The document summarizes research on urban land markets and incremental tenure in post-conflict Angola. Some key findings include: - Most land transactions in Angola take place informally, though buyers use documents to claim ownership in most cases. - Recommendations include recognizing the right of occupation in good faith, incremental tenure approaches, and strengthening women's land rights. - Pilot projects testing approaches like land readjustment and cadastre building showed promise in regularizing informal settlements.

1. SISTEMA NACIONAL DE
INFORMAÇÃO TERRITORIAL
Urban Land Markets &
Incremental Tenure
in a Post-Conflict Environment
Allan Cain
Development Workshop Angola
Presented to the
Conference on Land Governance and Management in Africa
Pretoria – 15 - 27 August 2017

2. Post-Conflict Angola
• Angola has been experiencing
extremely rapid urbanization in the
past decades, due to the long civil war
that ended in 2002.
• Angola is one of Africa’s most rapidly
urbanising countries with a rate of
growth of cities of 4.41%.
• Luanda, with more than 7 million
people today, it is now the fourth
largest metropolitan area of Africa.
• Three quarters of the population living
in informal peri-urban areas with weak
rights to land occupation.

3. Legal Environment
• Angola has inherited its legal framework of the Portuguese
Civil Code, which is not easily accommodated to the
practices of customary African land management.
• The Constitution after independence stated that the State
was the owner and manager of all land.
• The Land laws of 1991 and 2004 recognised the colonial
appropriation and division of land as the basis of titling
therefore weakening the claims of traditional owners and
eliminated the old Civil Code’s provisions relating to the
"occupation in good faith".
• The titles for urban land are only issued in areas planned
fully urbanized areas, but the statute for regularization of
periurban land areas have not been published.

4. Opportunities
• The Angolan Government has adopted an ambitious
policy to provide land to facilitate 685 thousand families to
build their own houses under a 2009 program of Auto-
construção.
• The Angolan government has committed itself to the New
Urban Agenda, in October 2016, which ensures that cities
and human settlements are where all people can enjoy
equal rights and opportunities.
• The right to the city includes the social function of the land
that is economically accessible with basic services to
achieve the realization of the right to adequate housing
the security of land tenure for women. Avoiding
speculation, displacements and arbitrary evictions.

5. Challenge
• A major constraint to Government urban plans remains
the weak administration of land resources and
correspondingly weak tenure rights of most urban
residents.
• Despite the Government’s assertion to control land, there
exists a thriving real-estate market for both formal (titled)
and informally occupied land.
• To better understand the dynamics governing urban land
markets as a key factor in the urbanization process

6. Increasing Tenure Insecurity for the Poor
• The poor often occupy valuable inner-city urban real-estate.
• Urban Plans involve Forced Removals of the Poor from the
Urban Centre and the creation of township-style settlments
on the perifery on low-valued land.
• Expropriation of the poor’s assets deepens poverty.

7. Co-Production Research Methodology
• The methodological approach focused on combining new
information and the systematisation of existing data from
previous studies linked with participatory research.
• Review of existing documentation
• Interviews with key informants in relation to land policy
(Government, non-governmental sector, experts)
• Door-to-door surveys (questionnaires) in four pre-
selected zones for the sample, the existence of titles and
quality of construction material;
• Participatory diagnosis with local communities, focus
groups with local administrations and civil society

8. Media & Public Awareness of Land Issues
DW’s CEDOC
monitoring of the
media has
demonstrated
that land issues
and rights have
been clearly
placed in the
public domain
over the decade
following the war.

9. Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
Participatory
mapping
Remote sensing
applications are
GIS tools used by
the project to
collect urban
information using
arial photographs
and satellite
imagery.

10. Typologies Categories
Population
(estimate 2016)
% of total
population
A Old Urban Centre More than 35 years 165 693 2%
B New Suburbs & Condominiums New, Post War 1,699,500 23%
C Bairro Popular Mais de 35 anos 53.200 1%
D Social Housing Zones New, Post War 210.400 3%
E Self-help Auto-construção New, Post War 173 500 2%
F Musseques in Transition Post Independence 150.300 2%
G Organized Musseques More than 35 years 642 900 8%
H Old Musseques More than 35 years 2 312 701 31%
I Musseques on Periphery Post Independence 1 978 000 25%
J Rural Settlements 235 900 3%
K Industrial Zones 2 957 0,05%
Total 7 389 151 100%
Luanda Settlement Typologies

