Land tenure security
About the Program
Land access for the urban poor is a huge challenge in Zambia, where almost 70% of the urban population resides in slums. Without secure land, it is hard to build houses and support infrastructure. Hence, Habitat strongly advocates for administrative tools that speed up the process of accessing land and the documentation that proves land ownership.
We mobilize poor residents of urban areas into study circles of seven to 15 individuals who come together to learn about their land and housing rights. These efforts are particularly critical for women, who are systematically marginalized and often denied such rights because of patriarchal traditions and cultural practices that give more power to men.
Habitat Zambia teamed up with the Zambia Land Alliance to develop an easy-to-use study circle manual, available in both English and local languages.
Working in cooperation with other civil society organizations and government agencies, Habitat Zambia initiated a change in the land governance system in the Ndola City Council as part of Habitat’s global Solid Ground campaign. As a result, more than 3,000 occupancy licenses were issued to slum dwellers in Chipulukusu and Twapia townships. These licenses confer a 30-year tenure to their holders. As a formal means of documentation issued specifically to slum dwellers, the licenses can be used to access basic services such as water and electricity connections and as a means of collateral for microfinance loans.
With funding from Comic Relief and the SELAVIP Foundation, we also have helped vulnerable families in the Makululu settlement secure occupancy licenses through an expedited process, thanks to an agreement among Habitat Zambia, the Kabwe Municipal Council and Medeem Zambia, which provides technical solutions for land rights documentation.
Habitat Zambia also has partnered with the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, or UN-HABITAT, to pilot the Social Tenure Domain Model in Kabwe and Ndola. The model promotes technology and an approach to land administration that is appropriate to local contexts and budgetary constraints, rather than simply following more advanced technical standards that are more expensive and require greater technical expertise. It relies on an open-source mapping tool, along with hand-held GPSs, thus reducing the cost of spatial data collection.