Our collective work in the land and connectivity domain report highlighted some of the actual drivers of land value change in the cities we examined: Accra, Bukavu, Harare, Kampala, Maiduguri and Mogadishu. Here, I build on this to consider how these findings challenge some of the dominant notions on which ideas of value capture are based.

“Paradigmatic ideas” about land value change

Answers to the question of what shapes land values might seem obvious, and there are plenty of proposed mechanisms posited in the disciplines of economics and planning, based largely on the experiences of advanced industrial economies. In the language of ACRC’s conceptual framework, a set of “paradigmatic ideas” dominates assumptions about land value change and feeds into policy discourses, both internationally and at more local levels.

These paradigmatic ideas depend heavily on a distinction between private property as the main site of value, and public infrastructure and public regulation as primary drivers of that value.

The received wisdom is that (private) land value increases are largely driven by three factors:

1. Increased economic activity or prosperity in an area, which inflates demand for the land

2. Public infrastructure investments that make the land more desirable

3. Changes to planning permission/regulations that again increase its desirability and therefore value

The logic, then, is that for factors 2 and 3, the uplift in value is caused by the state – by public infrastructure and regulation – and therefore it can legitimately be recaptured by the state for redistribution.

Unsettling the received wisdom

But what if much of the infrastructure provided to service urban land in an urban area is not public, but rather provided by private (and often informal) providers? What if regulations about what can and can’t be built in an area are determined less by the state than by other kinds of authority? And, moreover, what if the land in question is not straightforwardly “private”, such that any official owner being taxed also has to contend with paying a range of other levies related to more collective territorial claims on the land?

Our research revealed such dynamics in a number of cities. It suggests that the paradigmatic ideas do not represent the whole story about drivers of value change, and that context-specific institutions and practices are central. Attention to contextual “price signals” has often been present in land rent theory and the “hedonic modelling” used by real estate researchers and analysts – yet this often gets lost in contemporary value capture discourses, and such models also miss some of the most important factors in the cities we studied.

The real drivers of land value change: Findings from the land and connectivity domain

Our studies unsettle this assumption that urban property is primarily private and infrastructure is primarily public. This is particularly true if we consider property development in peripheral or suburban areas, which is taking place across many African cities.

Let’s first consider the idea of private property. In a city such as Accra or Lagos, individual property rights and heightened land commodification are very real, but co-exist and overlap with “customary” forms of tenure. Thus, while sales to individuals are common, various other actors continue to make claims to benefit from the land’s use, often based on longstanding collective ancestral rights. A share of any increase in the value of this land is therefore seen as rightfully belonging not just to the official owner but also a range of (often quite diffuse) actors. In Accra, for example, various categories of “land guards”, with varying degrees of popular and historical legitimacy, claim fees and levies for different stages in the development of property on land.

When land retains these social and collective attributes, focusing just on the property relation – for example, through taxing the owner – without attention to these other dynamics, it can result in feelings of “over taxation” and illegitimacy.

When it comes to the question of infrastructure provision and regulation, the picture from our cities also diverges substantially from the paradigmatic ideas. While major public infrastructure such as roads does often substantially bolster land value, in other cases the opposite occurs. In examples from Maiduguri and Kampala, certain road investments appeared to dampen or even reverse local rises in land value, due to having adverse impacts on personal security (such as if the road becomes associated with a rise in violent criminal activity, for instance), local population mobility, or the functioning of other infrastructure.

Moreover, the kinds of infrastructure that did significantly increase land values was often privately rather than publicly provided. In Mogadishu, for example, certain new suburbs were served with privately provided roads as well as private services such as schools, hospitals and green areas, all of which boosted land values. In peripheral areas of other cities, including Harare and Accra, the role of private actors in providing infrastructure – and sometimes also planning and regulatory services of various kinds – tells a broadly similar story.

Implications for urban reform

These findings must give us pause when thinking about appropriate routes for capturing land values. The idea of public interventions to boost (and recoup) privately held value makes less sense when, in practice, private interventions have been generating much of the value. Meanwhile, taxing land value is not straightforward in cases where it has not simply accrued to an identifiable private actor.

