In Pursuit of Land Rights in Africa
By Tilly Grey

Some of the land issues faced by Habitat affiliates throughout Africa and the Middle East are specific to the continent. After all, who deals with elephants in Europe or America? Other problems are all too familiar--corrupt officials, massive urban poverty and the restrictions of local authorities.

Habitat for Humanity affiliates here gain access to land in a variety of ways: through chiefs or families who control traditional and family lands primarily in rural areas; through governments that control land and have surveyed plots or townships often near cities; through partnerships with "associations" that have been able to buy land but require membership; through direct sales from individuals; and by building a new home to replace an inadequate structure on land already designated for an individual family's use. In many cases there are no titles to the land, only rules about how the land can be used.

"Traditional lands" belong to tribes, clans or families. Thus, for Habitat affiliates building in rural areas in Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana and Malawi, acquiring land is not an issue because the chiefs already have given potential homeowners land on which to live and farm. However, the land may come with indelible cultural strings attached.

For instance, throughout much of Africa, local custom dictates that a woman cannot inherit land. Even if a Habitat mortgage agreement names both husband and wife as owners of the house, in some villages, if the husband dies, the land goes to a male in the husband's family. This creates uncertainty about who now owns the Habitat house.

Tanzania recently addressed the gender issue in a new land law. Even so, a single mother and Habitat homeowner in rural Korogwe says: "In my home village today, I would still not have my own land--even with the new law." This is because the law is not being implemented in rural areas where cultural traditions remain strong.

In Zimbabwe, land ownership is considered everyone's right, regardless of gender or nationality. "Country boundaries are just lines --it's the same people over there as over here; same tribe, same language, same culture, many relatives," says Sternard Mapurisa, housing director for Mutare, a city that lies just seven kilometers from the Mozambique border.

But this approach creates unique land problems for the government. It tries to find land on which to "resettle" people who have immigrated from elsewhere, returned from exile or those deprived of land by colonial landlords. One such resettlement area is in Nyamakate, on land designated as a national park. Since the park surrounds the community, residents must deal with regular visits from lions and elephants--unwelcome interlopers who can destroy potentially profitable cash crops in a single night.

In Ethiopia, all the land is owned by the government and distributed by the municipalities. It is given to housing associations or nongovernmental organizations like Habitat that then build homes with their "members."

"Individuals are unable to secure land on which to build a house without joining an association," says Hanna Tilahun, resource development coordinator for Habitat Ethiopia. "Habitat homeowners here own their houses but not the land under the house. After 10 years, they are free to sell their homes, but the land remains in Habitat's name."

Throughout Africa, obtaining clear land titles in the urban areas is the greatest single land obstacle for Habitat.

In Kenya, although two thirds of the population lives in rural areas, there are huge squatter settlements around the capital city of Nairobi. According to Kenyan law, if a person occupies a piece of property for two years it becomes their property by "squatters' rights." To preserve its land titles, the Nairobi city council regularly bulldozes everything in a squatter settlement. The squatter community moves to another area, constructs new shacks and the cycle begins again.

"The need for decent housing in these urban slum areas is huge," says Amy Owen, resource development coordinator for Habitat Kenya. "We have to develop a Habitat model for working in the cities, but getting the land is a huge problem."

According to Owen, it is common for a person to purchase a plot of land in Nairobi and later discover that there are several other people with title deeds to the same piece of property--all seemingly legitimate, paid for and documented by different government officials. Similar issues plague Habitat's work in both Zambia and Ghana.

Habitat South Africa is building in townships outside three large urban areas--Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. The South African government is in the midst of a massive effort to unscramble land ownership issues in the older black townships. Between the size of the communities, some with as many as 500,000 people, and contested land titles, the job seems overwhelming.

In older townships such as Alexandra, where Habitat built its first house in South Africa in the '80s, claims from returning exiles have created a colossal bureaucratic jam. A Commission for Restitution of Land Rights was appointed to investigate land claims by people whose property had been expropriated by the apartheid government. By June 1998, only nine out of some 27,000 claims in the whole province had been settled. A lack of financial and personnel resources explains the delay. For now, no new Habitat houses can be built in Alexandra until land titles are cleared.

Despite the land challenges on this gigantic continent, tenacious Habitat affiliates continue to build. It is the hope and the promise of decent shelter that drives them, resulting in more than 16,000 houses in 17 African nations to date.


Tilly Grey is an area correspondent for the Africa/Middle East department of Habitat for Humanity International.





Reprinted from Habitat World Magazine, August/September 2000.
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©2000 Habitat for Humanity International