The study provides the background and objectives of the Athens workshop, then provides separate in-depth background and analysis of the informal development solutions being adopted in Albania and Greece. Following a review of just how ‘pro-poor’ the solutions are, the final chapter provides a series of lessons learned, many of which can be applied to other countries experiencing informal development issues.

The Social Tenure Domain Model offers practical solutions and opportunities for land professionals, researchers, grassroots organisations and government authorities. These opportunities include the empowerment of the grassroots communities to develop and manage their own information systems (and their own data), with all the benefits of the advanced technologies can offer, with less investment in resources and with less reliance on highly paid experts. Land professionals can also make their services available to all and offer people-centred and affordable solutions.

The young man was scared. The city government had instructed him to count the shacks in the settlement. He arrived smartly dressed carrying a briefcase and clipboard with pen in hand and a list of the shacks. His job was to find any new shacks without the official number painted on the door. But he immediately ran into problems. The local residents confronted him, asking what he was doing. Soon a small crowd had gathered. They took him into the community hall, where a meeting was under way. He explained that the city had sent him, but the local people were suspicious.

This publication is the second report of the Advisory Group on Forced Evictions (AGFE) to the Executive Director of UN-Habitat. It contains follow-up information on eviction cases documented in the first report, 15 new cases, and a detailed analysis of the current global situation regarding forced evictions and successful counterstrategies, methodologies and tools to stop and prevent forced evictions.

The following recommendations are made in this report:
1. The continuum of land rights is a metaphor, not a theory. A metaphor can be applied in a number of theoretical contexts, whereas a theory has an ideological perspective.

This Handbook introduces key economic and related concepts explaining the functioning of urban land markets. You will find in this Handbook tools for engaging in a critical analysis of conventional economics, particularly in the understanding of how African urban land markets work. Of great importance is the understanding of how land use, supply and demand unfold in African context. It provides a basis for strengthening urban policy in ways that enable poorer people in African cities to access well-located living and work spaces.

Paralleling the increasing disparities
in income and wealth worldwide since the 1980s, cities in
developing countries have witnessed the emergence of a
growing divergence of lifestyles, particularly within the
middle classes, reinforced by the widening gap between the
quality of public and private educational and health care
institutions, spatial segregation, gated communities, and
exclusive semiprivate amenities. This erosion of social

Afghanistan is one of the poorest and
longest suffering countries among members of the World Bank,
and has been ravaged by chronic conflict and political
instability. Afghanistan's infrastructure has been
destroyed or degraded; its human resource base severely
depleted; and its social capital eroded. Despite existing
public administration structures, the majority of state
institutions are only beginning to function effectively, and

Urban and peri-urban land markets in rapidly expanding West African cities operate within and across different coexisting tenure regimes and involve complex procedures to obtain or make land available for housing. Because a structured framework lacks for the analysis of such systems, this book proposes a systemic approach and applies it to Bamako and its surrounding areas.

With rapid urbanization and an
increasing number of publicly-funded urban projects, there
is a growing demand to address complex land acquisition and
involuntary resettlement issues in urban settings. A variety
of major urban projects in areas such as urban development,
renewal or upgrading, urban transport, urban watershed
management, water supply and sanitation, and urban solid
waste management require substantial land acquisition and

The first paper of this section
(Durand-Laserve) documents how increasing pressures on urban
land and the 'commodification' of shelter and
settlement has increased 'market evictions' of
families holding intermediate tide to property, although
international declarations and pressures have contributed to
reducing 'forced evictions.' The second paper
(Mooya and Cloete) uses the tools of the New Institutional

The first paper of this section
(Durand-Laserve) documents how increasing pressures on urban
land and the 'commodification' of shelter and
settlement has increased 'market evictions' of
families holding intermediate tide to property, although
international declarations and pressures have contributed to
reducing 'forced evictions.' The second paper
(Mooya and Cloete) uses the tools of the New Institutional