Presented to the PILaR Book Project Workshop, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey, 22nd to 23rd October, 2013. Challenges: A better understanding of the dynamics and formal and informal regulations that govern the urban land markets are key factors in the process of urbanization.

1. Participatory & Inclusive
Community Land Sharing
the case of Huambo, Angola
Presented by
Allan Cain
Development Workshop Angola
to the
PILaR Book Project Workshop
Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
22nd – 23rd October 2013
SISTEMA NACIONAL DE
INFORMAÇÃO TERRITORIAL

2. Post Conflict Urban Challenges
• Forced migration during
the war, provoked the
urbanisation of Angola.
• Massive destruction of
social and physical
infrastructure.
• Rapid urban growth,
largely due to the war
continues even after
conflict ended.
• 60% are under 18.
• More than 80% of
the population live in areas
without legal land tenure
nor access to basic
services.

3. Urban Poverty
• Over 75% of urban
populations live in slums
“musseques” (Kimbundu
word for sandy soil) The
poor survive by trading in
the informal market
sector.
• Difficult to secure
economic livelihoods
• High unemployment &
underemployment
• Almost 50% of families
depend on the informal
sector for employment

4. Challenges
• A major constraint to the implementation of urban
plans remains the poor management of land by the
government and consequently the poor security of
tenure of the urban population
• Despite the affirmation of the government to the control
of land, a vibrant real estate market exists for the
land occupied both formally and informally
• A better understanding of the dynamics and formal and
informal regulations that govern the urban land markets
are key factors in the process of urbanization

5. Legal Environment
• Angola has inherited their legal framework from the
Portuguese Civil Code which did not easily accommodate
itself to African land tenure practice.
• Large areas of land were appropriated for Portuguese
settlement and incorporated into the colonial cadastre.
• The post independence constitution affirmed the State to be
the owner and manager of land.
• Land Laws of 1991 and 2004 affirmed that colonial cadastre
as the basis of land titling therefore weakening traditional
land claims.
• The concept of Customary tenure was incorporated into the
2004 Law but this has not yet been regulated.

6. Legal Environment
• The 2004 Law removed all protection that the Civil Code
had provided for ‘occupation in good-faith’ or user rights.
• Thanks to Civil Society advocacy, a window was given for
informal occupants of land to regularise their land claims
and apply for legal titles.
• Provincial and municipal administrations had little capacity
to administer and approve land claims.
• Full titles for urban land are only issued in fully urbanised
planned areas.
• By-Laws for the regularisation of peri-urban land have still
not been published.

7. Current Oportunities
• The Angolan Government has adopted an ambitious policy
that promotes the construction of one million houses
by 2012
• Through this programme the Government aims
to eliminate most slum settlements known as Musseques.
• In this process the Government intends to facilitate self-help
construction of 685,000 homes
• The Land Law of 2004 reaffirms the authority of the state
as the primary manager and owner of all land resources
• DW responded to a request for help from the Huambo
Provincial Government who was under pressure struggling
to respond to the high number of requests for housing sites.

8. Huambo - Piloting Land Readjustment (Pooling)
Land Pooling or readjustment provides a market mechanism to
regularize peri-urban settlements, providing sustainable
infrastructure and access to services while at the same time
strengthening the rights of tenure and protection of assets of
the poor. It also provides local government an opportunity to
capture some of the added land value as cities grow.

9. Two case studies
•
•
•
•
•
two pilot land readjustment projects were implemented in
the Province of Huambo.
the projects were implemented in 2006 – 2008 during the
decade after the end of the civil war
at a time when important decentralisation reforms were
underway through the creation of municipal
administrations that were assigned new powers for
managing land.
the first case study was completed before the reforms,
when provincial urban planning officers still had authority
the second was implemented after the publication of the
“decentralisation reform law”. Municipal administrators
had been given the responsibility of managing land

10. Land Readjustment Strategy
• The site for the first project “Bairro Fátima” was selected in
a peripheral area of one of Huambo’s informal settlements.
• The project concept and proposal was jointly prepared by
DW staff and local government participants
• field visits were conducted and a basic topographic survey
prepared.
• DW was chosen as the leading technical agent, coordinating
the implementation of the project.
• a team of DW staff participated in an intensive training on
planning and land readjustment at CEHS in UK in October
2005

11. Huambo Land
Readjustment
Sites 1 & 2
2
1

12. Land readjustment Metodology – Case 1
1.
2.
3.
Creation of multi-stakeholder management
group with Provincial Govt, traditional leaders,
local administration & NGO
Mobilizing community support explaining the
objectives of the project first to the local leaders
and then to the population in general.
Overcoming resistance by land owners warning
that people risked losing their land without
compensation if consensus was not found.
Base line study to create a household census
& community diagnostic. Revealed local
traditional governance structures and existing
infrastructure. Participatory methods deepened
community mobilization process and provided a
basis for the future (readjustment) plan.

