Leuven and Brussels, Belgium, 23-26 May 2001
COPING WITH INFORMALITY AND ILLEGALITY
IN HUMAN SETTLEMENTS IN DEVELOPING CITIES
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ESF/N-AERUS International Workshop Leuven and Brussels, Belgium, 23-26 May 2001
COPING WITH INFORMALITY AND ILLEGALITY
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Babette Wehrmann
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In most developing countries, there is a demand to integrate practices of informal land management into formal urban land management. The paper, therefore, focuses on three issues: the distinction between legitimacy (non-conformity) and criminality (illegality) in informal urban land management; the basic characteristics of informal land management; and ways to cope with it.
In most cases, activities of informal land management violate modern state law and regulations while at the same time they correspond to the needs of the poor. This often leads to 'de facto' rights which sometimes are in accordance with customary rules. In these cases, it is therefore more appropriate to talk about non-conformity or even legitimacy. There are, however, situations which do not only offend against modern state law but also against recognized moral values or even human rights. These criminal activities have to be distinguished and treated in separate ways. The paper attempts to distinguish between non-conformist but legitimate activities on the one hand and criminal and therefore illegal activities on the other. As the transition is often fluent, the distinction is made according to the contribution that informal land managers make to public welfare.
Based on the author's research in different African countries the main activities of informal land management in human settlements (informal land acquisition, informal land tenure rights and informal land transfer) as well as the actors involved are briefly described and classified, according to the previously made distinction of non-conformity and illegality.
In the main section, the changing responses to informal land occupation/acquisition; the growing recognition of informal land tenure systems; the reaction to informal land transfers; and the chances of the still limited integration of informal actors are discussed.
The paper closes by highlighting measures which are to be taken to further integrate effective legitimate activities at the grass-roots level into the formal urban land management.
N-AERUS: Network-Association of European Researchers on Urbanisation in the South
http://www.naerus.net