BOX 2.5

The Emergence of Private Ownership and the
Commodification of Family Land in Southern Benin

Simonneau (2015) recalls the relatively long-term processes of the emergence of indi-
vidual ownership and the commodification of land in Benin. The traditional regime,
as in other Sub-Saharan African countries, sees land as a sacred and inalienable
resource. Its management on behalf of the community is conducted by a land chief,
who is also a spiritual leader. The notion of individual ownership does not exist
(Ouedraogo 2011). Several political, social, and economic developments nevertheless
led to the emergence of individual ownership before the colonial period
(Mondjannagni 1977; Pescay 1998).

An initial shift took place at the beginning of the seventeenth century with the
creation of the great royalties, whose kings claimed land powers for themselves. The
latter had their palaces built on domains that were initially ancestral or gave them to
royal delegates for management, which constituted a first type of private appropriation
of the land.

At the end of the seventeenth century, under demographic pressure, the king's authority weakened, as did the spiritual component of the bond between human beings and the land. Work gradually became the main basis of the right to land, and the previously inalienable and sacred character of the land became more flexible. In addition, ancestral lands were gradually being organized around more segmented categories (clan, ethnic group, lineage, family). The dispersion of clans and ethnic groups, migrations, and the assimilation of foreigners mean that only family properties remain.

Individual ownership emerged in the nineteenth century for three reasons: (a) royal delegates ended up taking over the land they were only previously responsible for managing and sometimes gave it to freed slaves; (b) after the abolition of slavery in 1848, the explosion of trade in palm oil products increased the economic importance of palm grove ownership; and (c) certain social groups emancipated themselves from customary land rules, such as freed slaves returning from Brazil with a strong attachment to the notion of land ownership acquired on the plantations.

Facilitated by these developments, the sale of land by customary owners became
possible in the 1990s (Sotindjo 2010). Colonial legislation ("Coutumier du Dahomey"
1933) provided for the sale of family land. The commodification and individualization
of rights increased in the 1990s under the influence of democratization, structural
adjustment programs, and the collapse of the banking system (1988). Land ownership,
even when semiformal, embodies aspirations for social ascension and has a central sav-
ings function in the household economy.
(violent weather events, hydric stress, and irregularity of rainfall) stimulates the sale of land, particularly for real estate development (Bon et al. forthcoming).

The emergence of urban middle classes in Africa with savings and investment capacity has reinforced the development of land markets in many rural areas of the continent. With the capacity to invest, but also with political influence or support, executives have acquired land in order to engage in agriculture or for real estate purposes. In Côte d'Ivoire, investments by urban executives are one of the major determinants of the development of the cocoa and rubber plantation economy (Ruf, Salvan, and Kouamé 2020). The development of land markets also occurs in conjunction with urban sprawl (Durand-Lasserve, Durand-Lasserve, and Selod 2015). In many cases, appropriations occur on spaces that are commons-based managed or used for different purposes.

## Multiple Land-Grabbing Processes

Land-based commons are also exposed to land-grabbing processes (box 2.6). These land grabs are the result of internal dynamics as well as the attraction of national and international investors.¹¹ These large-scale land grabs have taken on many forms, most often involving the granting of land concessions by states to investors (Boche 2014). National laws allow the state to expropriate land valued by local populations in the name of public interest so that it can facilitate the arrival of investors seeking to develop agroindustrial plantations.

Special economic zones (SEZs) have also proliferated on the continent in recent years. In general, SEZs are intended to promote investment to foster industrial development. States invoke the concept of public utility in order to register the land in its name and transfer management to the administration. In Senegal, the law creating SEZs was adopted in January 2017. In the face of the stalled land reform process, concerns have been expressed that the establishment and operation of SEZs could facilitate a form of state reappropriation of land control over areas with “high economic potential.” In Madagascar, successive laws and programs have established various forms of SEZs: free zones and free enterprises, industrial investment zones, and agricultural investment zones. The SEZ law led to public challenges in 2017 and reservations issued by the High Constitutional Court. A draft law on “special status land” was also created in 2020 to formalize the status of areas dedicated to investment but also protected areas or pastures. It too is controversial, as it provides that the lands concerned, including community lands, be titled in the name of the state and managed by the administration (Burnod et al. 2022).

This process has three major consequences. It alters the social and cultural roles that co-constitute land-based commons. It modifies the relationship of populations to the land, deconstructing the social structures that were previously associated with it. It intensifies the conversion of land uses (for industry, agribusiness, or real estate) in areas often already heavily used by local communities for their own food production (agriculture, livestock, gathering,
BOX 2.6

Commons Undermined over Mineral Resources

According to the report *Structural Transformation and Natural Resources* (AfDB et al. 2013), opening up access to natural resources to international economic actors is encouraged to stimulate the growth of a country's gross domestic product and to take advantage of the revenue from mining or other industries (Ashukem 2020; Delors 2019; Gyapong 2021; Oliveira, McKay, and Liu 2021) so as to initiate national development projects (Campbell 2009). Actors exploiting natural resources for industrial means are guaranteed priority access by modern land codes and land tenure regimes (Campbell 2009; Chouli 2014; Hubert 2018).

In most cases, mining codes rely on the modernization of land tenure regimes and codes to establish "financial compensation" for populations expropriated by mining development. This process can have positive spillover effects on local populations (Chuhan-Pole, Dabalen, and Land 2017). However, it assigns a monetary value to the land, which is calculated in terms of the economic value of the farmers' annual agricultural yields and transposed onto the individual property regime.

In Burkina Faso, this monetary value is directly associated with a sense of danger by
communities in the sense that it tends to negatively modify living habits, intracommunity
relationships, and the connection to the land. With the inflation generated locally by the
establishment of industrial mining sites, people who have received financial compensa-
tion often find themselves quickly short of money. They are not used to managing their
budget over several years, do not have access to infrastructure that allows them to store
large sums of money over the long term, and no longer have agropastoral spaces or
economic activities in which they could invest their capital. They are then exposed to
theft, racketeering, and predation, which quickly places them in situations of great
insecurity.

The mining companies also exploit the confusion generated by overlapping land tenure regimes, as described earlier. The Burkinabe mining code states that the sub-soil is the property of the state and decides on the procedures for determining compensation in case of expropriation. In accordance with this code, compensation for mining companies is set in exchange for the transfer of exclusive ownership of the land and natural resources. They are determined according to a price per hectare set by the mining companies based on a fixed indemnity, calculated on the annual yield of agropastoral operations over a three-year period. The operators, on the other hand, sign an agreement for the transfer of their exploitation rights for a temporary period.

Thus, the most striking alteration brought about by the financial compensation of
land expropriations in Sub-Saharan Africa is the monetary value conferred on land. It
effectively establishes the private and individual character of property and deprives
land tenure of its sociopolitical role in the environment (Hubert 2018, 2021a).
or fishing). The expropriated people then look for new land on which to practice their agricultural or pastoral activities, or else they decide to emigrate. Thus, in addition to accelerating the transformation of ecosystems, the privatization of spaces where common-pool resource management takes place leads to the transformation of the social, economic, and cultural fabric of land-based commons.

To conclude the first two sections of this chapter, observation of the dynamics under way in the field reveals the vitality and ingenuity of local actors in land-based commons. Building on traditions and experiences of land and resource pooling in situations of climatic and socioeconomic uncertainty, original and innovative forms of pooling are emerging and gradually being structured so as to respond to the multiple social, economic, and ecological challenges they face. However, the institutional and political frameworks in which these dynamics are emerging are not evolving at the same speed. They remain anchored in standardized frameworks, fixed and unsuited to current and rapid changes in the environmental and socioeconomic context. The forms of commons-based entrepreneurship that emerge from these social innovations therefore find themselves in an institutional context that does not allow for sufficient recognition, security, and support to ensure their sustainability.

## Developing Commons-Based Entrepreneurship for Land and Natural Resources

Under certain conditions, land-based commons can lead to the monitored and measured development of agro-entrepreneurship. Developing commons-based economic entrepreneurship (see chapter 1) requires several levels of security that must be addressed in an integrated manner (box 2.7). The first is the establishment of land governance arrangements that take charge of the management of territories and allow the rules, agreements, and use of commonly managed resources to be established. Second, it is about securing the financial and economic conditions for the development of these economic activities. Finally, it is a matter of (re)thinking the commitment of the state.

## Safeguarding Use Rather Than Ownership

Legal pluralism and the involvement of a number of different authorities result in significant land tenure insecurity for holders of land-based commons in Sub-Saharan Africa. This feeling of security of tenure is understood here as the ability to have confidence in the fact that the rights one holds over land and natural resources will not be challenged without reason and that, if they are, they will be confirmed by arbitration bodies considered legitimate. It is therefore required that land regulation institutions be effective, that their decisions be predictable, and that conflicts be arbitrated in favor of legitimate right holders.
BOX 2.7

**Supporting the Development of Commons-Based Economic Entrepreneurship in the Senegal River Valley—An Integrated Approach**

Support for the growth of commons-based economic entrepreneurship in the Senegal River Valley has been organized in a triple-pronged strategy, the systems and tools for which were progressively developed by a cluster of projects financed by the Agence française de développement (AFD) (French Development Agency) since 2012, which were then implemented throughout the territory by local actors. The strategy involves (a) the provision of social and land security tools; (b) the establishment of local development funds, managed by municipalities, for the realization of infrastructure essential to the development of economic entrepreneurship; and (c) the organization and development of local actors' capacity for greater integration into the most profitable local sectors. These tools have facilitated the emergence of numerous entrepreneurial initiatives in the region's agrosilvopastoral sectors.

The securing of the use of natural resources has been formalized in a communal document called the Plan d'occupation et d'affectation des sols (POAS), which is enshrined in Senegalese decentralization laws and policies (Bourgoin et al. 2020; d'Aquino et al. 2020; Papazian et al. 2016; Richebourg 2019). The POAS allows for the official recognition and safeguarding of common lands included in these plans. This recognition implies a legal recognition of local, common-pool governance of these resources. Commons have been secured through precise registration maps of secured rights in affected plots registered in a Land Information System at the communal level. In the case of commons-based managed spaces, the question of allocating land to collectives in a form that is not considered private appropriation (or "internal monopolization," as some villagers have pointed out) arises. Several legal formats are being experimented with, such as economic interest groups, users' associations, and the creation of communal zones.

The areas that are communally managed in the valley are generally located in the area outside the major riverbed. This is an area that suffers from a lack of basic infrastructure, particularly that which is necessary for economic development (cattle pens, meat markets, pastoral water points, dairies, collection centers for harvested products, pastoral and forestry facilities). Financial securitization has focused on financing public infrastructure in such a way that the management of funds is adapted to joint social organizations. A local financing line has been created, the Fonds d'Appui aux Investissements (Investment Support Fund), the management of which has been entrusted to local authorities. The infrastructure is installed on land allocated by the local authority, which is legally responsible for managing the land and then grants a mandate to an association of local users to manage the infrastructure. An effort has also been made to create pastoral units that assemble the users of an area surrounding a permanent water source (usually a borehole) for the more productive development of this area as a commons. Physical or

(continued next page)
Box 2.7 (continued)

organizational developments (pasture management) and technical support for productiv-
ity are implemented and can follow the same management mandate scheme as for infra-
structure, in order to promote more productive resource management while making it
possible to organize their use collectively. This formula thus allows this community to bet-
ter ensure the preservation of local resources, the health of animals and ecosystems, the
concerted management of natural and pastoral resources, and an increased income for
the actors and the local community in an integrated way and under its own direction.

The process of ensuring economic security has focused on identifying high value-
added sectors. The forms of support have been diverse, ranging from strengthening the
organizational dynamics to enhancing the value of the entire value chain.

This integrated system initially provided the basis for a major part of Senegal's rice
production, before being extended over the past 10 years to agrosilvopastoral resources
in nonirrigated areas.

The way in which land tenure is secured has been the subject of controversy
since the colonial period. There is tension between the objective of promot-
ing access to legally recognized rights for efficient economic agents and the
objective of protecting existing rights, particularly for those in the most vul-
nerable groups. Since the 1990s, most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have
implemented large-scale formalization policies for “customary” rights. These
policies, referred to as “registration,” “legalization,” or “securing land rights
through title,” have had mixed results, and in Africa, only 5 to 20 percent
of land is now reportedly registered, that is, recorded and entered in a land
book or registry that is guaranteed to be maintained by the state (Mansion
and Broutin 2013).

