The present project investigates the current policies, laws and regulations pertaining to the management of urban land in Luanda Angola. The difficulty in obtaining titled (legal) access to land for prospective builder occupiers and the need for thousands of existing residents in informal settlement areas to gain secure tenure for the plots they are now occupying is a major constraint to upgrading Luanda’s vast peri-urban settlements (musseques). The Angolan state’s recent (1992) liberalisation, reformed previous socialist land laws and now allows for the involvement of the private sector in the acquisition of land. The project will research the evolution of the complex land tenure situation and study the problems of access to and management of land from the points of view of the principal actors (stakeholders). A review of lessons, from several other developing countries, which have experienced a similar transition from socialist to forms of private ownership of property, will be made as they relate to land tenure.
