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 News November 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.
The fourth and final edition of Transparency in Land Administration training has been successfully held in M’bour, Senegal from 9-11 September 2008. This was the last training in this series to take place in Africa. The training on Transparency in Land Administration (training of trainers) will soon be launched in Asia.
GLTN launched a new publication on Land Registration in Ethiopia. This study focuses on how Ethiopian land law has been implemented in practice. In particular, it examines how the position of women, in cases of divorce or death of their husbands, may have changed and whether the new laws have impacts on the empowerment of women. Gender impacts are also captured by comparing the situation of female-headed households with other households. This report is an abridged version of the full research paper by Stein Holden (Norwegian University of Life Sciences) and Tewodros Tefera (University of Hawassa). The full paper is also available on the GLTN website.
GLTN facilitated a highly successful e-discussion forum, which significantly advanced the process of establishing evaluation criteria for testing the gender-responsive land tools. The e-forum, which took place between 8 September and 15 October 2008, was a follow up of the GLTN Grassroots Gender meeting in 2007 and the Land Professionals Gender meeting in 2008.
Furthermore, the GLTN inventory of interesting land related initiatives worldwide is now also capturing the Middle East. The database currently captures some 885 initiatives world wide. Under the advanced search options you will hopefully be able to find information as per your specific request.
GLTN was present at the fourth session of the World Urban Forum, 3-6 November 2008 in Nanjing, China. A GLTN roundtable was held on 4 November developing the Networks’ understanding of the overarching concept of land governance and in particular the critical pillars of gender responsiveness and grassroots participation. In addition, GLTN organised a training event on Transparency in Land Administration and two side events on Taking the Gender Mechanism further.
An Expert Group Meeting on Tools for Legal Integration and Provision of Environmental Improvements in Informal Settlements in Europe will be organised by GLTN, the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG), the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT). The meeting will take place in Athens 27-28 November 2008.
This will be my last newsletter as the GLTN coordinator. As of January 2009 I will be with the International Secretariat at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency based in Stockholm, Sweden. It has been a pleasure to work with you all and I look forward to meet you again if possible in my new capacity. I would also like to take this opportunity to introduce Mr. Danilo (Danny) Antonio who will take over as the GLTN coordinator. Danny is a land administration and land tenure specialist from the Philippines. His previous works and experiences are focused on programme management, land administration and management, tenure security for the rural and urban poor, capacity building and institutional development, land policy development and land reform. Danny is a land surveyor by profession with Master Thesis (entitled “Intermediate Land Tenure Instruments: Concepts and Realities”) from the Technical University of Munich, Germany. He can be reached at danilo.antonio@unhabitat.org, +254 20 762 5199.
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, 27 November 2008
News
GLTN Roundtable: Land governance within a grassroots and gender framework
4 November 2008
Highlights of the Roundtable
The main objective of the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) Roundtable was to bring GLTN partners (representing multilateral, bilateral organizations, NGOs, academia, training institutions and grassroots organizations) to develop the Network’s understanding of the overarching concept of land governance, gender and grassroots and for GLTN partners to report on current activities.
The meeting was opened by the Chairperson, Ambassador Kalibbala, who introduced the discussion on the way forward for GLTN and on how land governance relates to the GLTN gender and grassroots mechanisms. The Norwegian delegation highlighted the progress made by GLTN in regard to gendered pro poor land tool development and reiterated its support to the initiative.
Gender evaluation criteria for large-scale land tools
How can we judge if a land tool sis responsive to both women and men’s needs?
The relevance of gender and land: sharing and building capacity at WUF IV
Gender issues had a critical place in GLTN’s activities at WUF IV in Nanjing. At the GLTN Roundtable—with the overarching theme of land governance—gender was recognized as one of the key elements required for any country striving for better governance of land, and a set of evaluation questions for judging whether a large-scale land tool is sufficiently responsive to both women and men’s needs was shared amongst partners. These gender evaluation criteria have been advanced by GLTN during 2007-2008 through two workshops held in collaboration with the Huairou Commission and the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG), and most recently through an e-forum on the topic, completed before WUF IV and still accessible for public viewing on www.gltn.net. While still in draft format, the evaluation questions attracted large attention with several WUF participants expressing interest in piloting the criteria in 2009.
GLTN E-forum develops criteria for testing the gender responsiveness of tools
The Global Land Tool Network (GLTN)
facilitated a highly successful e-discussion forum, which significantly
advanced the process of establishing evaluation criteria for testing the
gender-responsive land tools. The e-forum, which took place between 8 September
and 15 October 2008, was a follow up of the GLTN Grassroots Gender meeting 2007
in Lukenya, Kenya and the Land Professionals Gender meeting 2008 in Bagamayo,
Tanzania. The e-forum was widely publicised within GLTN networks such as
Huairou, FIG, UEL and ILC and other networks as a key component of the GLTN
Gender Mechanism for developing gendered land tools. The objective of the
e-discussion was to merge and to further develop the criteria for testing the
gender responsiveness of large-scale tools from the two gender workshops.
