Chapter 4: Real Estate for Economic Development

Title: Urban property framework and the African development dialogue

Reference: WORLD SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OUTLOOK 2006 pp. 107 - 115

Abstract/Summary: International development institutions and experts now widely agree that real estate constitutes an important plunk in the fight against poverty in Africa. Yet successes of existing state – led land policies in this sense are very difficult to cite. This has prompted, arguably reasonable, new liberal propositions aimed at enlarging the scope of indigenous land tenure while constricting government's involvement in the activities of these markets. These neo-liberal policies however are being readily accepted with very little extensive empirical assessment of the true capacities of the indigenous land tenure arrangements to deliver. This creates a vacuum in terms of the realism of this new policy direction particularly in the urban areas were the influences of indigenous land tenure system are fast dwindling. Using theoretical it is argued here that indigenous land tenure systems are not so readily accepted unless their respective capacities, benefits and costs are convincingly ascertained.

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