This is not to say that efforts towards property taxation and other forms of value capture should not be pursued. Indeed, they remain urgent. But as well as building government capacity to register values and collect taxes, there need to be ongoing efforts to build understanding on the moral and political principles underpinning property taxation, and public dialogue acknowledging the challenges people face paying tax alongside levies to non-state actors. These efforts need to be accompanied by incremental improvements to public infrastructure provision.

As so much of ACRC’s work had demonstrated, successful urban reform is rooted in trust, collective mobilisation and the building of reform coalitions. This is as true of property taxation as any other urban domain, and the better we understand the nature and drivers of the value to be taxed, the more likely that a collective agenda to redistribute this wealth will materialise.

Explore further:

• The land and connectivity domain report
• Podcast: why do land brokers matter in African cities?
• Webinar recording: Urban land in Africa

Header photo credit: Barnabas Lartey-Odoi Tetteh / Unsplash. Accra cityscape.

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.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

The project: Bringing legal ownership to the grassroots

What makes the Systematic Land Titling Project groundbreaking is how it brings land registration directly to the community – especially low-income and informal settlements.

Led by REBHI, with technical implementation by BOGIS and support from ACRC, the project is intentionally designed to be inclusive, simple, and accessible.

Here’s how the process works:

1. Community mobilisation and sensitisation

REBHI works closely with traditional leaders, women’s groups and local associations to raise awareness. Outreach events help explain:

> What a statutory title is

> Why it matters

> Who is eligible

> How to begin the process

These culturally-sensitive forums empower women to ask questions and learn their rights.

2. Application support

Support staff, including some lower-level traditional or community leaders, are stationed in targeted neighbourhoods to assist residents with:

> Filling out registration forms

> Organising supporting documents (like community witness statements or sale agreements)

> Answering questions, especially for those with limited literacy

Special effort is made to prioritise vulnerable groups, including widows, elderly women, and people living with disabilities (PLWDs).

3. Technical verification and data capture

BOGIS then conducts land data capture and physical verification to confirm boundaries and ownership claims. This stage includes mapping and photographing the land.

Local leaders often accompany the team to mediate disputes or confirm ownership, and women’s voices are actively considered in shared-property situations.

4. Issuance of statutory rights

Upon approval, BOGIS issues a statutory land right – not a Certificate of Occupancy, but a legally recognised document – formally acknowledging the woman as the landholder.

In many cases, this is the first legal document a woman has ever owned in her name.

“I thought land registration was only for rich or educated people. REBHI helped me through it. Now my name is on my own land. I feel like I belong.”

Zainab, a 60-year-old widow, endured years of threats from in-laws trying to take her home. After receiving her statutory right, the harassment stopped.

“When I received the title, I cried. Finally, the law was with me – not against me.”

And many others, including people with disabilities, are gaining secure footing in a society where documentation often determines access to justice and opportunity.

Why this matters for the bigger picture

The benefits go beyond individual women. Statutory land titling contributes to:

> Peacebuilding – by reducing land-related disputes within families and communities.

> Economic empowerment – women can invest confidently, build stronger homes and use property as collateral.

> Urban planning – government can better plan and develop informal areas.

> Social change – norms around gender, ownership and rights are evolving.

One key feature of the project is free land registration for female beneficiaries, a critical enabler for low-income women who would otherwise be excluded by cost.

By eliminating registration fees, the programme ensures that economic status does not determine a woman’s access to legal ownership.

What’s next?

With growing awareness and rising demand, REBHI and its partners are committed to expanding the project across Borno State. To sustain momentum, the following are vital:

> Policy reforms to simplify the land registration process.

> Deeper engagement with religious and traditional authorities.

> Expansion of outreach into rural and hard-to-reach communities.

> Inclusive budgeting to prioritise women and marginalised groups.

A future built on security and dignity

For many women in Borno, land ownership is not only about property, but about visibility, security and having a stake in their future as well. With each statutory right issued, a new story is being written – one of inclusion, empowerment and resilience.

And for the first time, the land under their feet is more than simply a place to live. It’s a symbol of who they are, what they own and what they can pass on.