Land Registration in Ethiopia: Early Impacts on Women
This publication from the Global Land Tool Network belongs to a series of research reports examining the changing landscape of land tenure security in developing countries. The intent is to provide up-to-date information to land professionals and policy makers working in the land sector and to raise awareness on what is being done at the country level.
Global Land Tool Network, in cooperation with the Training and Capacity Building Branch and Regional Technical Cooperation Division of UN-HABITAT, is rolling out a training program for Habitat Program Managers currently working in 38 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and caribean. The training will focus on introducing basics of land and the GLTN agenda. As such, it is essentially about awareness creation and enabling HPMs become informed actors in regional and national land debates. This would first and foremost entail having adequate grasp of basic concepts, paradigmatic trends, corporate / UN-HABITAT mandates, pertinent issues, interventions and ongoing challenges in the land sector. The training will serve as a forum where HPMs could exchange knowledge and experience with land professionals on these themes. Further, the training will enhance awareness on GLTN agenda and hopefully secure buy-in that may be required to facilitate land tools promotion and dissemination.
EGM on Tools for Legal Integration & Provision of Environmental Improvements in Informal Settlements
The Expert Group Meeting (EGM) is organised by the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG), the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) and the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN).
The EGM will contribute to the development of guidelines and tools within the concept of the paradigm of Land Management model, for the legal integration and the environmental upgrading of unplanned urban development within three countries in Europe, namely Greece, Albania and Croatia.
The meeting will take place in Athens 27-28 November 2008 at the Technical Chamber of Greece, Karageorgi Servias 4, Syntagma square, Athens, Greece.
This set of seven Quick Guides has been jointly prepared by UNESCAP and UN-HABITAT to aid the daily work of national and local government officials and policy makers as well as other low-income housing stakeholders in Asia and the Pacific in their quest to improve housing for the urban poor. It is not aimed at specialists, but by using easily understandable language and a user-friendly consise structure, is envisaged as a quick tool to provide a basic understanding of low-income housing issues.
Transparency in Land Administration (TLA) training in Francophone Africa
The fourth and final edition of Transparency in Land Administration (TLA) training has been successfully executed in M’bour, Senegal from 9-11 September 2008. The training is a joint initiative of Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) / Training and Capacity Building Branch (TCBB) of UN-HABITAT and International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC). The recent event in Senegal was implemented in cooperation with ENDA Ecopop of Senegal, which is a part of Enda Tiers Monde, an international non-governmental organization.
GLTN round table at the World Urban Forum – land governance within a grassroots and gender framework
The main objective of the round table is to bring GLTN partners (representing multilateral and bilateral organizations, NGOs, academia, training institutions and grassroots organizations) to develop the Networks’ understanding of the overarching concept of land governance, and for GLTN partners to report on current activities. The objective is also to discuss the way forward in regard to the GLTN work plan 2009, also in regard to land governance.
Sitemap
The Global Land Tool Network (GLTN)
facilitated a highly successful e-discussion forum, which significantly
advanced the process of establishing evaluation criteria for testing the
gender-responsive land tools. The e-forum, which took place between 8 September
and 15 October 2008, was a follow up of the GLTN Grassroots Gender meeting 2007
in Lukenya, Kenya and the Land Professionals Gender meeting 2008 in Bagamayo,
Tanzania. The e-forum was widely publicised within GLTN networks such as
Huairou, FIG, UEL and ILC and other networks as a key component of the GLTN
Gender Mechanism for developing gendered land tools. The objective of the
e-discussion was to merge and to further develop the criteria for testing the
gender responsiveness of large-scale tools from the two gender workshops.
This publication from the Global Land Tool Network belongs to a series of research reports examining the changing landscape of land tenure security in developing countries. The intent is to provide up-to-date information to land professionals and policy makers working in the land sector and to raise awareness on what is being done at the country level.
This set of seven Quick Guides has been jointly prepared by UNESCAP and UN-HABITAT to aid the daily work of national and local government officials and policy makers as well as other low-income housing stakeholders in Asia and the Pacific in their quest to improve housing for the urban poor. It is not aimed at specialists, but by using easily understandable language and a user-friendly consise structure, is envisaged as a quick tool to provide a basic understanding of low-income housing issues.
The fourth and final edition of Transparency in Land Administration (TLA) training has been successfully executed in M’bour, Senegal from 9-11 September 2008. The training is a joint initiative of Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) / Training and Capacity Building Branch (TCBB) of UN-HABITAT and International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC). The recent event in Senegal was implemented in cooperation with ENDA Ecopop of Senegal, which is a part of Enda Tiers Monde, an international non-governmental organization.
