Working Week in Stockholm, 17-18 June 2008
During a two-day seminar on Improving Slum Conditions through Innovative Financing
GLTN/UN-HABITAT and FIG (information see About the Co-sponsors at end) raised participant awareness on gender and land issues by co-hosting a series of country-presentations, regional ‘Dialogues’ and other activities.
Women-headed households represent a high proportion of the poorest living in informal settlements worldwide. Despite the general progress on women’s rights in recent decades, their access to property and land tenure security has declined. A main reason for this decline, which land professionals and others point to, is the lack of effective and scalable gendered land tools. Read more...
Transparency in Land Administration Training in Tanzania
The recently chartered Ardhi University Tanzania hosted the East African edition of the Transparency in Land Administration Training (TLA) from 24-26 June 2008 in Bagamoyo. Bagamoyo, the beautiful small resort town on the shores of Indian ocean, proved to be an ideal venue not only in terms of providing the serenity needed to ponder about the challenges of transparency, but also of enabling participants to be fully engaged away from the hustle and bustle of Dar es Salaam. Read more...
Voluntary Guidelines on Land and Natural Resource Tenure
On 12 - 13 June 2008 an initial Partners' Meeting on "Voluntary Guidelines on Land and Natural Resource Tenure", was hosted by FAO's Land Tenure and Management Unit (NRLA) at the FAO Headquarters in Rome.
Invited participants included representatives from the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), the World Bank, UN-HABITAT, the Government of Finland and the Food First Information and Action Network (FIAN).
Read more...
Training on Urban Land Markets
Global Land Tool Network (GLTN), in cooperation with Training and Capacity Building Branch (TCBB) of UN-HABITAT, Lincoln Land Policy Institute, Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS) undertook UN-HABITAT staff training program under the title ‘Understanding Urban Land Markets and Their Policy Implications’. Staff members were drawn from different sections of UN-HBITAT including the regional offices as well as a couple of colleagues from the Committee of Permanent Representatives and FAO. The training took place 9-13 June 2008 (for half days) at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in Nairobi. Read more...
Transparency in Land Administration Training in Namibia Building on the outcomes of the pilot training conducted in Kumasi Ghana in January this year, the Training and Capacity Building Branch (TCBB) of UN-HABITAT and GLTN have successfully concluded the Southern Africa edition of the transparency in land administration training in Windhoek, Namibia. The Polytechnic of Namibia (PoN) hosted the program that took place from 26-28 May 2008. Like the previous edition, the International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) co-organized the program with all rounded support provided by such African training institutions as PoN, Ardhi University of Tanzania and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Read more...
Second GLTN International Advisory Board Meeting New York, 7 May 2008 The GLTN International Advisory Board (IAB) was established to provide objective advice on issues related to the GLTN policies, operational strategies and projects. THE IAB consist of representatives of the various 7 segments of GLTN partners.
Read more...
Sitemap
The Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) is facilitating an e-discussion forum as part of ongoing consultations on Establishing Evaluation Criteria for Gender-responsive Land Tools. 
How to Establish an Effective Land Sector provides an overview on the factors to consider and tools to apply in fostering institutional harmonisation in the land sector. Experiences informing this booklet are drawn from work in Kenya by UN-HABITAT and the Global Land Tool Network. They are complemented by experiences from other sectors (such as water, governance and decentralisation), other African countries and from state as well as non-state actors.
A Land Professionals Workshop on Gendering Land Tools was successfully held in Bagamoyo, Tanzania from 10-11 March 2008, jointly organized by the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) and UN-HABITAT. The Workshop, which brought together 12 land professionals from Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia-Pacific and Europe, drew on professional expertise in land tenure, land administration, land law, urban planning, surveying and engineering through a two days of participatory exchange. 
The recently chartered Ardhi University Tanzania hosted the East African edition of the Transparency in Land Administration Training (TLA) from 24-26 June 2008 in Bagamoyo. Bagamoyo, the beautiful small resort town on the shores of Indian ocean, proved to be an ideal venue not only in terms of providing the serenity needed to ponder about the challenges of transparency, but also of enabling participants to be fully engaged away from the hustle and bustle of Dar es Salaam. 
Building on the outcomes of the pilot training conducted in Kumasi Ghana in January this year, the Training and Capacity Building Branch (TCBB) of UN-HABITAT and GLTN have successfully concluded the Southern Africa edition of the transparency in land administration training in Windhoek, Namibia. The Polytechnic of Namibia (PoN) hosted the program that took place from 26-28 May 2008. Like the previous edition, the International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) co-organized the program with all rounded support provided by such African training institutions as PoN, Ardhi University of Tanzania and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
The GLTN 
