Community Involvement in Informal Settlements Upgrading: Evidence from Dar Es Salaam Metropolitan City, Tanzania

Abstract

Community involvement in informal settlements for upgrading is a world development debate towards findingviable strategies for enhancing livelihoods of the informal dwellers, securing tenure as well as improving urbanenvironment. The paper contributes its knowledge by documenting and establishing lessons of experience on theeffectiveness of participatory process in upgrading of informal settlements through land regularisation takingUbungo Darajani case in Dar es Salaam. It explores the city informal settlements development trends, processinvolved in land regularisation in informal settlement upgrading and the outcomes of the process. Likely, thepaper provides viable options on how community initiated land regularisation process can be enhanced withinpublic-private management domains for improving the livelihoods of the poor in informal settlements. The paperconcludes by providing the future outlook on how cities can adopt land regularisation process and thereforeenhancing community development and growth process in rapidly urbanising cities of Sub-Saharan Africa withthe same contexts.Keywords: Community Involvement, Upgrading Informal Settlements, Land regularisation, InformalSettlements, Land Occupiers, Dare s Salaam and Tanzania