This property-based perspective, which is the predominant approach today,
raises several questions:

* It equates the land base (the spatial surface) with the resources it contains (Delay, Aubert, and Botta 2020). Access to the resource is guaranteed by access to the space, which amounts to ignoring the possible interconnection of resources within the same space, the connectivity of these resources with other spaces, and the different users and forms of use at work discussed in the first section of the chapter. This approach obscures those practices of commons that stem from societies’ historical adaptation to their environment and whose sense of land security depends more on social recognition than on legal recognition (Le Roy et al. 2019).

* In a context of legal pluralism, any new land policy is not imposed de facto but is added to existing modes of regulation so it can be reinterpreted and hybridized (Papazian et al. 2016).
* Colonial and then postcolonial authorities had already shown some reservations about systematic and authoritarian campaigns to securitize land and distribute it among peasantry, entrepreneurs, and international firms because of the risks of aggravating social and ethnic divides (Chauveau 2017).

* The idea that lack of access to full ownership is the main obstacle to investment has been challenged in numerous analyses (Binswanger, Deininger, and Feder 1993) that point to the price relationship between agricultural production and inputs, dysfunctions within the sectors, difficulties in accessing bank credit, and climatic risks. The expected benefits of formalization do not, therefore, take into account the need to act at a more global level of agricultural and economic policies in order to combat the precariousness of farmers in Africa (Bromley 2009).

The legal and social securitization of land-based commons presupposes that the formalization of rights is considered just one means among others and that it paves the way for a flexible approach to safeguarding rights. This requires a fine-grained understanding of “action situations” (see chapter 1) and adopting a pragmatic approach to land relations. Goulin et al. (2018) show, for example, that the development of family fish farming in certain communities in Côte d’Ivoire helps to meet national market demand while developing local entrepreneurship, strengthening the socioeconomic fabric, and making use of swamp-land or partially swamped locations that are less exposed to land pressure. This agro-entrepreneurship is developed through the acquisition of land from customary authorities, either by donation, counterparty, negotiation, or purchase for nonnative actors, or by inheritance for native actors. This development of entrepreneurship participates in the shift in regimes that jointly constitute commons as well as in the transformation of environmental uses and services. Goulin et al. (2018) conclude that the transformations brought about, when they remain within commons, have “made it possible for fish farmers, regardless of their mode of access, to enjoy the right to make use of the fish farming areas that had been ceded to them in an almost uninterrupted and continuous way. It should be concluded that these modes of access are all favorable to fish farming when the fish farmers are guaranteed permanent exploitation rights.”

In concrete terms, the rights of access to and use of natural resources can be secured through the adoption of land use planning and land tenure security tools. The knowledge and sharing of information on ecological potential and users, as well as the mapping of uses and management rules, are essential prerequisites. Security is achieved through the mapping of priority zones, the formalization and dissemination of the access and management rules in force, and a permanent coordination mechanism to ensure that these provisions are respected.
Securing and Promoting the Conditions for the Emergence of
Commons-Based Entrepreneurship

If we refer to the categories proposed in chapter 1, the economic models of land-
based commons are most often market based, in the sense that participants
in commons value the units of resource taken from commons in the market
through the rights they have been allocated. But land-based commons are also
based on hybrid models. Beyond the safeguarding of access and usage rights
over natural resources, the development of commons-based entrepreneurship
relies on four additional factors.

The first factor is the financing of collective infrastructure that makes it pos-
sible to create value from natural resources. This includes large-scale hydro-
agricultural developments, pastoral water systems, storage, marketing and
distribution infrastructures, and access roads, for example. This development
requires prior negotiation with the rightful claimants and local actors as well as
their free, prior, and informed agreement on the compensation for the damage
caused, then their involvement in the creation of these collective resources, in
the form of contributions in kind (e.g., free labor) or in cash (e.g., cofinancing
of the acquisition of equipment or replenishment of a maintenance fund). The
d delegation of the management of the work must be accompanied, if necessary,
by capacity building and be carried out in a proportionate manner based on
commitment contracts signed between the beneficiaries, the state services, and
the representatives from the local authorities.

The second factor is the organization of sustainable collective action. Understood as arising from the mobilization of a group of people who are aware of their common interest and their advantage in defending or advancing it (Froger and Méral 2002, 15), collective action can take the form of multiple institutional arrangements combining actors and instruments of public, market, and community regulation. The development of collective action in natural resource management is made difficult by a set of factors such as the identification of the relevant territorial scale, conflict between objectives that are at odds, and the difficulties of carrying out precise monitoring that allows for decision-making and is supported by an institution recognized as legitimate by all participants (Petit 2019). The mobilization of preexisting ecological and social solidarities and the recognition of the heritage value of the territory and of natural resources are powerful vectors for ensuring mobilization over time. Collective action will flourish on this fertile ground provided certain conditions for effectiveness are met (box 2.8).

The third factor that abets the emergence of commons-based entrepreneur-
ship is the existence and accessibility of a technical and economic manage-
ment support system to enable the establishment of a stable economic model.
Entrepreneurs are too often left alone to develop their production and marketing
BOX 2.8

Conditions for the Effectiveness of Local Agreements
Establishing Collective Action

The 2012 Negos-GRN research program Promouvoir une gestion locale concertée et effective des ressources naturelles et foncières (Promoting Concerted and Effective Local Management of Land and Natural Resources) identified a set of conditions for effective collective action:a

* Having a shared understanding of the problem and the key resource management issues in order to develop a collective, shared commitment.

* Co-constructing and negotiating clear, applicable, and adaptable rules for access, operation, and administration. The rules must be appropriate, make sense to the actors for whom they apply, and be simple and workable.

* Putting in place low-cost and inexpensive monitoring and sanctioning mechanisms.

* Considering local negotiation frameworks and representation issues (e.g., historical links between villages or elders' rights in speaking and decision-making).

* Identifying and working on substantive issues with common actors.

* Obtaining support from the state's technical services to allow a margin of flexibility between the legal framework and the application of local arrangements. The involvement of decentralized local authorities is crucial to lend a certain legitimacy to the operating agreements of commons and to ensure mediation with the state services.

* Mobilizing a set of actors recognized as legitimate to provide information or legal recognition. The perceived legitimacy of technical services to provide technical oversight and support is an important factor. Similarly, local governments and local communities are generally relevant for the legalization of agreements to form the group of common participants.

* Ensuring compliance with existing rules at the time of the first infractions. The credibility of the management system depends on it. A second litmus test occurs when the collective must adopt the rules it has set for itself.

models. Advisory and management systems are often lacking because of low
government investment in agricultural and rural training. On the continent,
there are several systems financed and supported by producers' organizations
and agricultural sectors (including management and rural economy centers in
Senegal, local agricultural advice from the Malagasy professional agricultural
organization Fifata, service delivery centers in Mali, and the program to con-
solidate and sustain agropastoral advice in Cameroon).

<footnote>a. The source for this information is policy briefs developed under the Negos-GRN program implemented by a consortium of actors led by the French nongovernmental organization GRET.</footnote>
The fourth factor is the capacity for commercialization, which makes it pos-
sible both to secure the income of participants in commons and to provide
the means for collective action. The economic model is necessarily dependent
on the nature of the products and their destination. Economic sustainability
requires the integration of the economic activities of commons into promis-
ing sectors, including the organization of production, collection, processing,
and contracting with other actors in the sector. This also requires regulatory
mechanisms such as hunting quotas or financial mechanisms such as taxation,
which recognize the social and environmental value of the services provided
by commons. The marketing of production and the certification of accounts by
management and rural economy organizations allow participants in the com-
mon property grouped in associations, cooperatives, or economic groups to
have access to rural credit.

Rethinking the State's Commitment

Safeguarding land-based commons, as well as the forms of entrepreneurship they encourage, depends on negotiated and institutionalized local management that allows for the strengthening of both collective and public action. With few exceptions, African land-based commons need the technical and political support of public, state, and decentralized actors in order to bolster their legitimacy. They also need to be able to mobilize these public actors to strengthen their capacity to act, particularly to have access to technical support and to ensure that their rights are respected. Proper coordination between these modes of regulation makes it possible to reduce uncertainty about the norms governing the exploitation of natural resources and about the authorities' capacity to ensure the effective implementation of the rules (Ndione and Lavigne Delville 2012).

The effectiveness of negotiated local management depends on many factors
.box 2.9). Above all, it presupposes a reciprocal recognition of legitimacy but

BOX 2.9

Success Factors for Conservancies in Sub-Saharan Africa

According to Campbell and Shackleton (2001), the success of conservancies depends on eight factors: the genuine political will of governments to transfer decision-making authority to the local level across the entire bundle of rights; clarification of the mandates and relationships between the different actors; integration of natural resource management commissions into decentralized local governments; representativeness, accountability, and transparency of management bodies; continuous social engineering over time; recognition of the place of traditional authorities; support for the private sector to generate income based on the use of resources; and recognition of the added value created in order to determine the best organizational structure.
also of the interests and needs of each party. It calls into question both the
commitment of the authorities and the position of the communities concerned
.box 2.10)

(2.10).

On the side of the public authorities, negotiated local management requires
the construction of real subsidiarity frameworks that make the coexistence of
practices and decision-making at the appropriate scales coherent (Hesse 2011).
This consists in coordinating the legitimate authorities at the different levels
of rules as recalled in chapter 1 (operational level, collective level, and institu-
tional level). Users remain in control, in space and in time, of the development
of operational rules and of part of the collective rules (Delay, Aubert, and
Botta 2020), which are therefore not based on externally imposed norms (see
chapter 7). From this perspective, for example, a land or natural resource

BOX 2.10

The Principles of a Tripartite Agreement—The Example of the
Senegal River Valley

The contractual form chosen to safeguard commons-based entrepreneurship in the valley is a tripartite agreement, one between users of natural resources, a local community, and a public technical partner. It takes up the fundamental principle of the traditional management of commons in the valley (Schmitz 1994) and incorporates the diversity of the parties involved into the agreement, each assuming its traditional role in the organization of society.

This type of contract defines the rights and duties of the three partners, each one
bearing witness to the commitments of the other two. It provides legal and social security
for the economic exploitation of the area, without private appropriation. This formula
was implemented, starting in 2005, for the use of water in the context of hydro-
agricultural developments: the contract, called the Charte du domaine irrigué
(Irrigated Domain Charter), brought together the water user (irrigation farmer on a pub-
lic hydro-agricultural development), the Société d'aménagement et d'exploitation des
terres du Delta du Fleuve Sénégal (SAED) (Society for the Organization and Exploitation
of the Senegal River Delta), and the local community, which was responsible for the land
base. This tripartite contractual form has been extended to public infrastructure for
investment, with the addition of a management mandate, as well as to the agrosilvopas-
toral development of a common space.

This type of contract makes it possible to empower and legally recognize the moral identity of a collective of users without transferring property rights. It also makes it possible to provide regulated access to users who are not members of the association or group of legal entities managing the infrastructure, the space, or the resource. However, the day-to-day benefit of these tools is still underutilized, and their inclusion in the long term constitutes a strategic challenge for SAED.
management law must remain a framework law to allow local actors to design, propose, and define operational and collective rules and processes for resource management (GELOSE Law in Madagascar, Land Law in Niger).

On the side of the communities involved in land-based commons, mobilizing the support of public authorities entails engaging with them and recognizing their interests, which can be manifold: “for local authorities, an interest in seeing their legitimacy reaffirmed; for elected officials, a political and symbolic interest in getting involved in a subject of interest to their fellow citizens; for technical services, interest in being able to present instances of sustainable management” (Lavigne Delville and Djiré 2012a, 1).

The modalities for implementing collaborative management have been the subject of an extensive literature (Bachir, Vogt, and Vogt 2007; Djiré 2003; Djiré and Dicko 2007; Faye, Haller, and Ribot 2018; Ostrom 1990; Petit 2019; Seegers 2005; Tall and Gueye 2003). It appears that in many situations, agreements benefit from being formalized by law. Legal recognition lends agreements between parties the power of local regulation that can be enforced against third parties and limits the possibility of their being challenged by the state. The involvement of commons, when the decentralization processes at work allow it, is often preferable to the technical services of the state, as commons are elected bodies that are normally closer to the concerns of citizens (Lavigne Delville and Djiré 2012b). However, legal formalization remains a first step, and it is over time, in the face of reality, that the effectiveness of such mechanisms is to be determined (box 2.10).

## Conclusion

Land-based commons are rooted in the age-old experience of African societies when it comes to adapting to environmental and socioeconomic uncertainty while preserving access to resources, and thus survival, for the maximum number of users. Their nature and form evolve with each new context. Over the past few decades, hybrid neo-commons have emerged that combine pooled administration, individualized initiatives, and private investment. Many examples therefore show that a more peaceful form of entrepreneurship is being integrated into the evolution of commons, in innovative forms that ensure a social balance that can prevent tensions and conflicts from arising.

