UNECE: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe

Informal settlements have always been a persistent feature of urbanization. In the UNECE region, the emergence of informal settlements has always been emblematic of the ground shifting socio-economic and geopolitical change, but also a source of fundamental innovation in spatial planning, land administration and management.

This study focuses on the part of the UNECE region that has recently gone through fundamental socioeconomic and geopolitical shifts – notably countries with economies in transition. Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus (EECCA) and the Western Balkans share the common past of the formal planning and land management systems of the socialist era. Their statutory systems, legislation, land management and related institutional frameworks were designed to support one system (planned economy) and were therefore not immediately suitable for the other (market economy) that the countries set to embrace. The transition that took place in the economic sector influenced the property markets and induced change in all built environment professions, including legislation, policy and institutional frameworks related to housing. During these profound changes, informal settlements emerged and grew.

UNECE stresses that ‘informal settlements’ in the UNECE region rarely resemble slums. The majority of informal housing, albeit self-built, is of an acceptable, or good to excellent quality. Informal tenure is not reserved for the poor in EECCA and the Western Balkans; populations of all income levels live in so-called ‘informal settlements. The key characteristic of ‘informal settlements’ in the eastern part of the UNECE region is that they are urban developments that, in one way or another, break the rules of the existing statutory, formal systems. As the name suggests, ‘informal settlements’ are forms of settlement or construction that do not involve a statutory process, or act in excess of statutorily provided permits and regulations.