Around one in seven of the world’s population lives in poor quality, usually overcrowded, housing in urban areas. Most of these areas lack provision for safe, sufficient water, sanitation and other needs, and include large numbers of urban dwellers who are malnourished and suffer preventable premature death and disease. However, a significant number of these are not defined as being poor according to standard poverty line measurements.  Land can play an important role in providing conditions for maximising the potential for a beneficial process of urbanisation and minimising the negative impacts on the poor and vulnerable.

This study aims to analyse the interactions between the process of urbanisation and land tenure arrangements, land governance and tenure security in peri-urban areas, particularly in smaller urban centres, looking particularly at recent experience in Ghana and Tanzania.

Anna Locke and Giles Henley