The sociopolitical nature of the regulation of land and natural resources is thus emphasized in this context and leads us to question the most appropriate forms of regulation and public policy, in a situation characterized by legal plurality and frequent competition between land regulation actors.

A strong guideline emerges from this chapter: given the nature of states in Sub-Saharan Africa, in many situations, only local populations have an interest
in preserving natural resources over the long term. However, they can only do
so to the extent that they retain the capacity to define and enforce their collec-
tive rules of operation within a clear institutional framework that is backed up
by the state. It is not so much the legal status of the area in question that seems
to be decisive but rather the guarantee of exploitation rights, the suitability and
effectiveness of the rules, and the clarity of the institutional framework.

In this context, the challenge is to establish the foundations for collaborative
management and development involving participants in land-based commons,
public actors, and private investment. This type of collaborative management
necessarily involves internal processes of negotiation between local actors and
the state. It also implies rethinking public support policies to secure and boost
the innovative entrepreneurial dynamics that emerge. A new intersectoral
approach to public policy (land tenure, decentralization, investment support,
structuring of value chains) must be developed, not in a standardized way, but
in a way that is different for each cultural, social, institutional, and economic
context. The best way to achieve this is to rely on a multiactor dialogue at the
local level.

What emerges from these trends is a new role for the state, a profound para-
digm shift that should be encouraged, where the challenge is not only to respond
to contemporary environmental crises but also to build links and coordination
between different authorities in a context where they are distinctively numer-
ous. It is important to strengthen local authorities as a space where these links
between the social realities of the territory and the national state system can
be forged, thus participating in the construction of a new social pact between
the state and its citizens, consistent with the processes of democratization and
decentralization in the face of the loss of momentum of the modes of gover-
nance that have emerged since independence.

Notes

1. "Employment in agriculture (percentage of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate)—Sub-Saharan Africa," World Bank, accessed October 26, 2022, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS?locations=ZG.

2. United Nations, “La restauration des terres dégradées en Afrique progresse lentement et nécessite des efforts accrus (FAO),” September 29, 2021, https://news.un.org/fr/story/2021/09/1105052.

3. These figures presented by the FAO may be open to interpretation and dispute. Nevertheless, they remain representative of environmental degradation in Sub-Saharan Africa.

4. For example, the evolution of irrigation techniques toward pressurized systems with high investment costs per hectare means that the same rules of cohabitation between farmers and breeders can no longer be maintained.
5. For example, a land base managed by the collective that includes different types of land tenure, with traditionally commons-based spaces and plots under private ownership with more intensive modes of exploitation, individually or for a subgroup of the community; or individual use of certain resources such as the collection of fodder or the gathering of gum or fruit within a space used in common for other of its resources.

6. Inter-réseaux Développement rural, “Fanaye: Arrêt définitif du projet SENETHANOL,” November 24, 2021, https://www.inter-reseaux.org/ressource/fanaye-arret-definitif-du-projet-senethanol/.

7. Here, the term *governance* is used in the strong sense of the “coordination of actors, social groups, and institutions to achieve collectively defined and discussed goals” (Le Galès 2019).

8. Le Roy (2011) proposes a more detailed analysis of bundles of rights through the theory of land control, which he applies to commons-based land appropriation regimes in his book *La terre de l'Autre*.

9. Neo-customary approaches refer to practices that build on customary ownership, including actors who claim to be directly or indirectly customary and sell more rights than the customary system recognizes (Durand-Lasserve, Mattingly, and Mogale 2004). Neocolonial approaches refer to practices involving the administrative recognition of possession and usage rights and the consecration of ownership into property rights (Comby 2013).

10. According to Bromley (2009), this work suffers from methodological bias.

11. See open-access platform on large-scale land acquisitions in Africa: https://landmatrix.org/.

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<figure><img src="image_13.png" /></figure>
Chapter 3

# Housing and the Future of Rural Land-Based Commons

Claire Simonneau, Bérénice Bon, Éric Denis, Stéphanie Leyronas, and Issa Sory

## Introduction

The African continent has the highest rate of urban growth in the world (OECD 2020).¹ The urban population has grown from 27 million in 1950 to nearly 600 million today. It is estimated that Africa's population will double by 2050 and that two-thirds of this increase will be urban. There are expected to be 950 million new city dwellers in the next three decades.

This urban growth comes with remarkable territorial transformations. Large metropolitan regions are being created, some of which surpass national borders, such as the Accra-Lagos urban corridor, which passes through four countries and is home to more than 30 million inhabitants on the coast along the Gulf of Guinea. As a result of still-rapid population growth in rural areas, there is a growing number of small and midsize cities, particularly in the interior of the continent. Villages and larger towns are being transformed into urban areas merely as a result of their natural rate of growth. Each of the continent's regions has its own particularities, so this urbanization is not a homogeneous process. Dynamic urban areas are incorporating localities that were formerly considered villages. The lines between urban and rural are increasingly unclear (OECD 2020).

This process of urbanization—and the accompanying explosion in housing demand—significantly impacts land use. The need for land to meet the increase in housing demand comes into competition with the need for agricultural land. Even before changes in land use take place, wealth polarization in cities generates pressure on rural land, increasing its financial value and disrupting local economies.
This chapter examines land dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa in the con-
text of massive, rapid, and diffuse urbanization. The first section focuses on
the future of land-based commons (see chapter 2), particularly on the out-
skirts of urban areas, including the rural fringes that some actors expect to
be absorbed by the urban area. The second section addresses the emergence
of new types of commons designed to provide housing access to precarious
and middle-class populations. This occurs in the absence of social housing
policies at a time when access to urban land for housing is being cut off as its
financial value and price increase. The third and final section discusses the
renewal of public action—which is desirable in our view—in the face of these
land use challenges.

Rural Lands versus the City: The Effects of Urbanization Dynamics on Rural Commons

Africa urbanizes rapidly and in a geographically diffuse manner (Agergaard et al. 2019; Jaglin, Didier, and Dubresson 2018; OECD 2020). The continent is seeing the greatest increase in building construction in the world. Africa's built environment has nearly doubled in area since 1990. Because population growth has remained strong in Africa, the continent is not experiencing the kind of disjunction between population growth and built-environment growth observed in other regions of the world. Still, roughly 300,000 square kilometers of land were built on from 1990 to 2015, or an average of 6,000 square kilometers per year (Denis 2020).

These processes are not limited to the kind of outward-spreading expansions of cities that were common in Europe over the past century. They are heterogeneous, hybrid, and unstable. They call for a new vocabulary that more accurately reflects the phenomena under way in the Global South generally (Denis 2015) and in Africa in particular. The substantial scientific literature seeking to name these spaces testifies to this (Meth et al. 2021): see, for example, “piecemeal urbanization” (Sawyer 2014), “new African suburbanisation” (Buire 2014), or “postcolonial suburbs” (Mercer 2017).

The changes in land use linked to this diffuse process of urbanization are unique in that they are occurring in a context of legal pluralism (see chapter 2) that both feeds and structures them. As the urban frontier advances and is expected to continue doing so, land norms are shifting away from land-based commons, which are more typical of rural spaces, toward somewhat formal configurations of private property. These changes do not always constitute a replacement or a clean break. A variety of forces are at work.
Driving Forces behind the Shifts in Land Use and Land Norms

Chapter 2 discussed the relatively recent changes that are transforming the social and political systems of land-based commons to varying degrees across the continent. These changes are associated with increases in the individualization and commodification of land rights. There are several forces at play here: demographic pressures, worsening conditions for agricultural work (e.g., input costs, climate unpredictability), younger generations' aspirations, the progression of market forces (e.g., commodification of land rights, distress sales, economic renewal strategies, breaking up of inheritances, offers from external actors), and, in certain countries, decades of land reforms favoring private property and its individualization.

In the peripheries of rapidly growing urban areas, land-based commons are also confronted with land and housing needs² resulting from children moving out of the parental home, the social pressure to own rather than rent, rising living standards, and the emergence of a middle class in certain Sub-Saharan African countries. The World Bank estimates that 1 billion Sub-Saharan Africans, or 50 percent of households, will be middle class by 2060 (Lall, Henderson, and Venables 2017). These households invest mainly in their children's education and in housing (Darbon and Toul labor 2014). Large areas of land are also necessary for the infrastructure and productive spaces that are developing on the peripheries of these dynamic urban areas: industries, business platforms, logistics centers, and special economic zones require vast areas of land at a controlled cost (Berger and Cotula 2021; UNCTAD 2019).

The last force driving the conversion of land-based commons into property in expanding urban areas is the fact that land is increasingly acting as a financial asset. At the household level, land is especially important as a savings vehicle, given the lack of inclusion and trust in the banking sector and of stable sources of revenue. Land—and potentially real estate—are the quintessential components of an inheritance. The difference in value between rural and urban land also encourages hoarding and opportunistic resale. Finally, land property is often a must-have asset to mortgage in order to obtain a loan to build or to start a business (Steel, Van Noorloos, and Otsuki 2019).

At the global, macroeconomic level, public policy frameworks in Sub-Saharan Africa have favored the role of the market in the production and management of cities since the early 1990s. These institutional transformations have allowed the deployment of new forms of capital accumulation in metropolitan areas and have favored the financialization of urban production—that is, the transformation of real estate into financial assets (Aalbers, Rolnik, and Krijnen 2020; Aveline-Dubach et al. 2020). Land dynamics can now only be understood in close connection with real estate and financial markets. This is particularly true of Sub-Saharan Africa's emerging economies, where a host of new cities and luxury districts are emerging, such as Eko Atlantic in Lagos, the Lake district in
Kinshasa, the Bolé district in Addis Ababa, and Konza Technopolis in Nairobi. Private actors with a financial stake in these land dynamics encourage transactions and changes in land use, sometimes going so far as to exert financial or social pressure to encourage owners to sell their land. In various regulatory and institutional forms, they are present at various stages of the sale and development of land: surveying and demarcation, property assessment, the preparation of plans for subdivisions or of designs for developments, construction, and land and real estate development.

## The Dismantling of Rural Commons: Three Processes

The forces driving changes in the relationship to the land generate different processes. All of them, however, contribute to dismantling land-based commons. We identify three distinct processes (Bon et al., forthcoming).

The first is a result of development projects organized by public authorities that require a significant amount of land. This land is taken from rural commons, whose legal status is rarely secure. The development of new towns, economic activity zones, and housing developments is accompanied by different methods of dispossessing rural landowners. Local rights are rarely protected by national laws, land documentation is insufficient, and actors are not able to fully exercise their rights. Declarations of public interest and expropriation are used, with compensation often judged to be much lower than the losses generated. For example, in the Dakar region, the establishment of the new city (*pôle urbain*) of Diamniadio was authorized by decree in 2013 over a 1,664 hectare area. The easement for the new city came under a declaration of public interest and is situated on largely agricultural land (rangelands, rain-fed fields, market gardens, orchards, and chicken coops) used by those with usage rights. The land was expropriated on a case-by-case basis, and tensions arose over the amount of compensation. With respect to usage rights, the law provides for compensation only in the case of investments. In practice, however, compensation was awarded differently depending on the construction project and the project owner (the government or private developers), leading to inequalities that were hard to swallow (Lavigne Delville and Sow, forthcoming).

A second process is linked to real estate development operations and private land operations. It operates over relatively large areas, through the sale and purchase of estates by private actors. These estates are then divided into plots and paralleled out. Title deeds to the plots are awarded, and construction eventually takes place. The rural landholders or local authorities can partner with these developers (Colin and Pottier, forthcoming). These commercial transfers of land are sometimes speculative, especially when they occur far from urban areas. Afterward, these estates may be fenced in while the process of awarding title deeds is under way, and they may remain uncultivated or become the site of seasonal farming and annual crop-growing (box 3.1).
BOX 3.1

Commercial Land Transactions at the Edges of
Urbanization in Kenya

About 75 percent of Kenya's population resides on the 20 percent of the country's land that is considered fertile. The other 80 percent of the country's land is arid or semi-arid. The land is divided into three categories: public (12 percent), private (20 percent and growing), and communal (68 percent). The land on the outskirts of the capital, Nairobi, varies greatly in terms of use, natural environment, access to water, price, and distance from major public or private operations. The land to the north of Nairobi within a radius of about 30 kilometers is home to fertile volcanic soil that has been used since the colonial era for coffee plantations, floriculture, and market gardening. Hundreds of hectares of this land are irrigated. In 1963, individual title deeds began to be issued for freehold agricultural land that conferred the right to subdivide and sell the land. Starting in 2009, the construction of the Thika Road and bypasses greatly accelerated the pace at which land was being subdivided and parcels sold for nonagricultural use to local and foreign investors that could afford to contend with rising prices. During the first decade of the twenty-first century, the number of land transfers also began to increase 60 kilometers southeast of Nairobi, near the small town of Kitengela and the new expressways linking Tanzania and the port of Mombasa.