11. SISTEMA NACIONAL DE
INFORMAÇÃO TERRITORIAL
New Suburbs ‘Bairro Popular’Old Buisiness District
Luanda Settlement Typologies

12. SISTEMA NACIONAL DE
INFORMAÇÃO TERRITORIAL
Social Housing Self-help Auto-construção Musseques in Transition
Luanda Settlement Typologies

13. SISTEMA NACIONAL DE
INFORMAÇÃO TERRITORIAL
Peri-urban MussequesOld MussequesOrganised Musseques
Luanda Settlement Typologies

14. Types of
Settlements In
Luanda

15. 1. Where do buyers come from?
Outro municipio em
Luanda
76.6% Mesmo Bairro
4.6%
Sem resposta
0.3%
Outro país
0.5%
Outra província
18.0%
• Most buyers are of
the other
municipalities in the
province of Luanda
76.35%
• 18% comes from
other provinces
• Only 4.6% of the
same
neighborhood.

16. 2. How land acquired and secured ?
Outra
0.0%
Cartao de morador
0.7%
Acordo foi publicado
1.5%
Recibo da utilidade
publica
1.0%
Licença de
arrematação
0.2%
Registro Predial
0.5%
Direito de Superfície
0.5%
Titulo de ocupação
precario
5.6%
Testemunhado por
tecnico do governo
6.8%
Croquis de Localização
7.3%
Recebi uma declaração
49.1%
Contrato de compra e
venda
12.2%
Nenhum documento
14.4%
• Declaration of sale and purchase
• Receipt or contract of purchase
• Record of Cadastre
• Title of temporary occupation
• Title to Surface Rights
• Register
• Occupation License
Only 6.8% of the total have in their possession documents
that are in accordance with the legislation in force.
A total of 61.3% of the residents purchased their land in the
informal market.

17. Legal Tools
The following are the only legally defined
designations of formal tenure that have been
codified in the Land Law or Civil Code:
a) Precarious (temporary) occupation rights
a) Surface rights
b) Customary useful domain to rural communities (not
yet regulated)
c) Useful civic domain (not yet regulated)
d) Private property rights to urban land (applies to
properties designated during colonial era)

18. Administrative Tools in Practice
1. Attestation of Residence – witnessed by 2 neighbours
2. Declaration of Bairro Commission – witnessed by
Soba (traditional chief)
3. Declaration of Comuna Administration – signed by
administrator.
4. Licence of Occupation (Licencia de Arrematação) –
valid for 3 years renewable until Title of Surface Rights
is issued.
5. Licence for allotment or sub-division - following
municipal urban plan
6. Licence for delimiting or fencing the site.
7. Licence for construction – respecting building codes
and local urban by-laws

19. Land Regularisation Diaries
Registering Land for Formal Housing Regularising Informal Land
Occupation

20. Mapping the Bureaucracy of Formal Land
18 May 2011 20 June 2011
+ 33 days
$ 370
Total 33 days
to begin
construction

21. Mapping Legalization of Informal Occupation
19 Oct 2010 14 Nov 2011
25 Nov 2011 22 Feb 2012 18 March 2012
+ 11 days
+ 391 days
+ 89 days
+ 24 days
Total 415 days

22. 3. How are land transactions financed?
• The formal
banking sector
is reluctant to
enter into the
real estate
market.
• The majority of
financing for
land and
housing comes
from the family
(62%) and
friends (27%).

23. Excuses for the lack of land financing
Reasons given by banks to justify their reluctance:
• The lack of clear legislation on land that allows the use
of property as collateral
• Long periods of repayment
• The lack of a government policy on mortgages or
bank credit for real-estate
• The lack of clear titles to the property held by
customers
• The lack of a culture of timely reimbursement of loans
by borrowers.
• Angolan bank’s poor record of loan defaults.

24. 4. Role of real-estate intermediaries
• In the Musseques
studied, real-estate
brokers played
intermediary roles in
only 2% of the cases.
• Government
administration and
residents committees
were involved in 8% of
cases.
• Most transations took
place directly with the
previous owner.

25. How property is advertised

26. 4b. How are property disputes are resolved?
The low incidence of
disputes indicates the
social legitimacy of
local level property
transfers, even if the
documents do not
have full legal status.
In case of conflict the
first recourse is to
residents’
committees and local
administrations.