This is what happens when land is placed in her name.

Photo credits: ACRC Maiduguri project team, Diana Mitlin

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.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

Header photo credit: znm / iStock. A young woman walking through an informal settlement in Kampala, Uganda.

Generative AI was used to help draft this blog post:

We uploaded the full youth and capability development domain report to Google NotebookLM and asked it to summarise the key mental health findings and their implications for development practice. The draft post was then edited by the ACRC communications team, before being approved by one of the lead authors of the report.

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By 2050, half of Africa’s population will be under the age of 25. This makes young people key to development outcomes across the continent’s cities, with youth often regarded as the “makers or breakers” of the future.

A new ACRC paper presents research into the challenges facing young people as they transition to adulthood in five African cities: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Kampala, Uganda; Maiduguri, Nigeria; and Mogadishu, Somalia.

ACRC’s youth and capability development domain research aimed to investigate commonalities in youth capabilities, as well as the political and systemic influences that shape them, across diverse urban contexts.

The authors of this paper – Olha Homonchuk, Elizabeth Dessie, Nicola Banks, Katja Starc Card, Susan Nicolai, Nansozi K Muwanga, Imrana Buba, Zainab M Hassan, Haja R Wurie and Eyob Balcha Gebremariam – uncover prevalent systemic barriers hindering young people in African cities from fulfilling their potential, particularly within social welfare systems and politics.

Young people in the cities studied emphasised the importance of quality education, vocational skills training programmes, financial services, health services and political participation. The research revealed that while youth have high stakes in political settlements, they also have little power – undermining their ability to influence and improve the social systems affecting their livelihoods.

The five cities studied were chosen because they have youth-majority populations and have been affected by conflict. City-level research teams drew on secondary and primary data collection, with primary data collected through individual interviews and focus group discussions with participants ranging from 15 to 30 years of age. Research teams were committed to distinguishing between the experiences of different vulnerable groups of young people – including young migrants and those living in refugee camps – as well as documenting how these challenges differ based on gender and socioeconomic status.

Key findings

The capabilities of young people are hindered by a number of factors:

• Political settlements that exclude young people and restrict their influence on policy agendas and ability to hold government agencies accountable;
• Insecure labour markets, characterised by under and unemployment, nepotism and corruption, financial exploitation and sex discrimination – with many young men joining militia groups or organised youth gangs to meet social and economic needs, and young women more likely to encounter exploitation and sexual discrimination during job searches;
• Limited opportunities to acquire skills, with poor quality formal education and vocational skills programmes that lack relevance to the labour market – plus private provision for the better off perpetuating socioeconomic inequalities;
• Little mental health support for symptoms caused by the stress of conflict and economic insecurity – leading to substance abuse as a coping mechanism – as well as severely restricted access to reproductive health services.

Policy implications

Our findings highlight the need for urban policy reform. Multisectoral youth programmes need to be broadened to incorporate youth skills training and mental health support. As a first step, it is crucial to assess the existence of long-term, locally-led initiatives of this nature that can be expanded or scaled up.

Young people need protection and support in labour markets, particularly those vulnerable to exploitation in informal apprenticeships. Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) curricula should be regulated, to address quality differences in such programmes.

Meaningful inclusion of young people in decisionmaking is also required. Youth often find themselves forced to align with existing power networks to access any benefits at all. Youth empowerment and capability development projects need to meaningfully collaborate with young people during research and programme design phases. This would support the creation of sustainable interventions that are relevant to young people and meet their needs.

Header photo credit: AnjoKanFotografie / iStock. Young people outside an electrical shop in Kampala, Uganda.

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Header photo credit: Andi Edwards / Getty Images (via Canva Pro). New road bypass between Entebbe and Kampala, Uganda.

Note: This article presents the views of the author featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

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ACRC has published a new paper synthesising research findings from political settlements, city system and urban development domain analyses of Maiduguri, Nigeria. Domain research in the city focused on safety and security, land and connectivity and youth and capability development.

Maiduguri is the largest city in northeast Nigeria and the capital of Borno State. It faces multifaceted challenges stemming from endemic poverty, governance gaps and the lasting impact of the Boko Haram insurgency that started in 2009.