These transfers are occurring in rural areas on semi-arid land under what has been a communal system since Kenyan independence. In the late 1960s, the introduction of group ranches triggered the registration of individual rights. Families in this sector usually hold freehold titles that were issued when these groups of ranchers subdivided the land. Very few large estates are available for sale today. Although most Maasai families still own some land and a family home, they have sold off much of this land. The proceeds are reinvested in irrigation for agriculture, boreholes to sell water to new settlers, the construction of small apartments for rent in Kitengela, and their children's education. The buyers are socioeconomically diverse, depending on their access to financial capital, their reasons for buying, and their purchasing strategies. Certain common tendencies do stand out, however: the privatization of land through its division into parcels and small plots, the pooling of economic resources, waiting strategies, and land that is left uninhabited.

Businesspeople have thus created land-buying companies that buy an estate, obtain the title for it, subdivide the land into parcels (of 300 square meters on average), and sell these parcels off. The proceeds are then used to purchase other estates and to fund commercial projects in the city. These investors often sell to cooperatives (called saccos in Kenya) composed of groups of individual buyers, such as the employees of a company, civil servants, a group of friends, or members of the Kenyan diaspora. The group buys an estate or several lots of a development at below-market prices, then divides up the land among its members, each of whom is awarded a title deed. This process of pooling funds and then dividing the land among individuals is also engaged in by individuals who form interest groups that are not technically

(continued next page)
**Box 3.1 (continued)**

cooperatives. In these rural areas around Kitengela, very few buyers invest in building their own home. For hectares, the landscape is dotted with bollards, posts, vegetation, barbed-wire fencing, and walls—testament to the use of land as a long-term investment, whether it be as a savings device, to increase one's holdings of assets, as insurance against accidents or a downturn in business activity, as a means of accessing credit, or as a way to accumulate capital through resales.

These practices rely on the assumption that there are capital gains to be realized when services arrive and demand goes up in these areas at the edges of urbanization (Bertrand and Bon 2022).

A third and far more diverse process concerns the large market for parcels of land evictions (Colin 2004, 2017). When a family decides to divide its land into parcels, the subdivision process is sometimes formally overseen by a surveyor or the local authority through a subdivision or consolidation procedure. The decision to convert and eventually sell the land can be either defensive (e.g., distress sales, emergency sales for a large project, sales of parcels that are too small to divide among heirs) or offensive (e.g., sales to reinvest in profitable activities) (Yung and Bosc 1999). Families who divide up their land themselves before selling it keep most of the profits from the sale. Rural landholders play an active role in this market, seeking to gain from it financially, without it being either official or their main source of income. The idea is to buy and resell estates or plots at the outskirts of urban areas as land prices go up. The importance of these micro-transactions on domains divided into micro-lots is of particular note: they are carried out by a range of actors with very different degrees of capital at their disposal (rural landholders, local developers, and middle-class households). This is thus a diverse and nonlinear process that takes place plot by plot between individuals or local economic actors (box 3.2).

These three processes are bringing about changes in the way land is managed, but not necessarily—at least not immediately—in the way it is used. Hence the appearance of landscapes dotted with small-scale farms, uncultivated land, and fenced-in plots, so many subtle signs of a shift toward subdivided estates and the privatization of land rights (Bon 2022).

**Forms of Resistance**

We observe two forms of resistance to these changes. The first is sociopolitical: it occurs through social and partisan campaigns that combine several modes of action. For example, the evictions caused by the Diamniadio new city project in Senegal were met with intense resistance. As early as 2015, the 1,700 families who had been allocated plots of land in the Khoumbé and Khoumbé-extension communal allotments refused to give up their plots (which had been allocated
BOX 3.2

Dismantling the Collective Management of Peri-Urban Land
in Burkina Faso

In Burkina Faso, the dismantling of land-based commons on the outskirts of large cities (e.g., Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso) has been driven by the public policies of the past four decades. Since the National Revolutionary Council (1983–87), inhabitants of informal settlements that are the subject of development operations have been given priority in the allocation of plots. Buying or trading plots on the outskirts of cities by settling there or by providing proof that one resides there has thus become a way to obtain land in new formal neighborhoods. This possibility increases supply as well as demand. Peri-urban land, formerly managed collectively under the aegis of a land chief, is being divided up among siblings and then sold to applicants from informal settlements. The strategy of these new landowners, who are, after all, expecting devel- opment to take place in the future, rests on the hope that there is profit to be made both by selling land to new inhabitants of informal settlements and by demanding compensation from public authorities when development does occur (Sory 2019; Traoré et al. 1986).

The shift from the collective management of land to its private appropriation was accelerated by the 2008 Loi numéro 57 portant promotion immobilière (Law 57 on real estate development) and 2009's Loi numéro 034 portant régime foncier rural (Law 034 on rural land tenure). The purpose of Law 034 was to safeguard collective property rights by dividing national land into state land, local government land, and private land. Given that Law 57 authorizes real estate developers to develop land, new land- owners prefer to sell their vast estates only after obtaining a certificate of land posses- sion. Land acquired through this channel is then developed and sold to the highest bidder, which contributes to land speculation and accelerates the dismantling of the collective management of peri-urban land.

by the state to a private company) or allow their houses to be demolished. They
demanded an investigation by the State Inspectorate General. Starting in 2018,
residents of Deny Malick Gueye attempted to have clear limits set on the new
city's boundaries. In particular, they opposed plans for hotel developments,
arguing that while they were not opposed to the development of infrastructure
for the common good, they would not let their land be taken from them for the
benefit of private interests (Lavigne Delville and Sow, forthcoming).

Resistance also occurs through resilient agricultural practices and hybrid
economic strategies. By exploiting differences in the profitability of different
areas of land and the constraints and opportunities of the agricultural sec-
tor, some farmers sell part of their land and modify their farming practices by
changing what they produce or by intensifying production (box 3.3).
BOX 3.3

Madagascar—Farmers’ Land Strategies to Maintain Agricultural Areas in Antananarivo

The analysis of the spatial footprint of agriculture in Antananarivo conducted by Defrise et al. (2019) shows that agriculture does not only disappear; in some areas, it is being maintained or even expanded. In less densely populated urban areas, the urban system leads to an intensification of agricultural practices, and cultivated areas are growing at the expense of pastures. In downtown Antananarivo, the area of cultivated land is decreasing, but relatively slowly: undivided land ownership slows the sale of land and helps preserve its agricultural use. In the agricultural plains on the outskirts of the city, changes in the agricultural footprint are tied to infrastructure.

In short, land issues are at the heart of the large-scale territorial transformations that Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing today. Although urban sprawl and the commodification and individualization of land rights respond to housing demand, they also aggravate sociospatial inequalities and call into question the sustainability of metropolitan areas. Access to land for housing must be conceived of in different ways than via the peri-urban market alone. The following section examines some concrete approaches and experiences in this area through the lens of the commons.

Collective Arrangements for Access to Land and Housing in the City

Reopening Access to Urban Land for Housing

The right to adequate housing is enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It covers more than simply the material aspects of hous- ing: it is the right “to live somewhere in security, peace and dignity” (OHCHR and UN-Habitat 2010, 3). It includes security of tenure; respect for the ability to pay; habitability; availability of services, materials, facilities, and infrastructure; accessibility; a suitable location and allowing access to employment opportunities and services; and respect for the expression of cultural identity. Housing is also explicitly addressed in Sustainable Development Goal number 11 on access for all to adequate, safe, affordable housing and basic services for all by 2030. Last, the New Urban Agenda, adopted at the Habitat III conference in 2016, develops a vision of “cities for all,” one of the goals of which is to fully realize the right to adequate housing, usually through relatively conventional public policies to sup- port private home ownership.
However, decent urban housing remains out of reach for a significant percentage of city dwellers in Sub-Saharan Africa. The risk of eviction, the insecurity of the building or the land it is built on, and a lack of access to services and employment make urban housing conditions substandard. Many households do not have access to the housing offered by the government and the market in an individual, private property system. The price of land makes it impossible to generate decent, affordable housing for low-income families, whether to rent, own, or self-build. Furthermore, the rapid rise in the exchange and financial value of urban land has steadily increased the share of speculative acquisitions, particularly in areas with weak financial inclusion and high inflation (Aalbers, Rolnik, and Krijnen 2020).

Since the early 2000s, parts of academia and of the international community have recognized the necessity of the security of land tenure systems in all their diversity. In their reflections on adequate housing, both Sustainable Development Goal 11 and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights recognize the continuum of rights and the need to recognize a diverse range of solutions to housing and land tenure, including cooperative solutions and different forms of collective tenure.

In the context of rehabilitating at-risk neighborhoods and developing new housing complexes, the commons approach paves the way for thinking about modes of land ownership and access that preserve social diversity in cities.

## Urban Land-Based Commons for Housing

Using the commons approach to think about access to land for low-income housing in dense urban areas, where land is commercially and financially valuable, involves making a shift in one's value system. In this case, priority is given to the land's social function, and sharing land as a resource is more important than owning it privately. The challenge lies in developing mechanisms that make it possible to resist exclusion by the market and land speculation marked by the bullish and exclusive influence of excess transnational liquidity (Simonneau and Denis 2021).

Beginning from the principle that land should serve a social function, there are various mechanisms in countries of the Global South for producing low-income housing in ways that preserve long-term access to land and housing. They are based on (a) owning land or part of the housing production process in common, (b) eliminating land value and controlling the ways housing can be resold and land value increases are distributed, and (c) governing the construction project or the management of the residential complex at a community level.

The purpose of these mechanisms is as follows:

* To establish collective use of the land or housing in order to allow the social function of the property to occur immediately. If the collective dimension of land ownership is not designed to last or can be undone, then legal land arrangements may be transitory.
* To decouple the ownership of land from the ownership of housing over the long term in a way that is not speculative. The purpose of the mechanisms' nonspeculative dimension is to guarantee the primacy of the social utility of land ownership through a low land price over the long term, even as users and owners come and go, as well as through the strict supervision of resales.

Collective and cooperative production may seem obvious in theory, but a wide range of situations exist, depending on which elements are held in common (e.g., financing, land rights, housing, open spaces and facilities, the management of the residence) (Simonneau, Denis, and Sory 2019). Situations differ in terms of how land and financing are accessed, how housing is built, how collective spaces and facilities are developed and maintained, how property transfers and realized capital gains are controlled, and how members help one another financially and more generally.

In this chapter, we focus on two forms that are being rolled out in Sub-Saharan Africa and target different social groups: West African building cooperatives (boxes 3.4 and 3.5) and the Community Land Trust (CLT) scheme that has been tested in Kenya (box 3.6). We analyze what these two approaches have to offer for land and housing access, as well as their limitations and prospects.

## Housing cooperatives

Housing cooperatives are used to develop housing in several Sub-Saharan African countries³ (Ganapati 2014). The quantity of housing developed this way remains relatively small and is aimed more at salaried workers than at the most at-risk populations. Nevertheless, given the longevity and potential of these schemes, they deserve attention.

Most of these cooperatives are “construction cooperatives” (Simonneau, Denis, and Sory 2019). The collective dimension often concerns only access to the land, the pooling of financial resources, and the negotiation for the joint purchase of an estate and construction of a residential complex. Once construction is complete, each household in the cooperative can access full ownership of its plot and dwelling.

As a point of reference, Uruguayan cooperatives, which are cited around the world as an example of the social production of housing (de Souza, Valitutto, and Simonneau 2021), collectivize every stage of the development of housing and housing districts. Ownership of land and housing remains cooperative (i.e., inhabitants have usage rights only), and community life is insisted upon, particularly when it comes to maintaining collective spaces. In comparison, then, the communal dimension of West African cooperatives appears far more limited in ambition and duration.
BOX 3.4

Housing Cooperatives in Burkina Faso

Because of natural growth, rural exodus, and more recently internal displacement resulting from Burkina Faso's security crisis, the urban region of Ouagadougou is growing at a rate of 100,000 to 110,000 people per year (Delaunay and Boyer 2017; Sory 2019). The informal land market, maintained by government subdivision practices, is generating significant urban sprawl, thereby creating a peripheral area where numerous plots are undeveloped or awaiting regularization (Guigma, Boudoux d'Hautefeuille, and Pierre-Louis 2015). Public policy since the early 2000s has been directed at deregulating the housing sector, reviving state-supervised housing construction with a focus on public-private partnerships, and a highly publicized, although rather ineffective, fight against speculative land practices on the outskirts of cities (Guigma 2017; Sory, Lingani, and Korbeogo 2015). A good example of this is the Programme national de construction de logements (PNCL) (National Housing Construction Program), launched in 2017.

