Malawi is one of the world’s fastest urbanising countries, with more than 70% of its urban population living in informal settlements. These settlements are characterised by insecure tenure, unregulated land use, inadequate services and exposure to environmental and health risks.
While interventions have taken place with the aim of improving conditions, these have typically been underresourced and fragmented, without a coherent national framework to guide them. This stalled progress leaves informal settlement residents without vital services, adequate housing and facing precarity every day.
Understanding informality in urban Malawi
ACRC’s foundation phase research in Malawi’s capital city, Lilongwe, highlighted how various factors – including rapid urbanisation, weak land administration systems and inadequate infrastructure investment – have contributed to the growth and persistence of informal settlements. Findings also showed that informality is more than just a housing challenge, as it manifests wider governance, institutional and political economy constraints.
This research also identified a number of opportunities for urban reform in the city – including through strengthened collaboration among government institutions, organised communities, civil society organisations and development partners. It additionally highlighted the need for a coherent national framework to guide large-scale and coordinated responses to informal settlements.
Developing a national strategy
Building on this groundwork, an ACRC transition grant was awarded to support the development of a national informal settlements upgrading and prevention strategy (ISUPS). This national framework seeks to steer Malawi’s urban growth towards greater inclusion, resilience and improved quality of life for urban residents.
Along with ACRC’s research in Lilongwe, the strategy development was also informed by a longstanding urban reform coalition in Malawi, which advocates for improved housing and informal settlement upgrading. The grant supported the national government – through the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, the Center for Community Organisation and Development (CCODE), local researchers and other stakeholders – to lay the foundation for large-scale informal settlements upgrading.
By gathering and consolidating evidence from informal settlements and institutional engagements, the consortium co-produced the national strategy, which promotes integrated and people-centred interventions. With a focus on tenure security, infrastructure improvement, climate resilience and access to livelihoods and social services, the framework places informal settlement communities at the centre of planning, implementation and monitoring. Aligning with wider ACRC findings, it also places a strong emphasis on gender inclusion and youth participation.
A new report by Zilire Luka, executive director of CCODE Malawi, reflects on the development of the ISUPS and shares lessons learned from the process. It also outlines what the way forward looks like for the strategy and how sustainability can be achieved in informal settlement upgrading.
Working within urban realities
The report builds on earlier ACRC findings around the value of land tenure security, and highlights the importance of politically-aware, community-led and context-specific interventions. Insights include:
> Land tenure security is key to unlocking better living conditions for informal settlement residents – Many low-income residents in Malawi’s informal settlements occupy land without legal documentation, leaving them in a precarious position and reluctant to invest in housing improvements. Tenure security is key to successful and sustainable housing and settlement upgrading.
> Communities need to be active partners in informal settlement upgrading – Co-producing solutions with communities is essential for upgrading initiatives to be successful. Meaningfully involving residents – early on and throughout the process – ensures that their priorities and local knowledge inform the design and implementation of solutions.
Putting the framework into action
Along with documenting the process, outcomes, lessons and challenges associated with the development of the strategy, the report examines how research evidence, stakeholder engagement, coalition-building and community participation can contribute to advancing urban reform in Malawi and reflects on the implications for future informal settlement upgrading efforts:
> Policy development is important, but strengthening implementation is critical – Improving state capability to carry out upgrading effectively and sustainably requires enhancing institutional coordination, monitoring, financing and accountability. Implementation must also be informed by political realities, to ensure reforms can remain sustainable through changes in political leadership.
> Building effective reform coalitions requires deliberate alignment of actors and interests – No single institution has the authority, resources or capacity necessary to address interconnected challenges of land, housing, infrastructure, finance and urban governance. Building and sustaining a coalition with multiple actors is key, while continued coordination, trust and clear roles are essential to turn strategy into action.
> Long-term financing, coordination and political commitment are key to the success of the informal settlement upgrading strategy – The development and implementation of the ISUPS is a long-term political process, requiring collaboration and ongoing investment in infrastructure, services and land management systems. A dedicated financing mechanism, such as a national settlement upgrading and prevention fund, would help local authorities in Malawi move beyond short-term projects and support sustained implementation on a larger scale.
The insights from the report also contribute to ACRC’s broader learning on how research, reform coalitions, citizen mobilisation, elite commitment and state capacity support urban reform processes in African cities.
Header photo credit: CCODE Malawi
Note: This article presents the views of the authors featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.
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