Unlike other African cities studied in ACRC’s foundation phase, Maiduguri does not have a city government. Administratively, the urban area is spread across five local government areas – Maiduguri Metropolitan, Jere, Konduga, Mafa and Magumeri. The political landscape is marked by power concentration in the state governor and intersects with issues of “godfatherism” and limited influence for some demographic groups.

In this report, Katja Starc Card, Imrana Buba, Abubakar K Monguno, Haruna Ayuba, Kingsley L Madueke and Stephen B Ajadi, present an in-depth understanding of Maiduguri’s complexities, offering insights into the city’s political landscape and prospects for urban reform. The study provides a critique of ACRC’s theory of change and proposes ways to optimise the conceptual framework at the city level.

The research draws from secondary and primary data sources, with primary data generated through structured and semi-structured interviews with 5,110 residents, 193 in-depth key informant interviews, and 37 focus group interviews with 186 participants. Literature reviews extensively covered academic and grey literature, encompassing legislative and policy documents, NGO and civil society reports, working papers, institutional websites, newspaper articles and relevant documents from international and multilateral organisations and development agencies.

Key findings

• Power in Maiduguri is concentrated, with party alignments between the national and Borno State governments meaning opposition parties struggle to challenge the ruling coalition.
• Despite resilient optimism among young people, lack of educational opportunities, unemployment, exclusion and the rise of drug trade and consumption adversely affect youth in the city.
• Persistent crime levels and the emergence of locally organised self-defence efforts hamper safety and security interventions following the Boko Haram insurgency.
• Road and drainage connectivity impact land valuations, amplifying the politicised nature of government investments in the city.
• There is a proliferation of unregulated land sales, resultant land conflicts and informal developments on flood-prone areas of Maiduguri.
• Marginalisation of women excludes them from decisionmaking, exacerbates their formal access to land and exposes them to potential harassment from political enclaves.

Findings from the city synthesis report spotlight Maiduguri’s interconnected challenges and their influence on the city’s urban development. Recognising the complex interplay of national-, city- and domain-level power and politics, the report proposes strategic pathways to advance the reform frontier in Maiduguri.

Header photo credit: Babakura Bukar. A man crossing Ibrahim Sani Abatcha Way in Maiduguri, Nigeria.

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ACRC has published new research, exploring land and connectivity in six African cities: Accra (Ghana), Bukavu (DRC), Kampala (Uganda), Harare (Zimbabwe), Maiduguri (Nigeria) and Mogadishu (Somalia).

Urban land is a crucial economic, environmental and social resource in African cities. It is also highly politicised, frequently becoming a source of conflict and a factor in growing urban inequalities. Often dysfunctional and under-resourced systems of land administration have to engage with highly inequitable colonial legacies, widespread speculation and forms of elite capture, placing huge pressures on the sector.

Authored by Tom Goodfellow (University of Sheffield), Abdifatah Tahir (University of Sheffield), Liza Rose Cirolia (University of Cape Town) and Ransford Acheampong (The University of Manchester) in collaboration with city-based researchers, this report discusses findings from a six-city comparative study. The research explores how the nexus between land and connective infrastructure is shaping the way land is valued, used, transacted, fought over, managed and taxed in African cities.

Its main focus is on how land challenges intersect with connectivity – with the development of transport and mobility infrastructures, and with digital infrastructures that can change the way land is used, valued, exchanged and managed. Exploring what this can reveal about the realities of land value creation, extraction and capture – as well as the technopolitical dynamics of land administration – the report presents policy implications for urban reform.

Research approach

The authors conducted a selective review of literature on urban land and infrastructure in African cities. Six largely qualitative city studies were produced, each led by an expert with a long track record of work in the specific city. These studies draw on secondary sources (such as policies, government documents, reports, existing studies), interviews with key stakeholders (such as officials, land brokers, community representatives and developers), and the authors’ extensive experience and observations in the sectors. The research in each city covered a wide range of issues, around three central themes:

1. Land tenure, administration, management and conflict.
2. Taxation, land value and value capture.
3. Infrastructures and networks related to transport, mobility and digital connectivity.