13. Use of Geographic Information Systems
Remote
sensing:
Applied the
tools of GIS to
urban
information
gathering using
aerial
photographs
Participative
and satellite
Mapping
images.

14. Land readjustment Metodology
4.
5.
4.
Registry of existing land owners and boundaries
mapped using a hand held GPS and GIS software.
Meeting with all land owners on a bairro by bairro basis
with adjacent neighbors present. Very few cases of
overlapping or conflicting claims were found.
Development of a physical readjustment plan by DW
architect/planners, the management group & local
administrator presented to a group of local residents.
30% of the land reserved for infrastructure & roads
35% for redistribution to local land owners
35% for public plot sale with income to cover basic infrastructure costs
Definition of rights was granted by Provincial
Government. New and old land owners received
‘occupation licenses’ & entered land registry/cadastra
being developed by the Huambo administrartion.

15. Land readjustment Metodology
7.
8.
9.
10.
Implementation of layout marking the new property
boundaries with wooden pegs using only optical
instruments & measuring tape. Plots numbered.
Redistribution of parcels with titles in proportion to
previous size of land ownership and sale of
remaining 152 parcels. Half of all land owners
received only one parcel. The remainder received
between two and six. A total of 225 plots were
released onto the market.
Implementation of basic infra-structure.With the
funds acquired by the sale of the public land parcels,
boreholes and water-points were installed and the
road and service lines were cleared.
Advocacy - results of the readjustment project have
been presented in workshops, seminars and training
events across Angola.

16. Impact on the Local Land Market
• The plot price for land distributed by the public
administration was USD 500. This allowed access to 152
families on the public waiting list, mainly young people of
the lower middle class .
• Informal market land prices in Huambo´s peri-urban areas
range from USD 700 to USD 7000, depending on plot
location. The previous occupiers who became new private
land owners benefited by these raising land prices.
• The project changed the land market dynamics in the
neighbourhoods close to the project sites.
• By giving secure land tenure, much more value was given
to land in these previously neglected bairros.

17. Case Study 2
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
New legislation on decentralization in 2007 took local land management
authority out of the hands of Provincial Governments and transferred it
to the Municipal Administration.
The Municipal Administrations were comparatively weak and
inexperienced in managing their new responsibilities.
Municipal authorities had no incentive to create surpluses because
income from local sources reverted to the State Central Budget.
The management committee, now lacking the authority of the Provincial
Government, could no longer control the sale of the parcels,
The Municipal Administration distributed the parcels for free to
individuals who were on the Administrations long waiting list for land for
housing.
Without cost-recovery there were no funds to invest in basic
infrastructure.
The management committee in the absence of funds tried to pay for
services in-kind (the bull dozer owner was compensated with 2 parcels
of land)
No other infrastructure has been implemented in the area to date.

18. Findings
• The first case study demonstrated how the land
readjustment model could reduce land-conflicts and by
regularising tenure status. It showed how market
mechanisms created land value that benefited former
occupants, new owner-builders, financial intermediaries
and the State. It also demonstrated the crucial role of
social mobilisation (by the NGO) and the need for
Government buy-in to secure the success of the project.
• The second case study demonstrated that by losing the
essential ingredient of the financial control and the
opportunity to use the land market to “create value” the
project did not generate sufficient resources to sustain
itself.

19. Conclusions
• While the authors are strong proponents of Angola’s
administrative decentralisation programme, they conclude:
• that a major effort must be invested in building the
capacities of municipalities in managing land and other
responsibilities that they must now assume such as the
supply of basic services like water & sanitation.
• Municipalities must be given the possibility to generate their
own financial resources through transaction fees and taxes.
• Income from the regularisation of land tenure may be one of
the ways that municipalities can sustain themselves in the
future.

20. Potential for Replication in Angola
• Despite a rather challenging environment, land
readjustment in Angola has the potential to develop into
an important tool for urban planning.
• Angola inherited a limited culture of participation in urban
planning practice and weak local governance
• However, growing land markets and strong private sector
interest can make land readjustment a viable option for
under-resourced local governments.
• Need to develop a legal framework for land readjustment
and the promotion of land markets that benefit the poor
incorporating local lessons and international good
practice.