The formation of housing cooperatives was first made possible in 2008 by the Loi sur la promotion immobilière (Real Estate Development Act). The PNCL, which provides for the construction of 40,000 housing units, sets a production target of 5,000 units to be built through cooperatives. Housing cooperatives are aimed at low-income households, with a view to developing formal access to land and property ownership through specially adapted bank loans. In fact, however, it is most often salaried workers who take advantage of this program.

The housing production and development activities of cooperatives are regulated by the state, similar to those of developers. Cooperatives must apply for approval from the urban planning authority. They are eligible to receive plots of land made available by the state (or acquire them on the market), and they can develop plots of land or build housing according to social housing standards (subject to a price ceiling) for direct sale or rent-to-own programs for their members.

Six cooperatives have been created since 2008. The homes are available for ownership under social housing conditions: they are sold at a ceiling price of 7.5 million CFA francs,ª either directly or through rent-to-own agreements. In the latter case, households must obtain a bank loan on their own. The government cedes the land back to the cooperative via a "mother" title deed (which is not always issued). Households keep a housing allocation certificate attesting to their right to use the land and housing. Once a household has repaid its loan, it can apply for an urban housing permit and then for a land title. The plot of land is then normalized and can be sold at market price. The primary motivation of cooperative members seems to lie in the ease of access to land and property relative to traditional public housing programs. The cooperative can cease to serve any salient functions after the keys are handed over.

<footnote>a. The minimum monthly salary is 33,000 CFA francs.</footnote>
BOX 3.5

Housing Cooperatives in Senegal

A total of 3.9 million Senegalese, or half of the country's urban population, live in the Dakar region. Access to formal housing is limited by price and the fact that households who make a living through the informal economy cannot access credit (CAHF 2019). Demographic pressures, combined with soaring land prices, are generating significant urban sprawl, which the 2016 Plan de développement urbain (Urban Development Plan) attempts to manage through the creation of urban centers.

The first Senegalese housing cooperatives were founded in Dakar in the 1950s (Fall 2007; Osmont 1973). They have been legally regulated since 1983 by Loi numéro 1983/07 portant statut général des coopératives (Law 1983/07 on the general statutes of cooperatives). They are also part of the 2016 provisions to support the construction of social housing, in Law 2016-31.

These organizations are approved by the government and receive technical support and financial benefits. In 1989, the Bureau d'assistance aux collectivités pour l'habitat social (Public Housing Assistance Bureau), an administrative assistance program for social housing collectives, was set up within the urban planning ministry to facilitate the administrative and financial processes of urban land acquisition and to supervise housing construction (Sané 2013). Cooperatives benefit from reduced taxation (exemption from income tax and reduced registration rates) and preferential rates for the repayment of individual and group housing loans from the Banque de l'Habitat du Sénégal (BHS) (Housing Bank of Senegal). Since 2020, the Fonds pour l'habitat social (Social Housing Fund) has been serving as a guarantor for applicants seeking to get a loan to obtain social housing. Public housing production programs provide land and road facilities. However, cooperatives can also acquire land on the conventional market.

Cooperatives are organizations that engage in land acquisition, housing development, and mutual guarantee programs (Diop 2012). They are often organized by profession, and certain companies or government agencies act as guarantors for their employees, for whom they can get loans by financing all or part of the contributions required to join the cooperative. The land is generally acquired in the name of the cooperative, through a collective lease. The project's financing comes from members' individual savings, which are collected by the cooperative, and from loans taken out with BHS. These loans can be collective, in the name of the cooperative ("developer loan"), or individual, in the name of the members of the cooperative ("buyer loan"). Construction is carried out either by private companies contracted by the cooperative or by the members themselves.

In the early 2010s, there were more than 700 housing cooperatives totaling some 300,000 members. In 2009, 74,400 homes were built with the support of housing cooperatives. In Dakar, 3.7 percent of households resided in cooperatives in 2013, with 94.5 percent of these construction cooperatives made up of salaried workers from large public or private employers. However, the legal framework does not exclude informal workers (Cissé 2013; Sané 2013).

(continued next page)
**Box 3.5 (continued)**

Like other segments of formal housing production in Senegal, cooperative housing production remains constrained by the high cost of imported construction materials and by access to land. In addition, corruption and power games can undermine a project's collective dimension. Finally, projects can also fail because of developers' abusive practices toward the managers of these cooperative real estate projects, some of whom are volunteers. Nevertheless, the housing cooperative system seems to offer not only a sufficiently flexible framework to allow the development of innovative collective projects but also enough incentives to encourage residents to take advantage of it. This is what the Cité Fédération sénégalaise des habitants (FSH) (Senegalese Federation of Inhabitants) project demonstrates (box 3.7).

*The Community Land Trust*

The CLT is an arrangement for distributing rights to land use, land ownership, and real estate that is organized around four principles (Davis 2010):

* Ownership of land and ownership of real estate are separate. The land is owned by a third-party organization, the trust, while the housing is owned by residents.

* Residents have land use rights.

* In the case of a sale, anti-speculation provisions give the trust preemptive rights. They also allocate to the trust a portion of any capital gains that result from a sale. These provisions make it possible to keep this housing affordable in the long run.

* The housing project is organized in a collective way, one that involves residents as well as representatives from government and civil society in the CLT's management structures.

Developed in the United States in the 1960s, the CLT and its principles have been adapted to a variety of places (including Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, and the United Kingdom) (box 3.6) and functions (e.g., agriculture, housing, and economic activities) (Davis, Algoed, and Hernández-Torrales 2020; Simonneau 2018).

**Alternatives to the Individualization and Commodification of Land?**

Altogether, these experiments comprise a relatively small number of dwellings and households in Sub-Saharan Africa. Still, they provide a useful window into a commons-based approach to meeting housing needs in urban areas where
BOX 3.6

The Voi Community Land Trust in Kenya

The secondary city of Voi, in Kenya, is home to the only Community Land Trust (CLT) on the African continent to date. a It was set up in the 1990s, as part of a development project to improve living conditions in the precarious neighborhood of Tanzania-Bondeni, and was financed with the help of the German cooperation agency, Tanzania-Bondeni was occupying public land on the outskirts of the city center without authorization. It was home to some 3,000 people in precarious living conditions (i.e., substandard housing, lack of basic services, and land insecurity). The purpose of the project was to improve these conditions, with an emphasis on long-term land security.

It was with these goals in mind that the neighborhood's residents chose a CLT from among other land-regularization options, such as leasehold titles or individual titles coupled with housing cooperatives (Bassett 2001). Formally implementing the CLT required making several legal adjustments. The two owners of the land occupied by the residents, Voi Sisal Estates and Kenya Railways, ceded the land as a contribution to the project. Two institutions were created: a neighborhood organization, the Tanzania-Bondeni Settlement Society, which would represent the residents (tenants as well as presumed owners), and a trust that would hold the primary leasehold. These institutions correspond to two levels of governance: a committee of residents elected to handle day-to-day affairs and a board of trustees that manages land affairs. Finally, a general assembly meets annually and elects the representatives of these governance bodies. Soon after, several interconnected collective structures were created, including tontines and neighborhood organizations.

A quarter-century after the end of the project, the main long-term lease, the center-
piece of the land package, has still not been issued. Only a letter of allotment has been
issued. As a result, residents do not benefit from subleases but only from beacon cer-
tificates, which indicate the boundaries of the plots. The CLT's once-vigorous
community life has faded: representatives have been reluctant to organize the annual
general assembly, and certain internal rules, such as the prohibition on selling plots or
renting out houses, have not been adhered to. Nevertheless, certain material benefits
of the system have been retained: the architectural quality of the houses has generally
improved, plans have been respected, and urban services have been put in place.

land pressures and the dynamics of individualization and commodification are
most intense. They broaden the range of housing supply options, which is often
limited to either difficult-to-access formal housing or precarious neighborhoods
(although the latter category is in fact extremely diverse) (Deboulet 2016). They
put the spotlight on actors other than just public construction agencies and

<footnote>a. CLTs have been proposed in South Africa (Klug and Klug 2019), and discussions are currently under way in Senegal with respect to the Fédération sénégalaise des habitants (FSH) (Senegalese Federation of Inhabitants) Housing Estates (CAHF, urbaMonde, and UrbaSEN 2020), but as far as we know, nothing concrete has been developed to date.</footnote>
private real estate developers, such as builders who are also inhabitants, their collectives, and the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that support them. The existence—sometimes long-standing—of these local arrangements, such as housing cooperatives, constitutes a legal framework and a useful experience for broadening the range of housing offers by pooling access to land, construction, financing, or local life.

From the perspective of land-based commons for housing, two observations should be noted. The first observation is that these collective arrangements may not be sustainable in situations where residents may be highly mobile and where real estate and financial markets are especially active (Midheme 2015, 2018; Simonneau, Bassett, and Midheme 2020):

* Existing arrangements tend not to account much for the mobility of members and are poorly equipped to deal with generational turnover in ownership (particularly upon the death of the first owners). Although, in theory, they allow for a share of rental housing to be developed, they remain largely proprietary models.

* The collectives involved in these arrangements have been fairly resistant to real estate and financial market pressures for two reasons. The first is structural: in the case of housing cooperatives in Burkina Faso and Senegal, people form cooperatives to bypass constraints on land, in order to gain full ownership of the land and property. Once this goal has been attained, the collectives fall apart (Simonneau and Denis 2021). The second reason is contextual: the Kenyan experience with CLTs is now subject to mounting land pressures, resulting in unwarranted land grabs, the use of plots for profit, and an active land market.

The second observation is that it is rarely the most precarious segments of the population that take part in these arrangements. Rather, it tends to be households with stable incomes, who can get access to mortgage credit (sometimes with the help of collective guarantees) and can afford to have their savings frozen while a project is under way, sometimes for years at a time. Housing cooperatives, for example, are essentially the preserve of formal-sector workers: just 5.5 percent of Senegalese housing cooperative members are involved in informal sector work (Fall 2007).

Nevertheless, it seems possible to strengthen the role of collective production while also including the most precarious populations, provided that actors on the ground take full ownership of the approach and that the government agrees to support it. NGOs that support housing cooperatives often have an important role to play in structuring inhabitants' demands, as well as engaging in advocacy, for example, to ensure that a cooperative's socioeconomic profile (low and irregular income, in particular) is taken into account in public housing policies.
These are the conditions that must be met in order for these arrangements to become real, long-term alternatives to the individualization and commodification of urban land in Sub-Saharan Africa. The joint project of the Fédération sénégalaise des habitants (FSH) (Senegalese Federation of Inhabitants), which brings together savings groups from low-income neighborhoods and the NGOs UrbaSEN and urbaMonde, is notable in this respect (box 3.7).

BOX 3.7

## The Cité FSH Project—A Cooperative, Nonspeculative, Low-Income Housing Project on the Outskirts of Dakar

The Fédération sénégalaise des habitants (FSH) (Senegalese Federation of Inhabitants) is a federation of residents' groups from precarious neighborhoods in Senegal. Founded in 2014 in Pikine, the FSH is sponsoring a housing development project (Cité FSH) for its members, which now number over 12,000.

With the support of the nongovernmental organizations UrbaSEN and urbaMonde, as well as the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance, the FSH is building 150 dwelling units, along with community facilities, such as a clinic, a school, and places of worship, on land in the Dakar region that was acquired in 2021.

The FSH founded a cooperative in 2020. It will handle real estate development, hold the land (through a land title in the name of the FSH cooperative) with a view to preventing speculation, receive members' savings, and ensure the distribution of housing to households. By establishing itself as a cooperative, the FSH can benefit from banking services and guarantees; moreover, the government will be responsible for preparing the land for construction.

The project proposes innovative, concrete solutions to the Senegalese situation on several points. The housing estates will be part of an eco-neighborhood that uses sustainable materials and sources and will be greened throughout. Local artisans will be given preference and trained. Designing and managing the project is a participatory exercise; planning involves future residents, most of whom are women (Brant de Carvalho et al. 2020). Financing comes from a mix of socially responsible sources from the solidarity economy.

The project's collective dimension is an important feature. The Cité FSH project is founded on collective land ownership and the separation of land ownership from housing ownership. Bank loans are obtained collectively, in the name of the cooperative, with a guarantee provided by the Fonds pour l'habitat social (Social Housing Fund). In this sense, the project is similar to the Community Land Trust system.

