Urban land management, regularization policies and local development in Africa and the Arab states

UN-HABITAT, through operational activities in cities around the world and the two Global Campaigns for Urban Governance and for Secure Tenure, is the leading UN organization supporting policy development, international advocacy, tool development and global norms for the sustainable development of human settlements and the provision of shelter for all. UN-HABITAT is fully committed to contribute to the reduction of urban poverty and works to promote concrete responses to urban poverty in cities around the world and to support a lively debate among practitioners, policy makers and representatives of civil society and poor urban residents, around urban poverty, based on the recognition that partnerships and new models of governance are key issues in this struggle. The International Forum on Urban Poverty (IFUP), whose concept was developed under the auspices of UN-HABITAT in Recife, Brazil, in 1996 during a groundbreaking meeting on the issue, was launched in 1997 in Florence, Italy. Building on the Recife Declaration and on the expertise of international organizations, cities and communities, IFUP has been one of the principal mechanisms for the sharing of experiences, promoting analysis and advancing our collective understanding of urban poverty. Its overall objective has been to point to the most promising ways and approaches and to identify the key issues that need to be part of our poverty reduction strategies. The Urban Management Programme, a joint UN-HABITAT/UNDP/World Bank urban sector programme, has been making a contribution to the reduction of urban poverty in its work over the past 15 years. The programme is currently working in 120 cities in 57 countries through six regional offices and nineteen local and regional partners. The elimination of poverty is one of the explicit goals of the programme. As UMP moves into Phase 4 (2002 2004), it is concentrating on activities that specifically focus on improving the living conditions of the poor in cities and towns. This document, whose initial version was prepared for the Third International Conference on Urban Poverty, Nairobi, October 1999, analyses the emerging urban poverty reduction paradigm and its impact on practices of poverty reduction. Looking at concepts and practices, the document intends to assess how theory and practice are influencing each other and how the implementation of a new generation of urban poverty reduction initiatives responds to the demand for increased and genuine participation, sustainability and multisectoriality. The document examines ten programmes - from seven countries - selected on the grounds of their alleged closeness to the conceptual approach outlined in the document and tries to find out the meaning of these ideas in practice, providing some insights on the new paradigm and pointing to some of the critical issues that poverty reduction and security consolidation initiatives have to tackle.