Tenure Security Facility Southern Africa project: 'Operation of the Market' study - findings from research in Malawi and Mozambique

Urban LandMark's Tenure Security Facility Southern Africa project, supported by Cities Alliance and with co-funding from UKaid by the Department for International Development (DFID), is providing technical assistance and advisory services on incrementally securing tenure in slum upgrading. The work aims to contribute to improved access to land for poorer people, which in turn contributes to improved livelihoods, active citizenship and asset creation.

As part of this project, Urban LandMark has undertaken two studies on how the poor access, hold and trade land - one study in two settlements in Lilongwe, Malawi and the other in two settlements in Tete, Mozambique.

The studies aim to shed light on the ways in which informal land transactions occur and the extent to which they result in tenure security and asset creation in these informal settlements. Results from both the Lilongwe study, which surveyed the informal settlements of Mtandire and Chinsapo, and from the Tete study, which surveyed the informal settlements of Matundo and Mateus Sansão Muthemba, are available.

This research forms part of a larger programme of work Urban LandMark has undertaken over the last number of years, and which includes similar studies on how the poor access, hold and trade land in Maputo (Mozambique), Luanda (Angola) and Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg (South Africa).

The Tenure Security Facility Southern Africa project aims at deepening the practical application of a continuum of tenure security and contributing lessons to the debates and practice on urban slum upgrading in Africa via Cities Alliance, our primary funder on the project, and the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) of which Urban LandMark became a partner in 2012.