In addition, a series of cross-city workshops brought together city domain researchers and the core team, to co-develop the framework and co-integrate the findings.

The report draws together crosscutting findings, considers some of the ways in which urban land and connectivity sits within the political settlement, and finally reflects on the findings and their interlinkages, presenting implications for urban reform and for future research priorities.

Key findings

• Land values are driven by multiple factors often overlooked in conventional property development and value capture models.
• Many societal actors are involved in capturing the rising value of urban land, including various forms of brokers.
• Urban growth and residential development often proceed particularly rapidly in areas without connective infrastructure – in contrast to planning assumptions that urban growth is stimulated by increased connectivity.
• Systems for property taxation vary massively, making cross-city learning challenging.
• Digital innovations feature heavily in land systems and can make a difference to “low-hanging fruit” in terms of land registration and taxation.
• Three types of politics – land, territorial and institutional – are evident throughout the domain, with their relative weight differing, depending on the nature of the political settlement.
• Different forms of land politics coexist, but some dominate in particular cases.

Implications for urban reform

• Reform approaches may need to work more on building government legitimacy versus state capacity, depending on which individuals and agencies are seen as the primary “land-grabbers”.
• The varied balance between land politics, territorial politics and institutional politics in different cities has implications for reform prospects.
• Finding ways to engage with land brokers and other intermediaries will be crucial to reform efforts.
• Policymakers should maintain awareness that technical interventions can mask or even worsen existing political and institutional conflicts.

Header photo credit: Andi Edwards / iStock. A road in Kampala, Uganda in the wet season.

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Date: Monday 20 May 2024

Time: 13:00-14:30 BST / 14:00-15:30 SAST / 15:00-16:30 EAT  

Register: bit.ly/ACRCUrbanLandWebinar

Summary: In many African cities, land is governed by a complex arrangement of actors – public and private, formal and informal, local and international. In the context of speculative land markets, porous bureaucracies and conflicting transaction records, land governance has remained hotly contested. Reform efforts aimed at optimising systems or addressing injustices have often had to confront these conflicts, engaging directly with questions of power and politics in the urban land space. 

As part of ACRC’s land and connectivity domain, a team of researchers undertook detailed studies in six African cities, with a keen eye on the relationship between land administration and governance, land value and markets, and land reform efforts.

Chaired by Tom Goodfellow and Liza Rose Cirolia, this webinar will draw on research conducted in Accra (Ghana), Bukavu (DRC), Harare (Zimbabwe), Kampala (Uganda), Maiduguri (Nigeria) and Mogadishu (Somalia), focusing on the following questions:

• How do these multiple and contested land governance arrangements “present” in different cities? Who is involved and what roles do they play? What are some of the key historical forces and contextual factors that have shaped the emergence of these players and the establishment of these roles? What are the politics of these arrangements – in other words, how is power established, maintained or lost by different actors and where do key sites of contestation sit? Do these actors draw on, for example, social contracts, the law, violence, finance or other sources of power and legitimacy to establish themselves? 

• What factors are shaping land value in the different cities (in particular where there are rapidly changing land values)? Taking account of the contestation discussed in the early sections, how is this value being captured, and by whom? What processes and technologies are supporting this capture and how just or unjust is the outcome? 

The event will begin with an overview of the research aims and design, as well as previewing some of the headline crosscutting comparative findings from the ACRC land and connectivity domain report. This will be followed by two panel discussions in which city researchers from some of the six cities will provide an overview of key findings in relation to the themes above. Finally, we will consider implications for urban reform and future research.

Header photo credit: David Attricki / Pexels (via Canva Pro). Aerial shot of buildings and road in Accra, Ghana.

Note: This article presents the views of the author featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

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By Rosebella Apollo, ACRC research uptake officer, and Irene Vance, ACRC head of project delivery

The ACRC programme is now at a stage where several cities will start implementing action research projects. We are excited to have four pilot projects underway in Harare, Nairobi, Mogadishu and Maiduguri, with more in the pipeline to start very soon.

