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Many factors, such as the transformation of rural areas (into towns);rapid population growth; globalisation and market development arealready resulting in increasing populations in our towns and cities.Indeed, as a result of these factors, it is estimated that Africa’s urbanpopulation will increase from 38% in 2000 to 55% in 2030. Considerthis, Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, is expected to have 134million people residing in urban areas by 2030. This figure was onlyabout 50 million in 2000.This is bound to put more pressure on urban and peri-urban areas,raising land values and increasing the vulnerability of livelihoods ofinformal settlers. We, therefore, urgently need to take steps to recognisethe land rights of slum dwellers and squatters, and providelow cost methods for acquiring, documenting and managing theserights. If we do this, we will have gone a long way in reducing thevulnerability of those living in urban and peri-urban areas as wellas decreasing the occurrence of disputes and conflicts, which sometimeslead to evictions and homelessness.The majority of conflicts in Africa, and indeed around the world, includingthe recent wars in Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republicof Congo, and Cote d’Ivoire, are related to failures in systems relatedto the governance, control and use of land and natural resources.In some parts of southern Africa, the inability to address a history ofunequal land distribution has led to racial and political tensions, andhampered economic development.In South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe, the minority population stillowns a disproportionately high percentage of the land, usually relegatingthe indigenous black population to marginal lands.Conflicts are undoubtedly one of the major impediments to economicdevelopment, sound environmental management, and humansurvival. They do not only impede development, but they also contributeto human rights violations, adversely affecting the most vulnerablemembers of society. Indeed, the most gruesome breachesto human rights occur during times of conflicts. Therefore, we musttake steps to reduce these conflicts by addressing their underlyingcauses - insecurity of land rights, bad governance, and bad managementof land and natural resources. Since poor governance of landIntegrating Africa257