This work suggests a new approach to studying urban and peri-urban land markets. It draws on a systemic analysis of land delivery channels for housing purposes. It is particularly relevant in situations in which diff erent land tenure systems coexist and procedures to obtain land are extremely complex, as in West African cities. Th e method is applied in this book to the urban and periurban areas of Bamako and to its rural hinterland. It stresses the concept of land delivery channels that, looking at the status of tenure at the time when the land is first placed in circulation for residential use, shows both the process whereby this tenure can be improved and what types of transactions take place on the land markets. We distinguish three land delivery channels: (1) a customary channel, (2) a public and para-public channel, and (3) a private formal channel. Th e dynamics within each land delivery channel, together with the interrelationship between these channels, constitute what we call the land delivery system. Th is approach makes it possible to anticipate the possible consequences for the rest of the system of changes affecting one particular land delivery channel or specific market segment and to get a better grasp of the nature of land conflicts. A better understanding of the land delivery system is undoubtedly a precondition for assessing the likely impact on households of sectoral policy measures concerning access to land.
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Land Delivery Systems in West African Cities
This work suggests a new approach to studying urban and peri-urban land markets. It draws on a systemic analysis of land delivery channels for housing purposes. It is particularly relevant in situations in which diff erent land tenure systems coexist and procedures to obtain land are extremely complex, as in West African cities. Th e method is applied in this book to the urban and periurban areas of Bamako and to its rural hinterland. It stresses the concept of land delivery channels that, looking at the status of tenure at the time when the land is first placed in circulation for residential use, shows both the process whereby this tenure can be improved and what types of transactions take place on the land markets. We distinguish three land delivery channels: (1) a customary channel, (2) a public and para-public channel, and (3) a private formal channel. Th e dynamics within each land delivery channel, together with the interrelationship between these channels, constitute what we call the land delivery system. Th is approach makes it possible to anticipate the possible consequences for the rest of the system of changes affecting one particular land delivery channel or specific market segment and to get a better grasp of the nature of land conflicts. A better understanding of the land delivery system is undoubtedly a precondition for assessing the likely impact on households of sectoral policy measures concerning access to land.