We envisage that these initiatives – based on co-design and co-production – will build new knowledge and test innovative solutions, to address critical complex challenges in African cities.

But what exactly do we mean when we talk about “action research”?

In contrast to traditional research approaches, participatory action research places the community at the centre of the research process. This means they are involved in identifying and prioritising the problem, formulating research questions and analysing the findings.

This approach provides a range of options for solutions and enables participants to effect change in ways that are meaningful to their communities. Often referred to as co-creation, co-design or co-production, all terms underscore that this is a participatory process.

Ultimately, the action research we are undertaking seeks to catalyse urban transformation and urban reforms, and to enhance service delivery and equitable local governance systems.

Action vs traditional research

Back in November 2022, we held a workshop in Nairobi, which brought academic and community researchers together with practitioners, to reflect on their own experiences of conducting action research. The main aims were to develop a good understanding of what action research is/is not, reflect on past projects to understand what worked (and what didn’t), and develop a shared methodological approach to action research for ACRC, rooted in decoloniality.

During the workshop, participants were asked to share their thoughts around what action research is and, crucially, what it isn’t. Here are some of the responses:

Of course, the nature of research means that there are some commonalities in aims and outcomes between action research and more traditional approaches. But as these responses show, there are key differences too – some obvious, some more nuanced.

In the coming weeks, this blog series will explore what these principles look like in reality, as we share examples of past initiatives and illustrate practice emerging from our pilot projects, as teams co-create and craft their action research processes. Topics will include participatory learning, action methods, working with communities and managing expectations, and collaborating across multiple sectors to drive policy change.

If you can’t wait for the next blog instalments, you can find all this and more in our briefing paper: “Building a shared approach to action research”.

Header photo credit: Diana Mitlin. Planning action research in Harare, Zimbabwe.

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ACRC has published new research, exploring safety and security in six African cities: Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Lagos, Nigeria; Maiduguri, Nigeria; Mogadishu, Somalia; and Nairobi, Kenya.

Insecurity, crime and violence have a profound impact on the lived experiences of African city residents. They produce significant fear and suffering, often burdening women, children and disadvantaged communities the most.

Both perceived and real threats of violence can limit mobility, impacting the education, livelihoods and general wellbeing of urban residents. The prevalence of urban insecurity also shines a spotlight on governance approaches at both the city and national level, with different forms of political settlement shaping patterns of violence and responses to insecurity.

Addressing the challenges of insecurity and urban violence is therefore an urgent agenda for African cities. In this paper, authors Patience Adzande, Paula Meth and Stephen Commins argue that coalitions across community groups, informal security providers, the police and schools are critical sites for future security reform.

Research was conducted in collaboration with city-based domain teams and researchers focused on city systems and political settlements analysis. Our research challenged singular readings of insecurity within African cities through an everyday insecurities approach. Capturing the lived experiences of lower-income communities was essential to understanding safety and security in the different focus cities, with teams drawing on a mixed methods approach to gather data – including interviews, security diaries, surveys, media reports and community consultations. The lived experience approach adopted in the city studies revealed differentiated accounts and notions of insecurity, both within and between cities.

Key findings

• Safety and security relate to political, personal, social, health, financial, environmental and psychological dimensions.
• In Freetown, criminality and gang violence are key social insecurity issues, while a primary safety challenge in coastal neighbourhoods is flooding.
• Incidences of robbery, assassinations, rape and sexual violence, issues of witchcraft and fetishisms, unregulated gambling, abduction and kidnapping were widely reported in Lagos, Mogadishu, Maiduguri, Nairobi and Bukavu.
• Poverty, gender, ethnicity and displacement directly exacerbate residents’ vulnerability to insecurity.
• City studies illustrated the varied complex intersections between politics and (in)security operating across urban, regional and national scales as manifested in the different configurations of key actors, who often shaped access to resources, controlled land and determined security strategies.

The safety and security domain research findings highlight opportunities and challenges that could shape reform efforts in African cities in three key areas: what constitutes (in)security, integrating plural security governance systems, and possibilities to transform formal and/or informal security platforms into reform coalitions.

Header photo credit: Diana Mitlin. Landslide in Bukavu, DRC.

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