The project is intended to set an example and promote methods of social housing production in Senegal that are accessible to precarious households. The goal is to use this pilot project to push Senegal's government to broaden the range of households targeted by social housing programs (urbaMonde 2021).
# Possibilities for Public Action

## Regulating Land Practices and Offering Space to Future Cities

Both the shifts in land use that result from urbanization and the dismantling of rural commons are going to continue unabated. The strategies of land acquisition and accumulation and of subdividing properties cover a vast spectrum of practices. They involve a wide range of actors that are responding to a variety of incentives and that possess varying degrees of power and different economic resources when it comes to exploiting land resources.

Support from public authorities is necessary. In terms of access to land, facilities, and services, these processes generate inequalities not only between rural landowners and newcomers (certain rights holders are less able to make their voices heard) but also among newcomers themselves, such as between the urban working class and wealthier classes. These land practices are responses to real socioeconomic situations that vary across populations. Households may be seeking to establish an inheritance (storing savings), they may be responding to inflation (a kind of social security), or they may simply need a place to live. Yet public policies rarely address the socioeconomic conditions that enable or stimulate this land market—that is, economic inequalities between households and an often overly indebted agricultural sector (Merlet, Sauzion, and El Ouaamari 2017).

The future of agricultural production and food security is also at stake. Though large farms are better protected, certain transfers of rights result in fertile land being sterilized or left to lie fallow. In some areas, farmers are resisting by adapting to urban demands or by promoting adjustments to what food is produced and how—by engaging in practices that maintain soil fertility, for example, or by selling produce to urban markets.

The environmental impacts of urbanization are also crucial when it comes to maintaining soil fertility and groundwater recharge capacity; renewing resources such as wood, stones, and water; and preserving wetlands and biodiversity reserves.

There is a balance to be struck between regulating land conversion practices in ways that promote the sustainability of these regions, on the one hand, and making it possible for people to use land for housing, savings, or sometimes as an economic asset to pursue their life plans and provide for their children's futures, on the other hand.

From this perspective, the approach of land-based commons for housing, aimed at the rational management of land assets for housing purposes, is one possible way of devising innovative systems.

## Collective Measures to Meet Housing Needs

Thus, in very concrete terms, the collective housing initiatives described in the previous section are original approaches with the potential to broaden the range
of methods for accessing adequate housing. Three dimensions can be identified that are consistent with the commons-based entrepreneurship approach (see chapter 1), although their real-world implementation indicates that their range is limited in terms of time and space.

First, to varying degrees and in a variety of ways, collective and cooperative production is conceived of as an alternative to individual private land ownership. It comes with different arrangements and tools (e.g., collective leases, “mother” land titles, tools for breaking up the bundle of rights, fractioning of ownership) that recenter the long-term uses of the land. Although customary land tenure norms (i.e., rural commons) are sometimes evoked by project stakeholders (Simonneau 2018), the proposed tools are more akin to what is known as modern law, and inhabitants tend to be concerned mainly with securing an individual or family home. Yet the fact remains that some members of certain neighborhoods or professional or ethnic communities display a strong sense of belonging. Note that in some countries, legal recognition of customary or collective ownership can apply in urban areas, such as in Kenya, Namibia, and Tanzania (Alden Wily 2018). Certain examples outside of Africa are inspiring in this regard, such as in Brazil, where *quilombo* properties are recognized by special land statutes (Soares-Gonçalves 2021).

Second, collective and cooperative production can include provisions that limit speculation. The purpose of such provisions is to ensure that land and housing are used to meet housing needs and not for lucrative ends in the real estate market. In certain cases, they may also serve to keep down the cost of land to households. The implementation of this principle remains uneven, and it reveals the boundaries between a housing approach based on commons and one that exploits the collective principle for the purpose of private asset accumulation. This issue is directly connected to whether collectives are temporary: ultimately, collective and cooperative production will be limited if it is simply a gateway to private property. The local economic environment also encourages this individual private appropriation if it fails to offer more in the way of economic security and insertion than simply mortgages and the capture of land and real estate rent.

Third, the texts governing cooperative arrangements often commit to participatory governance. However, long-term progress in this regard remains limited. Cooperatives that are formed for the purpose of saving in common and building and securing housing in the medium term are not always maintained over the long haul. That said, this does not prevent neighborhood life from being vibrant or other cooperatives forming for other purposes, such as saving or defending access to services.

Collective housing arrangements thus constitute commons under certain conditions. They are directly engaged with the market for urban land and reveal clear limits to what they are capable of achieving. There is no simple answer to
the problem of how to reconcile the principle of “commoning” (see chapter 1) with city dwellers’ individual aspirations, particularly when these include accumulating an inheritance or even retaining the right to increase the value of one’s housing capital. In this regard, limiting nonspeculative commons arrangements to precarious populations who desperately need a roof over their heads would appear to only worsen inequalities. Above all, we should recall that urban land grabbing (Steel, Van Noorloos, and Otsuki 2019) also has its roots in the failure to adequately share the costs of education, health, and social security as broadly understood.

## Conditions for Scaling and Long-Term Consolidation

Our analysis of the most innovative real-world experiments, particularly the nonspeculative ones, leads us to underscore the fact that few of them have surpassed experimental scale and that they struggle to sustain themselves over generations of residents. The Voi CLT in Kenya, though widely publicized in specialized international forums⁴ in the first years of the twenty-first century, has never been replicated elsewhere in Kenya. The Voi CLT itself was a success for the first generation of rehoused residents, but its community governance structures have been weakened and land ownership has been dispersed because it lacks a framework to guarantee subsidized and nonspeculative access across generations. Housing cooperatives, meanwhile, constitute a discrete housing production sector in West Africa. Still in their infancy in Burkina Faso, they are more firmly established in Senegal. Because their process is arduous, they have a high rate of failure, and cooperatives often disperse once the keys are handed over. As far as we know, there has been no systematic analysis of the renewal of generations of inhabitants in these housing projects. Such analysis could provide information about the future of these cooperatives and their capacity to ensure urban housing access beyond the first generation of first-time buyers. The gray and scientific literatures list numerous collective and cooperative initiatives that are innovative in one or another aspect (such as financing, land statutes, or governance) of popular housing development or regularization in Africa⁵ and the countries of the Global South⁶ (urbaMonde and Royez 2015). Yet there are few in-depth empirical studies of these same initiatives over time. Only this type of analysis, however, would make it possible to evaluate how robust these cooperatives and, especially, the application of their land rules remain over time.

Through our careful observations, however, we can identify certain principles that favor initial success, the ability to scale, and the inclusive sustainability of land-based commons for low-income housing.

### Local support for the model and its adoption by resident groups

As the experience of the CLT in Kenya demonstrates, support from international organizations, or even national support for the implementation of a model that
has proven successful elsewhere, is not a sufficient condition to guarantee its success locally and certainly not to ensure that it grows beyond an initial trial phase. The pooling of land must be adapted to local conditions and therefore must be linked to preexisting ways of “commoning,” whether they be activist or traditional. The desire to do and live in common must be met with the support of a cooperative that is sufficiently tightly knit to uphold these values in the long run. This is why starting from a preexisting set of shared values is so critical. The traditions of cooperatives and unions, or working-class savings and financing collectives, are indispensable foundations upon which to build local cooperative movements. And it is just as critical that the collective management framework for ensuring (a) the maintenance of the co-owned property, (b) the control of transactions and the sharing of capital gains, (c) handover or rental agreements, and, ultimately, (d) mutual aid among residents be clearly formalized and backed by a group of regularly elected representatives.

*Strong support from public authorities*

It is also a necessary, though not sufficient, condition that a favorable legislative framework emerge at the national level and that it can be put to use by residents' groups and the associations that support them, particularly when it comes to setting up a legal structure that protects these groups. Creating cooperative statutes or legal forms that make it possible to divorce land ownership from housing ownership is therefore a key step.

Local authorities also have a crucial role to play in making land available in the city center (as is the case in Uruguay, with the principle of the land portfolio) and in the collective regularization of land, in the case of the in situ rehabilitation of precarious neighborhoods (de Souza, Valitutto, and Simonneau 2021).

*A regulatory framework for making urban commons for housing viable*

Promising projects that were undertaken enthusiastically by residents and the associations and institutions that support them, such as the Voi CLT in Kenya, are at risk of being gradually dismantled for want of a regulatory framework.

Over time, common goods are eroded by the poorly regulated sale of individual possessions. This is why anti-speculative provisions and keeping land ownership distinct from building ownership are critical to regulating sales and inheritances in order to preserve the inclusive dimension of these commons. Procedures for sharing and limiting capital gains in the event of sale are also essential for ensuring that the social function of housing commons is maintained and that money for operations or renovations goes to the cooperative, all while ensuring that profits are shared between the cooperative and the resident selling the property.

*Networking and the sharing of experiences and methods*

Mutual support between residents' groups, sometimes organized by interme-diaries, makes it easier to keep these experiments alive, circulate information
about them, and advocate for them locally. The success of the Uruguayan cooperative experience and its knock-on effects in South America are due in large part to the Federación Uruguaya de Cooperativas de Vivienda por Ayuda Mutua (Uruguayan Federation of Mutual Aid Cooperatives), which has organized and directed peer-to-peer exchanges of experiences, first in Uruguay, then at the Latin American level, and now at the global level. That said, the way civil society organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa are structured is a major point of differentiation here.

International NGOs that are active in the housing sector (particularly those in the CoHabitat Network) have succeeded in bringing the issues of commons and the right to the city into the international debate, as well as in publicizing and promulgating pilot projects in several regions of Africa and the countries of the Global South. However, they are not a substitute for the adoption and adaptation of these projects by local stakeholders—first and foremost by the inhabitants themselves but also by economic actors in the construction sector and the public authorities.

## Conclusion

This chapter has sought to explore current land dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa and to discuss the future of land-based commons in the context of massive, rapid, and diffuse urbanization. The pressure on land to meet housing needs and the use of land as a basis for insurance and savings are both extremely significant.

On the one hand, this chapter demonstrates that access to rural land-based commons, which have roots in traditional land management, is being closed off. In the wake of societal changes and upheavals in local economies and in the conditions of agricultural production, lands that had traditionally been held in common are being divided up. Rights are being progressively individualized and sometimes transferred outside of local communities. These poorly regulated processes are generating inequalities between rural and urban dwellers and between land buyers with different financial means.

On the other hand, the chapter examines the possibilities for land access that are opening up in cities as a result of the establishment of new commons. The commons approach makes it possible to reconsider several aspects of urban housing development and to imagine, in particular, a mode of collective governance that privileges the needs of inhabitants and land that is made to serve a long-term social function and that is resistant to market pressures. The tools required to make this vision a reality do exist: nonspeculative provisions such as resale formulas, collective land statutes that protect inhabitants from exclusion by the market, and solidarity financing mechanisms. Although they may not meet the high demand for housing in these cities,
they make it possible to expand the range of options for accessing land and producing housing.

We base our discussion on several real-life uses of some of these tools: housing cooperatives in Burkina Faso and Senegal and the Voi CLT in Kenya. Empirical case studies allow us to show the potential and limits of these arrangements in terms of how inclusive they are of those at the lowest end of the socio-economic spectrum, how well they are able to scale up, and to what degree they maintain the values of “commoning” beyond the first group of inhabitants. Most West African cooperatives are now temporary arrangements enabling people with stable incomes to access private property, while vulnerable populations are likely to struggle to carry out such ambitious, long-term land and real estate projects. The CLT was a rather valuable experiment when it began, but it has begun to weaken. This points to how important it is to consider procedures for allowing households to leave cooperative and collective arrangements in a timely manner, as well as procedures for modifying rules at the level of the housing project.

Since they help broaden the spectrum of housing supply and diversify financing mechanisms and modes of governance in the housing sector, cooperative and collective arrangements have the potential to help achieve Sustainable Development Goal number 11. But promising though it may be, it is simply potential: the results of these experiments, which may be highly localized (as in the case of the Voi CLT) or aimed at households that are not the most precarious (such as the housing cooperative), are still quite limited. That said, the existing cooperative movement in Africa could be supported financially, legally, technically, and in terms of governance so that it could be opened up, within the framework of public housing policies (Marot et al. 2022), to the working classes in a more radical and protected way. What access do households have to solidarity financing if they cannot access bank loans for want of a steady income? What place has been accorded to precarious households in recent public programs for social and affordable housing in Africa? How can better technical support be provided to the management bodies of cooperatives?

The CLT system also feeds into ideas about helping inhabitants stay in coveted neighborhoods or even come settle there. It also contributes to the important debate that has been running for 40 years now about the regularization of precarious neighborhoods, and it should be thoroughly examined alongside the long list of mechanisms for securing the rights of those who live in precarious neighborhoods in Sub-Saharan Africa (Gulyani and Bassett 2007) and the countries of the Global South. The collective dimension of regularizations and restrictions on the resale of land has been tested on these occasions, and these experiences deserve a second look.

