Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

152
Security of tenure
The <strong>Global</strong>
Campaign for
Secure Tenure …
facilitates efforts …
to replace the
practice of
unlawful evictions
with negotiation
with affected
populations and
their organizations
Urban Development and Housing Act have occasionally
been successful.
• Thailand. Several evictions have been prevented or
considerably reduced in scale through an eviction
prevention technique referred to as ‘land sharing’,
where the land owner of a slum agrees to resettle the
current residents onsite in exchange for full use of a
large segment of the land concerned.
• Pakistan. The Urban Resource Centre regularly prepares
alternative plans to government plans involving eviction
as a means of preventing evictions.
RESPONSES OF
INTERNATIONAL
ORGANIZATIONS TO
TENURE INSECURITY AND
FORCED EVICTIONS
In addition to the numerous efforts of civil society actors, a
range of international organizations have also been focusing
increasing attention on security of tenure during recent
years. The <strong>Global</strong> Campaign for Secure Tenure was initiated
in 1999 by UN-Habitat and has two main objectives: slum
upgrading through negotiation, not eviction; and monitoring
forced evictions and advancing tenure rights. So far, the
campaign has been introduced in cities across the world,
including Casablanca, Durban, Manila, Mumbai, Kingston
(Jamaica), and Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso).
The campaign facilitates efforts by many member
states to replace the practice of unlawful evictions with
negotiation with affected populations and their organizations.
Moreover, it supports the introduction of tenure
systems that are favourable to the urban poor, while at the
same time being feasible for local land administration authorities.
The campaign is built around a series of organizing
principles. These include protecting and promoting housing
rights for all; opposing forced evictions; secure residential
tenure; gender equity; partnership; negotiated resettlement;
open land markets; promoting legislative reform and sustainable
shelter policies; and land availability. 49
The campaign works on the basis of encouraging
national-level campaigns for secure tenure that focus on
concrete steps to increase the enjoyment of tenure rights by
those currently living in informal settlements. The
campaign’s guidelines on undertaking national campaigns for
secure tenure 50 provide a useful synopsis of the steps
required for successful local-level activities. These include,
for instance, initial consultations with stakeholders, diagnosis
of local tenure security (including the preparation of city
protocols, situation analyses and security of tenure action
plans), launching of national campaigns, media activities and,
finally, implementation of national security of tenure action
plans. Despite the widespread support given to the campaign
by civil society actors, donor nations have so far shown
considerable reluctance to support this innovative approach.
While it may be too soon, therefore, to determine how
successful the campaign has been in expanding the enjoyment
of secure tenure, the concentrated and coordinated
efforts of the campaign – the first initiative of its kind –
Box 6.21 Resisting forced evictions: The Ijora-Badia community in Lagos, Nigeria
In July 1996, residents of 15 Lagos slum communities, with a total
population of 1.2 million people, learned of plans by the Lagos state
government to forcibly evict them from their homes and
businesses as part of the Lagos Drainage and Sanitation Project.
Evictions started in the Ijora-Badia community in 1997, when
bulldozers demolished the homes of more than 2000 people.
Prior to the July 1996 eviction announcement, the Social
and Economic Rights Action Center (SERAC) was already working
within the Ijora-Badia community, providing basic human rights
education and improving the community’s capacity to communicate
with various government institutions. In an effort to address the
eviction threat, SERAC increased its support to the targeted slum
communities. Working with community leaders, women, youth and
associations, SERAC organized a number of initiatives, including
outreach and sensitization meetings; group discussions; a legal
clinic; training workshops; and disseminated information material
within and beyond the target communities. Experienced leaders
and organizers from other communities with first-hand experience
in resisting evictions were brought in to share their knowledge and
experience.
Following a series of consultations and investigations, the
Lagos state government renewed its effort to forcibly evict the
Ijora-Badia community on 29 July 2003, with the demolition of
another part of the Ijora-Badia settlement. Now, however, the
residents were better organized, mobilized and determined to keep
their homes, and the demolitions were halted due to vehement
resistance.
On 1 August 2003, SERAC filed a lawsuit on behalf of the
Ijora-Badia residents, also seeking an order of injunction restraining
the relevant authorities from continuing the demolitions pending a
resolution by the courts. In disregard of the pending lawsuit and
the order of injunction (which was granted by the court on 19
August), the demolitions continued on 19 October 2003, leaving
over 3000 people homeless, mostly women and children.
In a dramatic turn of events, however, research revealed
that a significant portion of the Ijora-Badia lands had been acquired
by the federal government of Nigeria in 1929. This finding had
profound implications for the community. In a SERAC-backed
petition to the federal government, the Ijora-Badia community
demanded immediate action to save their homes and land. As a
result, the Minister of Housing and Urban Development notified
the Lagos state government of its legal ownership of the Ijora-Badia
land and directed it to keep away from the Ijora-Badia land while
accepting responsibility to upgrade and redevelop Ijora-Badia for
the benefit of its people.
Source: Morka, 2007