27. 5. How are property values are determined?
The main factors that influence the value of urban land
are :
• Location in relation to employment opportunities
• Demand due to population pressure and density
• Presence of infrastructure and basic services
• Legal status of the land, proof of ownership & title
• Distance to social services (schools & health facilities)
• Road access & distance to public transport
• Level of environmental and public health risk
• Security, risks of violence & crime levels

30. Map of environmental & health risk

31. Land price map of Luanda

32. Key Findings
• There is a significant informal land market in Angolan cities.
At least 61% of transactions involve financial sales.
• Transactions have documented evidence that buyers use to
back up their claims (60%) and are not truly informal.
• Land transactions are perceived as secure by an
overwhelming majority of buyers (85%).
• Enjoying a strong local legitimacy due to this perception as
well as the widely-used documented evidence.
• Most land transactions are precarious or uncertain as only
8% of transfers can be backed up by legally defendable
documents to secure their owner’s tenure.
• 46% of in Luanda’s Mussequs are headed by women.

33. Key Policy Recommendation 1
Recognize the right of occupation in ‘good faith’
• recognition of the de facto rights of occupation of urban
land,
• Use appropriate simple procedures to adjudicate this.
• Legitimate proofs acceptable for demonstrating
occupation in good faith need to be defined
• The most common forms of proofs of ownership that
families currently use should be recorded in a cadastre
and incorporated into new legal practice.

34. Key Policy Recommendation 2
Introduce the principle of incremental tenure into legal
regulation and practice
• Integrate existing practice into an inclusive policy
• Existing informal arrangements for access to land are
well established and have strong legitimacy among the
peri-urban population.
• These existing practices should be recognized and
framed into law
• Simplify land regularisation should be used in order to
eliminate the enormous backlog of requests
• Facilitate the gradual progression in stages from
occupation rights to titles
• Provision of street naming, mapping and numbering may
be an early stage of tenure recognition

35. Specific Recommendations
1. Promote more functional land markets
• By providing better access to information
• Open access to property records,
• Public access to information on development projects.
• Financial compensation for expropriation
accommodated in the letter of the law
2. Upgradeable tenure
• Recognition of basic occupation rights
• Intermediate forms of tenure can be expanded to
include the "Provisional Certificate of Land"
• Surface use rights including transferable land titles

36. Specific Recommendations
3. Recognize the right of occupation based on the
principle of good faith De facto recognition of the rights of
land occupation of urban dwellers who, in good faith, bought
or acquired their land through some other legitimate
mechanism
4. Strengthen women’s land rights
• Land legislation should be compatible with the “family
code”.
5. Incorporate the right to information as actual practice
The obligation on the part of the government and its
institutions to publicly disclose their plans, interventions,
grants and programs of urbanization

37. Specific Recommendations
6. Incorporate the strengthening of municipal institutions
• The effective demand can be better evaluated
• A legal and administrative framework established
7. Creation of municipal system of registration
It is important to ensure that the local government can
collect revenue from property taxes. With the advances in
technology of geographic information, it is becoming
increasingly inexpensive to develop and maintain land
information systems.
8. Create greater public awareness of land rights and civic
responsibilities through education on rights and new
responsibilities for urban residents

38. Specific Recommendations
9. Implement projects of readjustment of land
• Pilot projects should be implemented through
partnerships between the provincial government and local
authorities, with an active participation of civil society
• Intoduce a strict control of costs to assess the feasibility
of applying these pilot projects in programs that are more
spacious
10. Implement the principle of fair indemenization
Fair compensation may include but may not be necessarily
limited to the market value of the land and costs incurred by
the owner of land as a result of expropriation.

39. Piloting Land Readjustment
Land Pooling or readjustment provides a market mechanism to
regularize informal 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. DW has piloted two land readjustment pilot projects
with the Municipal Adminsitration of Huambo.

40. The components of the cadastre are; participatory mapping,
deliniation of parcel, registering, licencing & archiving.
A. Mapping
a) Satelite images
b) Topográfical maps
B. Deliniating parcels
C. Registering
D. Licencing
E. Arquiving
Cadastre Building with STDM

41. Geographical Information Systems
Municipal Cadastres Piloted in 3 Provinces

42. SISTEMA NACIONAL DE
INFORMAÇÃO TERRITORIAL
Obrigado