Evaluations and Lessons Learned

Focus on Land in Africa Brief

Lesson 4: Tenure Insecurity in Urban Mali

Brief tenure insecurity in urban mali 2011 en png

In Mali, many of the urban poor face tenure insecurity which leaves them vulnerable to expropriation, landlessness and poverty. This insecurity is perpetuated by two distinct but interrelated issues. First, a scarcity of affordable land in urban areas forces the poor to illegally squat on public land or to enter into informal land use agreements with traditional authorities on the urban periphery. Second, land formalization processes are expensive and accessible to only a few, leaving many of the poor vulnerable to government expropriation. These issues – aided by corruption, cronyism in land allocation and opaque and expensive land registration processes – have fueled tenure insecurity for the majority of the urban poor in Mali.

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