21. Conclusions on Land Markets
• There is a significant informal market for land in Angola. At
least 61.3% of transactions involve financial payments.
• Transactions are documented, proof that these are not
really informal.
• These transactions are considered secure and legitimate by
the majority of buyers (85%).
• Most transactions are legally insecure as only 6.8% of them
can be validated with officially recognosed documents
• The poor are at risk of loss of their property (land and
housing) as a result of demolitions and relocations

23. How the value of urban land is determined
• location in relation to employment opportunities;
• demand resulting from population density;
• presence of infrastructure and basic services;
• legal status of the land, evidence of ownership;
• access to social services (schools, health);
• access roads and public transport;
• level of environmental risk.

24. How land transactions are financed
The formal banking
sector have shown
some fear of
entrance into the
real-estate market.
Most funding comes
from family (62%)
and
friends (27%).

25. Reasons given for lack willingness to finance
Reasons given by banks to justify their reluctance:
• The lack of clear legislation on land that allows the
use of property as collateral
• Long repayment periods
• The lack of a government policy on bank credit
• The lack of ownership documents by borrowers
• The lack of a culture of timely repayment of loans by
borrowers

26. Recomendations
1. Promote more functional markets
• Efficient and equitable markets for land are a
prerequisite for the proper functioning of cities.
• Banks and private sector entrepreneurs should be
encouraged to invest in social housing, as well as on
the market for more.
2. Integrate existing practice into an inclusive policy
•
Existing informal arrangements for access to land are
well established and have strong legitimacy among the
peri-urban population.
• The existing practice should be recognized and
framed into legal practice

27. Recomendations
3. Recognise the right of occupation based on the
principal of good faith
• reconhecimento de facto, dos direitos de ocupação do solo
dos moradores urbanos que, de boa fé, compraram ou
adquiriram suas terras através de algum outro mecanismo
legítimo
• Criar a base jurídicae a aplicação administrativa para que
se evite a especulação
4. Incorporar o direito à informação como prática efectiva
• obligation on the part of government and its institutions
publicly disclose their plans, interventions, concessions and
upgrading programs

28. Recomendations
5. Adopt the principal of intermediate rights and evolution
of secure land tenure
• can be expanded to include the principle of an average level
of occupancy, possibly, one entitled "Provisional Certificate
of Land," which can be regarded as the basis for permission
to stay evolutionary
6. Strengthen municipal institutions for land management
• effective demand can be better evaluated
• the legal and administrative framework should be
established

29. Recomendations
7. Improve basic service infrastructure
• Instalation of services gives de facto recognition of the rights
of land for urban dwellers who, in good faith, purchased or
acquired their land through legitimate mechanisms
• Payment for municipal services provides evidence of
occupation that contribute evidence of long term occupation
that may later be transformed into some form of tenure.
8. Create municipal cadastre systems
• Providing an opportunity for municipal government to collect
registration fees or revenue from property taxes
• With advances in geographical information technology, is
becoming increasingly cheaper to develop and maintain
land information systems.
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INFORMAÇÃO TERRITORIAL

30. Recomendations
9. Protect and promote women’s land rights
• the study demonstrated that the proportion of families
headed by women is 46%.
• women's rights to land can be strengthened by legislation
that is compatible with the Angolan Family Code
10. Create a higher public awareness of urban land rights
and obligations
• carry out comprehensive public education campaigns on
land rights and new responsibilities of urban residents

31. Recomendations
11. Implement participatory land regularization projects.
• Piolot demonstration projects should be implemented
through partnerships between provincial governments
and the private sector with participation of civil society.
• Projects should be monitored closley and costs carefully
tracked in order to learn lessons that can be scalled up
into larger programmes.
12. Adopt the principal of just indemnisation
Fair compensation may include but is not
necessarily limited to the market value of land and
expenses incurred by the landowner as a result of
expropriation.

32. Outcomes on Influencing Legislation
DW was commissioned by
the Ministry of Urbanism to
prepare a Draft Decree for
the legalization of tenure in
peri-urban areas that was
presented to the Council of
Ministers for approval.
The aim is to bring Angolan land
legislation into closer alignment
with international good practice
and to improve the land tenure
rights of citizens living in periurban districts who risk losing their
assets under the existing law.

33. KixiCasa
Micro-Credit is be offered to clients for land
purchase and building incremental phased upgradable houses over several loan cycles.

34. Obrigado
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