1. Participatory Inclusive Land Readjustment
a tool for self-financing sustainable habitat
through land value capture
in Post-Conflict Angola
Development Workshop Angola
Prepared for
Conference on Land Governance and Management in Africa
Pretoria – August 2017 1

2. Capturing Urban Land Value
Urban land markets are key factors in the process of urbanization and the upgrading and prevention of slums.
There is a growing interest in Africa in “Land Value Capture” as a tool for financing urban development.
The discussion emerges from the discourse on Public-Private-Partnerships (P3) where private sector real-estate developers’ money is leveraged by doing deals with Government to provide land for commercial use.
P3 projects often involve converting land, re-zoning it or legalizing informally occupied land. Land conversion usually results in a substantial increase of its value when resold by the private partner. 2

3. (P3) Public-Private Partnerships
Conventional P3 good practice (promoted in the New Urban Agenda) argues that the State or local government partner has an opportunity to capture some of the increased land value through taxes or transfer fees for the public good and invest in urban service upgrading or social housing.
However, in the worst case P3 projects provide opportunities for rent-seeking by local officials who manage land transfers or land registration.
Communities and occupants of un-titled land usually lose their assets when expropriated in P3 deals 3

4. Land Readjustment
Land Readjustment is a P3 planning tool involving the  rational rearrangement of land parcels and their ownership with the aim of improving urban infrastructure and also enhancing utility/value of land.
The increased value of readjusted land traditionally benefited owners of real-estate and helped fund public service improvements.
It is usually argued by P3 proponents that Land Readjustment will work only when there is a strong real-estate market and the Government has efficient planning mechanisms in place. 4

5. Participatory Inclusive Land Readjustment
Participatory Inclusive Land Readjustment (PILaR) 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.
Development Workshop was requested by the Provincial Government in Huambo to to respond to the high number of requests for housing sites by families returning to the regional capital after the end of the Angolan civil war.
Huambo had been the most seriously affected province during the conflict that lasted almost four decades and ended only in 2002. 5

6. Angola’s Post Conflict Urban Challenges
Forced migration during the war, provoked the urbanisation of Angola.
Massive destruction of social and physical infrastructure.
Rapid growth of cities, largely due to the war continues even after conflict ended.
More than 80% of the population live in areas without legal land tenure nor access to basic services. 6

7. Governance 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
Angola has inherited their legal framework from the Portuguese Civil Code which did not easily accommodate itself to African land tenure practice.
Despite the post independence constitution that affirmed the State to be the owner and manager of all land, a vibrant real estate market exists for the land occupied both formally and informally.

8. Legal Environment (cont.)
Provincial and municipal administrations had little capacity to administer and approve land claims.
The Law only gave local municipal authorities the right to grant land up to 1000m2
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.
Therefore the procedures for issuing land titles are not uniform throughout the country and it is difficult to incorporate land-use rights granted by local administrative authorities into the current law.

9. Huambo Land Readjustment Project
DW proposed adopting a land readjustment strategy that would provide local government an opportunity to capture some of the added land value as cities grow to invest in slum upgrading.
DW created a Local Pilot Project Monitoring Committee to promote community participation in the project activities and disseminate information to all participants.

10. Huambo Land Land Readjustment Sites2 1

11. PILaR Methodology
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.

12. Use of Geographic Information Systems
SISTEMA NACIONAL DE INFORMAÇÃO TERRITORIAL
Use of Geographic Information Systems
Remote sensing: Applied the tools of GIS to urban information gathering using aerial photographs and satellite images.
Participative Mapping 12

13. Land readjustment Metodology
Registry of existing land owners and boundaries mapped using a hand held GPS and STDM 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 former land occupiers
35% for public plot sale with income to cover basic infra- structure costs

14. Land readjustment Metodology (cont.)
Definition of rights was granted by Provincial Government. New and old land occupiers received ‘occupation licenses’ & entered land registry/cadastra being developed by the Huambo administration.
Implementation of layout marking the new property boundaries with wooden pegs using only optical instruments & measuring tape. Plots numbered.
Redistribution of parcels with licenses in proportion to previous size of land occupation 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.

15. Land readjustment Metodology (cont.)
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.
Group management influenced the installation of electric power, thus being one of the first settlements created to receive electric power in a short time.
Advocacy - results of the readjustment project have been presented in workshops, seminars and training events across Angola.

16. PILaR in a difficult environment
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.
The land readjustment model reduced land-conflicts by regularising tenure status and providing financial benefits to all.

17. The role of non-state actors
The project used market mechanisms to create land value that benefited former informal occupants, new owner-builders, financial intermediaries
The project changed the land market dynamics in the neighbourhoods close to the project sites.
The project demonstrates the crucial role of social mobilisation (by the NGO) and the need for Government buy-in to secure the success of the project
Women’s land rights were protected for the 46% of households that were headed by women.

18. SISTEMA NACIONAL DE INFORMAÇÃO TERRITORIAL
Obrigado
SISTEMA NACIONAL DE INFORMAÇÃO TERRITORIAL 18