In this respect, we believe that more attention should be paid to the work of international NGOs in organizing exchanges of experience between countries
of the Global South and capitalizing on collective and cooperative production
in the service of precarious inhabitants (Davis, Algoed, and Hernández-Torrales
2020; Gonzalez 2013; Williamson 2019). However, this work must be comple-
mented by in-depth, long-term empirical studies in order to assess how robust
commons remain over time.

Finally, we believe that it is essential to better produce and disseminate both
the knowledge of inhabitants and diachronic scientific analyses according to the
principles of learning communities and open-source urbanism rooted in the
knowledge commons, so that local communities can adopt and adapt these
systems.

Notes

1. This chapter relies on research funded by the Agence française de développement (AFD) (French Development Agency) and the Comité technique “Foncier et développement” (CTFD) (Technical Committee on “Land Tenure and Development”). We would like to thank our collaborators who handled field research, including Issa Sory (2019) in Burkina Faso, Emmanuel Midheme (2018) in Kenya, and Thomas Voldoire, with support from Momar Diongue (2022), in Senegal.

2. In 2018, Bah, Faye, and Geh estimated that Africa had a deficit of 50 million housing units (Bah, Faye, and Geh 2018).

3. Especially in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, and Senegal.

4. Included in Kenya's best practices at the 1996 Habitat II conference; finalist for the 2006 World Habitat Award.

5. For example, Amui Dzor Housing cooperative in Accra, Ghana (Gillespie 2018), or the Coophylos cooperative in Cameroon.

6. See the CoHabitat Network online census: https://www.co-habitat.net/en/tools/cohabitat-io.

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Chapter 4

# Urban Commons: Reestablishing Social Ties in African Cities

Stéphanie Leyronas, Alix Françoise, Isabelle Liotard, Lola Mercier, and
Guiako Obin

## Introduction

Africa is simultaneously the world's least urbanized continent and the one with the highest demographic growth rate in urban areas. Its current urbanization rate is estimated at somewhere between 42.5 percent (UN 2019) and 50.4 percent (OECD and SWAC 2020) of the continent's total population. Since the 1950s, the average urban growth rate has been 4.8 percent per year. Africa's urban population therefore grew more than 16-fold between 1950 and 2018, increasing from 33 million to 548 million people. This trend is expected to continue with a tripling of the urban population by 2050, representing some 1.5 billion people (UN 2019). This rate does vary by country, and its impact is especially noticeable in countries with a low level of urbanization (such as Burundi, Lesotho, Malawi, Niger, and South Sudan). Here, the growth rate currently exceeds 7 percent, implying that the population will double every 10 years (OECD and SWAC 2020).

Most of Africa's national urban systems are dominated by large conurbations, and this trend is growing. The population of Luanda (Angola), for example, is the equivalent of that of the country's next 27 largest conurbations combined (OECD and SWAC 2020). At the same time, a network of secondary conurbations driven by national local development policies is being shaped. These medium-sized cities, often the capitals of agricultural regions, are also increasing in size because of natural growth in the population and, to a lesser extent, internal migration.

Urban development in Africa has long been a priority within the international aid community. Two significant milestones in the international governance of urban growth were the United Nation's (UN's) 2015 Sustainable Development Goal 11 to create sustainable cities accessible to all and the New Urban Agenda (UN-Habitat 2015) seeking to make cities safer, more resilient, and more sustainable, adopted at the Habitat III conference in 2016.
Public financial resources are rare so local communities must engage in new forms of governance that involve a myriad of different stakeholders from cities and the urban sector. Some consensus has been reached about the many diverse stakeholders (public, private, nonprofit, political), policy areas (land, housing, infrastructure), and scales of response (local, city, national, and international) involved in shaping cities, as well as how urban areas in Sub-Saharan Africa should be constructed and managed (Schlimmer 2022).

This chapter examines commons that have emerged in urban settings as one expression of these social, economic, political, and spatial phenomena. Its analysis draws on interviews with the stakeholders of urban commons in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as a review of the academic literature and documentary research (websites and social networks, local and international media).

The first section sets out exactly what kind of activities can be classified as urban commons in Sub-Saharan Africa. These public or private places are shared by local residents who develop diverse uses for them. They involve a multitude of different stakeholders operating under various forms of open governance, and a variety of tangible and intangible resources from the local area are used by different groups.

The second section provides an empirical analysis of some of these places (hybrid cultural spaces, playing fields, shared gardens, fab labs¹), while the third and final section proposes what role they could potentially have in fashioning urban environments in Sub-Saharan Africa.

# Urban Commons in the Context of Sub-Saharan Africa

## Urban Fragmentation and the Loss of Social Cohesion

Against a background of high demographic growth, African cities contribute to improving their country's economic performance, as well as improving living standards. In a recent report, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) revealed that urbanization in Africa has contributed to approximately 30 percent of the increase in gross domestic product (GDP) per person achieved over the past 20 years (OECD, AfDB, and ECA 2022). Moreover, living standards, the amount of time spent in education (8.5 years compared with 4.5 years on average), and professional achievements are on average higher for people living in urban areas than elsewhere in the same country. Wealth distribution by quintiles indicates that a growing share, and sometimes a majority, of the population's richest individuals live in large cities. The OECD also notes a knock-on effect in areas located near cities (OECD and SWAC 2020).

Despite these developments, in reality, Africa's urban economies have changed little over the past few years. They have not diversified to any great extent. Manufacturing has transformative potential for numerous regions in
this continent (Abreha et al. 2021), but it remains underrepresented as a sector, unlike in some Asian countries (China, India, Malaysia). Urban economies must also deal with the structural challenges (such as building human capital) and operational costs of these cities.

Governance is a major challenge. Africa's local authorities struggle to plan for investments or provide essential services because of financial, institutional, and technical weaknesses. Cities are growing quickly but lack vital infrastructure investment. Some districts, particularly on the outskirts, have expanded rapidly without being connected to road networks or basic public services. More than half of the urban population in Africa lives in this kind of vulnerable neighborhood (UN-Habitat 2015). Moreover, major cities are facing significant transport challenges with high levels of pollution and congestion; government stakeholders are struggling to protect public sites, particularly green spaces; and urban dwellers, vulnerable to climate hazards, are already experiencing phenomena such as heat waves, water shortages, and flooding to a greater extent (Dodman, Hayward, and Pelling 2021).

These shortcomings are causing African cities to become spatially, socially, economically, and politically fragmented. As a result, the social fabric within communities, as well as between local populations and government institutions, is often torn (European Commission and Enabel 2021). This contributes to the severing of social ties, that is, personal relationships within the same society, mutual levels of trust, and norms of reciprocity (Colleta and Cullen 2000; Garroway 2011).

With regard to Nigerian and South African cities in particular, Fourchard suggests that, although these cities do provide jobs, they have also quickly generated “new forms of poverty and social violence (unemployment, crime, abuse, prostitution, gangsterism, and procuring), as well as problems over the integration of migrant populations” (Fourchard 2018, 7). Geographical origin (whether someone is part of the indigenous or migrant population) forms the basis for exclusion that, in some instances, has been institutionalized and politicized. These cities are “laboratories for exclusion and the use of violence” that is sometimes physical (Fourchard 2018, 8). According to the anthropologist Balandier, this leads people living in urban environments to retain close ties with their original social circles and villages so as to find support in those existing forms of solidarity. In doing so, they “return to a community, and find the material assistance they would not have found elsewhere” (Balandier 1958, 21).

The emergence in Africa's cities of commons whose remits cover a wide variety of resources is evidence of a desire to strengthen new social ties within urban communities. These commons are run by groups of different sizes and kinds (locals, residents, users, entrepreneurs, specialists) working within a broad spectrum of urban life: land, public services, welfare, and education.
## From Commons in Cities to Urban Commons

In this instance, we have focused on places that are physically located within urban sites and communally managed by groups with a social, economic, and political vision for these spaces that reshapes the local area as a sociopolitical construct. Their project might focus on welfare and improving living conditions (shared gardens, playing fields, community halls) or access to art and culture. They may also specialize in science, innovation, and digital technology (spaces for technological innovation and production such as fab labs).

The urban commons we have examined overlap in numerous ways with “third places.” This notion was coined by the sociologist Oldenburg in 1989 and refers to the places that sit somewhere between home and work and that contribute to urban sociability (Fabbri 2016). The people who visit them (Lofland 1998; Oldenburg 1989) create their sense of community, their accessibility by other individuals, and, thus, their collective dimension. In the context of Sub-Saharan Africa, we prefer the term *hybrid places* as the concept of “third places” is little used by African stakeholders (Besson, forthcoming).

African urban commons are multifunctional by their very nature and combine a number of different purposes:

* Services (food production in shared gardens, intermediation services, access to material and equipment, access to artistic endeavors)

* Educational and dissemination activities relating to the collective aim pursued (adult education, organization of events, lessons and workshops, gatherings)

* Activities focusing on sustainable cities and resilience (waste-to-energy conversion and renewable forms of energy)

Urban commons are also a testament to a relatively recent phenomenon, the “Africanization” of the maker movement, as evidenced by the growing number of fab labs in Sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade (Mboa Nkoudou 2017). These fab labs are diverse spaces and specialize in specific areas (agriculture, education, disability). They are local experiments that are sometimes organized informally and spontaneously. It can be difficult to grasp their significance fully because their stakeholders can only be identified through detailed field research. They mostly come from working-class and challenging social backgrounds.

## Urban Commons: Theoretical Perspectives

Urban commons are not only characterized by their location or their concentration in cities (Susser and Tonnelat 2013) but also by (a) the construction of a common purpose capable of motivating stakeholder cooperation, (b) participatory systems to ensure users are included in joint deliberation and joint decision-making activities, and (c) a vision of urban areas as a communal space where individuals can create urban commons.
Urban commons emerged during a relatively recent phase of the debate about commons (Festa 2016). Their genealogy is fairly specific, forming part of the new commons that Hess proposed to map (Hess 2008). The concept was developed in Europe where several cities witnessed the development of shared management practices. In Italy, the 2011 movement to occupy cultural sites demanded the “right to the city” (Lefebvre 1996) that was supposed to produce an accessible public space. Many of these forms of urban resistance can be traced back to opposition to the confiscation of communal resources abandoned or reused speculatively (cinemas, theaters, sites for living and producing). They shone a light on how physical and symbolic urban spaces are used and questioned local governance systems and the link between citizenship rights and those relating to urban life (Gervais-Lambony 2001; Lussault and Lévy 2013). The focus was no longer on who owned the space but the function that space should have in society (Rodotà 2016).

The resources used included public or private property (parks, gardens, streets, squares, infrastructure), intangible commodities (the air), and immaterial commodities (intellectual property, information networks, social networks, cultural values and those relating to heritage). The particularity of urban commons is that they are deployed in places where certain resources are highly sought after (i.e., sites with high land and property prices, a variety of uses, or a high population density). Harvey (2012, 80) maintains that they display the same contradictions as the other commons but “in highly concentrated form.”

As recalled in chapter 1, how a resource is managed is more important than its type (Bollier and Helfrich 2015). At the heart of urban commons are heterogeneous communities with open and fluid dividing lines that are sometimes very changeable. This distinguishes them from the more typical commons that were studied in great detail by Ostrom and the Bloomington School (Ostrom 1990). These urban communities form through a process of pooling their resources and can evolve in both time and space (Festa 2016). Within the community, commitment to a place can sometimes vary: small groups run the common on a day-to-day basis, while larger groups enjoy some of its uses and participate in its collective management in a more ad hoc manner. Different interests can therefore coalesce around managing commons. Some more complex urban commons involve different interest groups (civic, private, institutional) and therefore require intersectoral collaboration and long-term processes to achieve true participatory governance (Kip 2015).

## African Commons Embodied by Social, Cultural, and Technological Spaces

Little detailed research exists about African urban commons (Besson 2018; Cléré 2018). We propose dividing the urban commons we studied into two types, although the line separating them remains porous: predominantly
social or cultural urban commons, on the one hand, and urban commons for technological innovation and production, including fab labs, on the other.

We interviewed people from 11 social and cultural spaces (map 4.1) and 13 fab labs (map 4.2) between January and April 2017, as well as between December 2021 and May 2022. These urban sites were chosen because of the representative nature of their approach and their stage of development.

First, we examine experiences of the social and cultural spaces in Sub-Saharan Africa studied, and then we analyze urban commons for technological innovation and production.

