Monday July 29, 2013 9:00 to 16:30 (local time) Pretoria, South Africa Topic In Southern Africa, land use and allocation is a highly political issue, central to urban economics and livelihoods, and a political patronage resource in the region. Land rights are in transition and peri-urban areas are the zones of rapid change and the highest level of conflict. Countries in the region are struggling to implement new laws and policies because of limited technical, financial and institutional capacities. There are powerful interests in favor of maintaining inequitable access to land, while political will (and therefore the ability to tackle this) is generally absent. Rights-based approaches are marginal to the practice of urban development and management, with evictions a common occurrence. Where tenure security interventions do occur they tend to emphasize the provision of individual title. **With live streaming in Portuguese mms:/wbmswebcast1.worldbank.o rg/external-5 English mms:/wbmswebcast1.worldbank.o rg/external-4 For more information, please contact Adele Hosken at ahosken@citiesalliance.org Background The Tenure Security Facility Southern Africa project is hosting an event at the World Bank Pretoria office on Monday 29 July 2013 where Urban LandMark aim to share and discuss the lessons learnt from its recent work on incrementally securing tenure in slum upgrading in a number of sites in Southern Africa. Regional partners and 1
other project stakeholders will be joining the event via World Bank video-conferencing facilities in Luanda, Angola, Maputo, Mozambique and Lilongwe, Malawi. The purpose of the Tenure Security Facility Southern Africa project was to contribute to improved access to land for poorer people, which in turn contribute to improved livelihoods, active citizenship and asset creation. The Tenure Security Facility Southern Africa project is supported by the Cities Alliance Catalytic Fund, with co funding from the UK Department for International Development (DFID), and has provided small-scale, targeted advisory services on incrementally securing tenure in slum upgrading in six sites in Malawi, Angola, Mozambique and South Africa. The regional learning event will share lessons from these sites that can inform an emerging approach to incrementally securing tenure, what this means for recognition mechanisms and for the progression towards more secure tenure, and how these experiences and lessons learnt could be shared and used going forward. The purpose of the advisory services was to investigate appropriate mechanisms to incrementally increase tenure security for households living in slums / informal settlements in six sites in Southern Africa where the Tenure Security Facility project has developed partnerships, some over several years: In Angola with Development Workshop, an NGO based in Luanda In Maputo, Mozambique with ANAMM, the national association of municipalities, and with the Cities Alliance Country Programme there In Lilongwe, Malawi with the Centre for Community Organisation and Development (CCODE), an NGO which works to link active poor communities with governments and local authorities to facilitate dialogue and solutions to meet their basic needs In emalahleni, South Africa with Planact, an NGO working with an informal settlement community in Springvalley In Cape Town, South Africa with Sun Development Services, which works for the City of Cape Town in piloting upgrading in five informal settlements In Johannesburg, South Africa where Urban LandMark has provided support over several years to the city s regularisation programme. The purpose of the Regional Learning Event on 29 July 2013 is for local partners in these six sites to share their practical experiences and lessons learnt around incrementally securing tenure. While the six sites all have different contexts and the technical advice offered varied, in all six sites some element of official recognition of tenure was addressed, along a continuum from insecure to more secure tenure. These lessons and experiences have informed the development of five Practice Notes and a practical Regional Guide on incrementally securing tenure. The Practice Notes and the Regional Guide are intended to provide guidance to practitioners, officials and communities who are involved in incremental tenure processes in informal settlements. They aim to provide solid, practical advice on particular aspects of tenure security, but also deal with the different aspects of the overall approach to incrementally securing tenure in informal settlement upgrading processes. They detail appropriate and regionally applicable means, which include both legal and administrative mechanisms to incrementally securing tenure. The event will conclude with the launch of the practice notes and regional guide. 2
