Land Related Challenges To Slum Upgrading In Kenya
Introduction:
Challenges to Slum upgrading in Kenya got a boost with the inauguration of Kenya slum upgrading program (KENSUP) in 2003. This is a collaborative initiative between the government of Kenya and UNHABITAT who work together with a variety of other partners to address the challenges to slum upgrading. Further indication of serious focus on the problem of informal settlements in Kenya has been indicated by another World Bank sponsored Kenya informal settlement improvement program (KISIP). While all this may excite hope in the over 1.4 million slum dwellers in Nairobi with the big promise for improvement in their living conditions, the implementation process seem to be bedeviled with myriad obstacles that may not be easy to surmount.
Some of the most obvious obstacles include lack of space for decanting, high population densities, absolute poverty and resistance from structure owners commonly called slumlords. This paper is going look into some of land related challenges to slum upgrading in Kenya. The study utilizes information from previous experiences with slum upgrading to illustrate some of the land related factors that have constrained the achievement of anticipated results in the slum upgrading programs. This is a desktop study that utilizes literature review, government reports and documents and NGO studies to point out pertinent land related challenges to slum upgrading process in Nairobi.
Slum upgrading concept:
Slum upgrading is a process through which informal areas are gradually improved, formalized and incorporated into the city itself, through extending land, services and citizenship to slum dwellers. It involves providing slum dwellers with the economic, social, institutional and community services available to other citizens CITIES ALLIANCE, 2006). CITIES ALLIANCE (2008) has noted that with successful slum upgrading, three processes occur simultaneously over time:
1. the slum dweller becomes the citizen,
2. the shack becomes the house,
3. The slum becomes the suburb.
Challenges To Slum upgrading in Kenya: past to present efforts
Concern about proliferation of slums in the urban centers of Kenya may be traced to early 1970s with the advent of World Bank sponsored site and service schemes. The ideas behind thieve scheme was to provide serviced sites to stir development of low cost housing by the urban poor.
These projects were set up in major urban centers all over the country. The thought to arrest the slum situation in Nairobi started way back in 1960s with development of City council housing in Jericho, California among others. In 1970s the site and service programs were launched by World Bank in collaboration with the government of Kenya. Later these low cost housing programs failed to deliver the expected results as the sites were taken over and redeveloped into multistory buildings by people with higher income.
Land tenure in the slum settlements of Nairobi:
Understanding the ownership and tenure status of land occupied by the slum settlements in Nairobi provides perhaps the first glimpse at the gravity of land related challenges to insitu slum upgrading approach adapted by KENSUP and KISIP.
Land occupied by slum settlements in Nairobi may be classified into seven tenure categories. These include:
1. Free hold titled land in the former native reserves.
2. Uncommitted public land.
3. Land planned and reserved for public utility.
4. land for open space and riparian reserve
5. Regularized leasehold land.
6. Land reserved to the city council for residential development.
7. Group owned land.
Land related challenges to slum upgrading in Nairobi:
Insecure land tenure:
As indicated above, more than 28.8% of slum dwellers in Nairobi live on land that has insecure tenure. Such settlements exist under perpetual fear of demolition and eviction by land owners or the government in case of public utility land. In principle such land is not available for insitu upgrading until the legal owners of land are compensated and the land replanted into residential use.
High settlement density:
Settlement density poses a problem to insitu slum upgrading paradigm as the space available cannot be able to accommodate the existing population together with vital infrastructure necessary for human settlement. Settlements which are due to benefit from the insitu upgrading approach include Kibera, Korogocho, and Mathare.
Conflicting interests between tenants and slum lords:
More than 86% of people who live in the slums of Nairobi are tenants who pay rent to structure owners. Approximately 10% of the people in slums live in their own structures leaving about 86% of structures in the hands of slum lords who live outside the slums.
Unsuitable land:
Approximately 5% of land occupied by the slum settlements in Nairobi is unsuitable for human settlement and hence excluded from insitu slum upgrading exercise. This includes land in Kibera, Mathare and Korogocho. Such land is sloppy or swampy and in some cases fragile.
Dysfunctional land administration systems:
Land administration systems are methods of accessing land for development and acquiring security of tenure. The Kenya national land policy in its preamble describes land administration systems in Kenya as centralized, bureaucratic, exclusive and corrupt. These dysfunctional qualities of land administration have locked out the urban poor from benefiting from the advantages that are associated with secure land.
External interest:
Many slums in Nairobi including Kibera and Majengo occupy what may be described as prime land. This has the danger of exciting external interest in the land and slowing the upgrading process. Even where such slums are upgraded they end up benefitting the upper low class population rather than the slum dwellers. This may be described as economic eviction of slum dwellers. Nyayo Highrise developed by National Housing Cooperation and Kibera Soweto apartments are cases in point.
Conclusion:
Slums are indicative of a frictional struggle for shelter by man and are symptomatic of a bigger social problem. Addressing slums directly is therefore equivalent to placating symptoms rather than the root cause. Slums are actually symbols of increasing incapability of some people in urban areas to fulfill their basic needs coupled with systems of urban governance that are not proactive to the problems brought by the increasing dynamics of urbanization.