Rethinking land access governance in Global South Cities : understanding the dynamics and contentions of land access processes and governance mechanisms in peri-urban areas of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (original) (raw)
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Urban Forum, 2018
Peri-urban land governance in Tanzania and other developing countries is shaped by divergent or complimentary roles of actors emanating from their authority, power and interest which create a complex relationship affecting land governance process. This paper is built on a call for more research on governance and urban land use by scholars. The focus of this paper is to identify governance gaps arising from the roles of different actors, interaction and power relations. The paper is based on the critical review of published and unpublished literature, as well as government reports. Overlapping and complementary roles influenced by varying power relations and interests among actors is revealed. This is witnessed in the Ministry of Lands and Local Government Authorities (LGAs) and between the private sector and land occupiers. The former is associated with the ministry's reluctance to share power with LGAs, perpetuated by conflicting laws and regulations, while the latter is attributed to economic power of investors versus the vulnerable groups. Recognising the implication of the participation of various actors is not only critical in improving the interactions and harmony among actors, but also enacting appropriate legal and institutional
Integrating the layers: an analysis of urban land governance in contemporary Ethiopia
2015
Land is a cross-cutting theme in most contemporary development challenges. Contemporary literature shows that land governance benefits the broader administration and governance of society. Tools enabling evaluation of land governance, however, are often focuses on national or supranational levels. Ethiopia provides a case in point: rapid urbanization and urban poverty are an issue; however, limited studies assess urban land governance from a multi-stakeholder perspective. Citizens and government representatives at different levels are the sources of information. This work reveals that incorporating governance conceptions in urban land policies and laws benefit the land governance and management at the local level.Keywords: urban land governance; federal systems; urban land management; policy and actor analysis
Habitat International, 2005
This paper examines recent trends in land use transformation taking place in the peri-urban areas of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It demonstrates that urbanisation in poverty is the key factor underpinning and catalysing changes in land use, land transactions, increased rural-urban immigration and the overall transformation of land use in the peri-urban areas. Unregulated peri-urban land development has given rise to complex organic urban structures which predominantly expanding horizontally. The emerging land use pattern, by and large, indicates a mismatch with the widely cherished planning norms and standards and land value theories which, underpin urban land use planning instruments such as zoning and density distribution and principles like equitable provision of basic services and complimentarity in urban land development. It is argued that for an unforeseeable future, organic urban growth is likely to remain an indispensable reality depicting urban land development in resource starved situations such as Tanzania because of the severe resource constraints facing local and central governments, the nature of the subsisting land tenure structure in most peri-urban areas, poor national economic performance and looming poverty in rural and urban areas. Therefore, planners and policy makers have little choice but to ensconce and consolidate the emerging form. Decentralised land management anchored on the subsisting local government administrative structures, introduction of user-friendly and pro-poor land regularisation systems, and embarking on land banking by local authorities are some of the key and immediate policy action areas of concern.
Current Urban Studies, 2015
In many African cities, governments have been unable to provide sufficient appropriately located and priced planned and serviced urban land to meet demand. As a result, informal settlements are growing faster than the rest of the city. Efforts to deal with this situation are hampered by several factors including lack of resources to acquire and service land to forestall haphazard development. In 2003, the Ministry of Lands, using borrowed funds from the Treasury, undertook an ambitious land servicing project in Dar es Salaam. The aims were to: alleviate the shortage of surveyed and serviced urban plots; tackle the rapid increase of informal settlements; control land speculation; address corruption; complement the national drive to reduce poverty; develop satellite towns; and implement the ruling Party's manifesto on liveable human settlements. This paper evaluates this undertaking from a good governance point of view. The Project was efficiently implemented. Over 40,000 plots were produced and sold; the invested billions of shillings were recouped several times over; and replication was enabled. However, it increased poverty among those whose land was acquired; and fuelled the growth of informal settlements. With less than 17% of the plots categorized as low cost, the Project was not pro-poor. Outcomes included the realization that land had value that could be unlocked with servicing. This has spawned several projects involving servicing land for sale, undertaken by other authorities and the private sector. This, however, is excluding low income households. The Project's achievements were realized at the expense of good land governance exemplified by: lack of coordination among key players; shortfalls in transparency, public participation, institutional decentralisation and inclusiveness; and neglect of environmental fallouts. Low income households were in practice excluded from this and subsequent money-driven land delivery schemes, a trend that needs to be reversed to avoid social polarization.
Multiple Land Regimes: Rethinking Land Governance in Maputo's Peri-urban Spaces
Urban Forum, 2012
Africa's increasing levels of urbanisation have significant implications for urban land. Growing populations imply that there is increasing pressure on cities to provide economic opportunities, housing, infrastructure and social services to existing and incoming urban dwellers. These activities take place on urban land, and much of the new growth occurs outside of the state regulatory and legal frameworks. Using survey data collected in Maputo's peri-urban areas of Luis Cabral and Hulene B, this paper explores how ordinary urban dwellers access, hold, transact and manage land. These findings suggest that a land market that is technically outside of the legal system exists. Notwithstanding its illegality, these land practices are organised, comprising sophisticated local land management and regulatory systems. The low incidence of land conflicts in both neighbourhoods shows that these governance practices are relatively functional. Local practices are characterised by a complex web of social roleplayers, including family members, neighbours, local leadership structures and state officials all of whom lend credibility and legitimacy to the existence of a local land market. These findings challenge conventional understanding of formal and informal markets. It is argued that these socially embedded land markets indicate how urban territory is segmented and managed, and their existence also transforms the way we conceptualise formality and informality in African cities. This situation shows how informal urban economies are co-produced by state and Urban Forum (2013) 24:65-83
2020
This Briefing Note is for those interested in supporting more inclusive urbanisation processes in cities where populations are growing rapidly but poverty remains prevalent, and in Dar es Salaam and Mwanza in particular. Dar es Salaam, with a population of about six million, is the primate city of Tanzania and about six times the size of Mwanza. The different land nexus dynamics of these two cities are examined, together with the implications for groups who are more vulnerable to spatial exclusion-including residents of low socioeconomic status, and especially those that are also migrants, tenants, women, and/or living in informal settlements. This leads to reflecting on areas where action could make the cities' urbanisation more inclusive, namely: (1) building the capacity of local ward and mtaa (sub-ward) officials and leaders so they can become central to a more inclusive regularisation process; (2) supporting community-based planning prior to any regularisation; (3) developing and implementing co-production models for simplified sewers that not only improve sanitary conditions, but also result in greater formal acceptance of settlements; and (4) developing and putting into use an evidence base for informing and coordinating the multiple actors involved in the governance of the urban land nexus in each of these cities. Mwanza Dar es Salaam Contacts Alphonce Kyessi
Practice and challenge of urban land governance: an empirical study in Tigrai, East Africa
Springer Nature, 2022
The purpose of the study was to assess the practices and challenges of urban land governance in the Tigrai Region. This study employed a concurrent nested design. Data were collected from 177 officeholders and customers through questionnaires. Besides, interviews were conducted with purposefully selected officeholders. The results of the data analysis were presented using mean, standard deviation, Pearson correlation, and logistic regression to see the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable. The major findings showed that the elements of good urban governance (participation, responsiveness, accountability, transparency, equity, and efficiency and effectiveness) are not practiced appropriately. The major challenges in good urban land governance are lack of resources, commitment, human resources, clear rules and regulations, modern service delivery, materials, budget, and rent-seeking behavior. As a result, citizens are not satisfied with the urban land governance system and implementation process. Thus, the government should reconsider strengthening urban land institutions.