AGENDA 09:00-09:30 Welcome and introductions Background to the Tenure Security Facility Southern Africa project and purpose of the event 09:30-11:00 SESSION 1: RESISTING EVICTION / STRENGTHENING EXISTING TENURE ARRANGEMENTS - Road map for progressive tenure improvement: SPRINGVALLEY COMMUNITY, emalahleni SOUTH AFRICA - Implications for incrementally securing tenure in MOZAMBIQUE: Lessons from studies in two settlements each in MAPUTO and TETE 11:00-11:15 Tea/coffee break 11:15-12:45 SESSION 2: TALKING ABOUT TENURE / INTRODUCING LEGAL RECOGNITION INCREMENTAL TENURE 12:45-13:15 LUNCH - MALAWI Tenure Security Dialogue: bringing government and community stakeholders together - Improving land tenure security in HUAMBO, ANGOLA 13:15-14:45 SESSION 3: STRENGTHENING EXISTING TENURE ARRANGEMENTS / FINDING MECHANISMS FOR LEGALLY DECLARING INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS 14:45-15:00 Tea/coffee break - Informal settlement transformation programme: MONWABISI PARK, KHAYELITSHA SOUTH AFRICA - The CITY OF JOHANNESBURG s regularisation approach 15:00-16:30 SESSION 4: PROMISING PRACTICES INTRODUCING FIVE PRACTICE NOTES AND A REGIONAL GUIDE TO IMPROVING TENURE SECURITY IN SOUTHERN AFRICA 16:30 WAY FORWARD AND EVENT CLOSE 3
Moderator Ms. Lauren Royston Tenure Theme Champion, Urban LandMark A development planner by training, Lauren Royston has worked in the NGO and public sectors in South Africa. For 16 years she has been a principal at Development Works, a consulting practice based in Johannesburg which she co-established with Marc Feldman. Her fields of specialization are land and housing, and development planning, with a current emphasis on urban tenure security. She has a long association with a community of inner city residents in Johannesburg and their legal advisors, whom she supports on resisting eviction, housing policy advocacy and facilitating community participation. For the past 7 years she has focused on her role as coordinator of the tenure theme area at Urban LandMark, a donor funded think tank where she is responsible for project design and conceptualisation, project management and advocacy and dissemination. In particular, she is responsible for managing the Tenure Security Facility Southern Africa project, which is co-funded by Cities Alliance and UKaid. This work has developed her regional experience with projects in Maputo, Tete, Lilongwe and Luanda. Introducing the Incremental Tenure Practice Sites Strengthening existing land management practices: the case of Maputo and Tete in Mozambique Mr. Christian Kapfensteiner, GIZ Decentralisation Programme (Mozambique), will present the Mozambique case Mozambique is experiencing high rates of urbanisation and increasing urban poverty, which is most visible in the informal settlements on the outskirts of most towns and cities. Urban LandMark, in partnership with ANAMM, the national association of municipalities, recently undertook research in Maputo and Tete to develop an understanding of local land management practices through two operation of the market studies. We found that if informal settlement upgrading is to be effective and meaningful, it should recognise, build on and adapt existing land management practices. Alongside the current emphasis on individual titling, the adaptation and official recognition of local practice will produce more options for increasing tenure security in these areas. Malawi Tenure Security Dialogue brings government and community stakeholders together Mrs. Siku Nkoma, Executive Director of CCODE (Malawi) will present the Malawi case Together with local partner CCODE, Urban LandMark in 2012 undertook an 'operation of the market' study on how the poor access, hold and trade land in two settlements in Lilongwe, Malawi. The study aimed to shed light on the ways in which informal land transactions occur and the extent to which they result in tenure security and asset creation in these informal settlements. To further interpret the results from the 'operation of the market' study, CCODE and its alliance partner, the Malawi Homeless People's Federation, in 2013 organised a national dialogue between key stakeholders in the country on securing land tenure in slum upgrading. The findings of Urban LandMark's study in Lilongwe were shared with participants from government and communities, social movements and NGOs, and compared with people's experiences of urban development on the ground. Dialogue participants provided additional insights into how urban land management works in practice, as the basis for dialogue about how upgrading can work with, and not against, the current arrangements. Participants further engaged on perspectives of tenure security to inform key national policy processes currently under way in Malawi that deal with urban policy and land reform policy. 4
Gaining administrative recognition for local land management practices: the case of Huambo, Angola Mr. Allan Cain, Director of Development Workshop (Angola), will present the Huambo case There is a growing market in land and urban plots of land in Huambo city in Angola, but many of the transactions in informal housing areas go unrecorded. Although these transactions are perceived as secure by an overwhelming majority of residents, few transfers can be backed up by legally defensible documents. Even where the state has been involved in land and house distribution, it is arguable whether the documentation is complete and legally defensible. In response to these challenges, the municipal administration in Huambo created a temporary upgradeable occupation license, which is a flexible administrative mechanism, to fill the gaps left in the Angolan Land Law. The Huambo municipality also engaged local NGO Development Workshop to produce the first comprehensive land register, which aims to map and record all land occupation and tenure claims made by residents. Formal land registers provide a market mechanism to regularise informal settlements, provide sustainable infrastructure and access to services, strengthen rights of tenure and protect the assets of poorer people. These initiatives will make an important contribution to the process of incrementally improving land management practice and securing tenure rights for residents in Huambo. Adapting and strengthening local land management practices: the case of Springvalley in emalahleni, South Africa Mr. Mike Makwela of Planact (South Africa), will present the Springvalley case Many poor communities in South Africa face threats to tenure security despite considerable legislation and state driven housing and land programmes. Springvalley in emalahleni, a secondary city in Mpumalanga province has recently experienced considerable growth on the back of coal mining and power generation. Housed in one of the many informal settlements across the municipality, the Springvalley community occupies a mix of public and private land. The municipality has struggled to provide housing and basic services in this area and private land owners have threatened to evict the community to develop the land commercially. Together with its partner Planact, the community has taken numerous actions that have helped to resist this threat and improved its tenure security through administrative recognition. Actions include resisting eviction, ascertaining the status of the land and actions aimed at obtaining basic services from the state authorities. The challenge for the Springvalley community is to find entry points to official recognition from the municipality by securing the necessary political support on the basis of its tenure security roadmap. Using different routes to obtain official recognition: the case of Monwabisi Park in Cape Town, South Africa Ms. Kathryn Ewing, Urban Designer and Architect at Sun Development Services (South Africa), will present the Monwabisi Park case Monwabisi Park is an informal settlement outside of Cape Town. It is home to 24 000 residents and comprises 6 470 structures on 64 hectares of land. The Monwabisi Park settlement is currently on the road to legal recognition, to be achieved by the submission of a development application for subdivision and rezoning to the City of Cape Town by the community's partner SUN Development, which has provided ongoing support to the community since 2010, supported more recently by technical advice from Urban LandMark. Once approved, this will provide legal recognition for the settlement, which secures the status of the settlement, secures increased permissions and unlocks higher levels of service provision for residents of the area, enhancing residents security of tenure. In the case of Monwabisi Park, a range of community actions and administrative tenure recognition mechanisms were vital in providing building blocks for legal recognition through the formal land development application. It was 5
important for Monwabisi Park to continuously negotiate with officials to find the fit between local conditions, local land management practices and municipal policy frameworks and practices. Giving legal status to transitional residential settlement areas: the case of the City of Johannesburg, South Africa Ms. Lettah Magotsi, Informal Settlement Upgrading Unit in the Housing Department City of Johannesburg (South Africa) will present with Ms. Gemey Abrahams, consultant to the Tenure Security Facility on the Johannesburg case The conventional route for informal settlement upgrading is the formal process of township establishment, driven by the housing subsidy programme. This process is slow and fraught with difficulties such as land acquisition, relocation of settlements, protests from communities and limited budgets. The City of Johannesburg from 2009 worked closely with Urban LandMark to develop an approach to recognise tenure called 'regularisation' - an interim measure to recognise settlements, bring services, provide addresses, improve the quality of life and extend citizenship to informal settlements while waiting for formalisation to be implemented. The regularisation approach allows informal settlements to be upgraded in situ in an incremental way until they can be formally developed. The mechanism used provides settlements with blanket tenure security by legalising the land use and introducing, inter alia, an occupant permit for a residential unit. Some 23 settlements were declared this way in 2009. This was a specific and innovative form of legal recognition. In future, the approach has the potential to involve communities. Community participation could strengthen the sustainability of the approach and create the conditions for more equitable engagement between municipalities and affected communities. 6