## Social and Cultural Urban Commons: Public Spaces and Hybrid Cultural Sites

Urban commons that are predominantly social and cultural in nature focus on welfare. They use art, sport, gardening, and urban agriculture as vehicles for

<figure><img src="image_14.png" /><figcaption>**Map 4.1** Social and Cultural Spaces Studied</figcaption></figure>

Source: World Bank.
<figure><img src="image_15.png" /><figcaption>**Map 4.2** Fab Labs Studied</figcaption></figure>

Source: World Bank.

forging social ties within neighborhoods. In so doing, they address some of the social needs yet to be tackled. Hardly any creative or cultural industries are managed by government bodies in Sub-Saharan Africa, despite access to culture being considered “a way for citizens, and in particular young people, to make their voices heard in the public spaces, and thus reinforces democratic participation” (European Commission and Enabel 2021, 7). Public infrastructure for amateur sport remains insufficient,² despite it playing a part in maintaining public order, preventing crime, and improving young people’s health.³ Finally, and without overstating their importance in terms of the food insecurity facing African cities (Davies et al. 2021), gardening and urban agriculture do have economic worth and create employment, as well as being socially valuable (Rutt 2007).

Social and cultural urban commons in Sub-Saharan Africa fall within two main categories: public spaces used by local people, on the one hand, and spaces specifically focusing on art and artists, on the other.
In public spaces used by local people, art, sport, and gardening are deployed as vehicles for forging social ties within a neighborhood. These are public places local people can access (squares, streets, gardens, playing fields) that have been occupied by collaborative initiatives (box 4.1). They are places people pass through without necessarily stopping (Joseph 1998). Local communities in Africa struggle to plan, implement, and support these kinds of spaces, not least because of the fragmentation of cities (Navez-Bouchanine 2002) that has led to urban wastelands, vacant lots, and rubbish dumps. These public spaces are “fundamental urban materials” (Secchi 2006) for the people who take possession of them. Abandoned by the public authorities, these spaces can be occupied by groups who

BOX 4.1

Examples of Public Urban Commons Accessible to
Local People

The Kër Thiossane Villa for Art and Multimedia School of Commons in Dakar houses a fab lab (Defko), as well as an artistic garden and a community garden. The space was created in 2002 in the Sicap neighborhood on the site of an abandoned public garden that had become a rubbish dump. The artistic garden was designed and created in 2014 by Emmanuel Louisgrand, the founder of this space. The experimental hub hosts many projects run by different people (workshops, gatherings, exhibitions). The community garden was created in 2016 to provide permaculture and urban micro-gardening training for young women.

In Burkina Faso, the Reemdogo 1 garden of music was created in 2004 in the Gounghin neighborhood of Ouagadougou as a shared garden where musicians from the neighborhood hold intimate local concerts. The space is managed by the local authorities, groups of musicians, and concert organizers. This initiative inspired the creation of the Reemdogo 2 arts and culture garden in 2018. The aim of both these spaces is to develop artistic endeavors (sculpture and music) and create neighborly bonds between artists, audiences, individuals, and businesses operating in the cultural sector through communal activities and programs.

In Dakar, the local authorities took action to refurbish some abandoned or poorly maintained public spaces (the rubbish dump in Pikine Ouest and the bus station in Rufisque). It let local groups define new public uses for these spaces. A site focusing on sport and local young people was therefore created in the district of Icotaf 1 in Pikine Ouest. At the bus station, new social areas were created, such as mobile food stands (*gargotières*) and spaces for chatting or resting.

As in Ouagadougou, the Dassasgho fitness trail was dreamed up and created by those who live in the neighborhood, near the Jeunesse high school. This space is used by local children and young people from primary school age to university, as well as by older people. The latter go there to meet and chat under the tree, recalling the role of the traditional village “talking” palaver tree.
develop them for communal uses focusing on sport, food production, and culture. The principal goal of collective appropriation of a place in this manner is to make it a public space where local people can stop, move around, and participate in the life of the space. Above all, it is about creating a connection between the lived urban experience and the “normal processes of existence” (Dewey 2005).

Spaces that focus on art offer artists a temporary residence in exchange for their time working with the community and their efforts to bring art closer to the city (box 4.2). In Sub-Saharan Africa, these spaces often take the form of

BOX 4.2

Examples of Spaces Focusing on Art and Artists

The Ishyo Arts Centre, created by eight women in Rwanda in 2007, aims to "reimagine a brutalized humanity."ª It was created in response to a lack of cultural spaces in Rwanda. In the beginning, it operated as a mobile library that "took children hostage just as history had taken the population hostage." It aimed to construct a collective imagination from diverse stories. Once the project had permanent premises, the space was opened up to local artists, who were given free residences. The space is managed communally by the founders and the artists.

Terra Alta, on the outskirts of Accra, was created by the artist Elisabeth Efua Sutherland in 2017. This site provides a space for a number of artistic endeavors with a rehearsal room, three artist residences, a gallery, a library, and a theater. A cafe and two shared gardens have just been added. It aims to encourage local artists, residents, young people, and children to mingle and create, practice, and experiment. The space was developed by volunteer residents and artists.

The Kipaji Lab in Kenya is a cultural hub aiming "to decolonialize the African continent through visual storytelling."ᵇ It brings together artists, campaigners, teachers, and researchers. Training courses on screenwriting and stage production are provided, and material is shared with a view to initiating joint visual projects.

Numerous cultural centers stage festivals to promote the work of their resident artists. These initiatives are organized by spaces that focus on artists and can be adapted to public spaces open to local people so as to reach a wider audience. The KLA ART initiative run by the 32° East Ugandan Art Trust in Uganda is a good example of this approach. Its artistic festival exhibits work in public spaces across the city on an ad hoc basis with the aim of "transform[ing] relationships between artist and audience," by reflecting on issues surrounding "ownership and collectivity."ᶜ Another example is Assalamalekoum in Mauritania. This organization stages the annual Assalamalekoum Festival in Nouakchott. Alongside artistic performances, workshops, and training sessions, opportunities for discussion are organized with the local population to make art and artistic endeavors more accessible to a wider audience.

<footnote>a. Carole Karemera at the international conference on "Cultural Third Spaces? Towards New Means of Cooperation Between France and Africa," May 16–18, 2022, Friche La Belle de Mai, Marseille.</footnote>

<footnote>b. Quotation from Kipaji Lab's website. Available at https://kipajilab.com/.</footnote>

<footnote>c. Quotation from KLA ART's website. Available at https://klaart.org/about/.</footnote>
cultural centers aiming to connect art with its audiences. Such hybrid spaces (Besson, forthcoming) have emerged in response to a need for cultural facilitation (Guillon and Saez 2019) where users can become active stakeholders in the cultural program, not simply passive consumers of it (Blandin et al. 2017; Zask 2003). Art is used as a vehicle for viewing political and societal transitions through the reappropriation, reimagination, and redefinition of African culture—past, present, and future. These spaces are also drivers of specific learning processes: peer to peer, citizen empowerment, interdisciplinarity, and knowledge hybridization (Andriantsimahavandy et al. 2020).

*Breathing new life into public spaces through communal use*

Public spaces are a relatively recent development in Africa. They remain embryonic in many cities and are principally used for private purposes (residential use, informal economic activities) because of the inherent precariousness of life (Dahou 2005) and land speculation (Leimdorfer 1999; Steck 2006). Urban commons are developing social and cultural activities in the same spaces but on the fringes of such private uses. As such, they are exploring a form of urban life that has a foot in both camps (Durang 2000), promoting both social and functional diversity. These commons follow the entrepreneurial approach championed by their founders.

Urban commons can be developed on vacant lots (the Reemdogo 2 garden of arts and culture, the Dassasgho fitness trail in Ouagadougou) or rubbish dumps (the Kër Thiossane community and artistic gardens, the Pikine Ouest playing fields in Dakar) that they have reclaimed. They can also play a part in restoring public buildings. The Ishyo Arts Centre was set up in the former canteen of Rwanda's welfare department.

Africa's urban commons occupy public spaces as if they were a public “stage” (Habermas 1962), as well as an artistic one. The urban festivals organized by some groups are an illustration of this. The KLA ART festival staged by the 32° East Ugandan Art Trust exhibits photos in shipping containers in a number of public spaces in Kampala. In an interview with France's *Libération*ª newspaper in 2018, Carole Karemera, cofounder of the Ishyo Arts Centre in Rwanda, explained how the mobile theater had been able to occupy streets that had been the “theater of atrocities in the past” where “people were killed, watched people being killed, or simply closed their windows.” The Kipaji Lab in Kenya uses urban spaces as classrooms and places for learning.

Africa's social and cultural urban commons therefore sit at the crossroads between two of the functions that characterize public spaces: sociability in the sense of a “village community” (i.e., acquaintances, neighborhood relationships, and work relationships) (Lofland 1998) and the reciprocal observation of others and their behavior (Cornélis 2020; Goffman 2008 [1963]). At Kër Thiossane in Senegal, the women from the community garden say that before this project, they did not know one another and shared little of themselves. Carole Karemera,
from the Ishyo Arts Centre, says of street theater: “People still aren’t used to it so they say: ‘Who can see me? Who’s there? If I laugh, who will see me laugh?’ People are watching themselves watching a performance.”⁵

Although some commons occupy public spaces, private and public categories are so permeable that private places can also be used for communal purposes. Terra Alta in Ghana has been built on land belonging to the grandmother of its founder, the artist Elisabeth Efua Sutherland. Today, it welcomes a diverse local audience (artists, children, the public, residents, and passersby).

### Transforming the audience's relationship with art

The principal goal of African cultural spaces is to change the public's relationship with art and see art as working for citizen's desires and needs. Through the buses run by the Ishyo Arts Centre in Rwanda that crisscrossed various districts, art was perceived as a tool for rebuilding society. It encouraged a process of cocreating a positive collective imagination with those living in those areas, particularly children. Each block of houses had an “ideas box” so that needs and aspirations could be heard. Each box was marked with the words “if it’s in your head, it’s in our program.”

The way in which the public's relationship with the arts has been transformed is also evidenced through artists' desire for their work to be seen outside typical exhibition areas like galleries. The Reemdogo 2 garden of arts and culture in Ouagadougou focuses on promoting the work of local artists in public places that can be accessed by local people.

Using a different approach but with the same purpose, the first KLA ART festival in 2014 in Uganda, organized by the 32° East Ugandan Arts Trust, distributed 12 shipping containers around Kampala. Each container represented an exhibition space, with the aim of changing how the public sees art by taking it beyond the usual locations for art exhibitions. The festival's website explains that KLA ART is interested in “non-traditional audiences and artists.” Its goal is to “transform Kampala into a living work of art,” making the people its main protagonists so as to consider “the meaning of collective ownership, our identities, our town, our environment, our past, and our future.”

## Urban Commons for Technological Innovation and Production: Fab Labs in Sub-Saharan Africa

The main function of urban commons used for technological innovation and production is to stimulate innovation processes by drawing on collective intelligence methods, experimentation, and prototyping. This category includes a broad spectrum of spaces that use different and therefore potentially confusing terminology—makerspaces, fab labs, open labs, hackerspaces, Techshop, living lab, and coworking (Berrebi-Hoffmann, Bureau, and Lallement 2018). The dividing lines between these different spaces are sometimes tenuous (Capdevila 2016; Gandini 2015). The technological urban commons in Sub-Saharan Africa we identified
and studied in detail define themselves as fab labs that are part of the makerspace family. Merindol et al. define the latter as “public community spaces where those who are passionate about technology can implement creative projects, exchange ideas, and learn in an environment which is often digital and designed to be open to user appropriation or reappropriation” (Merindol et al. 2016, 24).

A fab lab is a physical public collaborative space. It gives a community of nonspecialists access to sophisticated digital machines (computer-assisted design software [CAD], laser cutters, computer numerical control [CNC] milling machines, 3D printers, vinyl cutters) to design, learn, prototype, produce, and test objects or software projects or even produce them on a small scale (Bouvier-Patron 2015; Eychenne 2012; Morel and Le Roux 2016; Mortara and Parisot 2016; Rumpala 2014). The aim is to provide a production workshop in the heart of the city (Piller, Weller, and Kleer 2015; Rumpala 2014). Use of the digital tools is shared by all concerned so that anyone can make something themselves or with others (do it yourself—DIY, or do it with others—DIWO). Items produced in fab labs share the open-source philosophy and are therefore not covered by copyright.

Fab labs are makerspaces that have generally signed the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Fab Charter (Fonda and Canessa 2016) drawn up by the Fab Foundation, an organization launched by Neil Gershenfeld, who founded the first space of this kind at the beginning of the 2000s. These production workshops can be found in both public places (universities, schools, urban spaces) and private ones (private premises, businesses). Some are open to all (using an open-lab format) without membership, while access to others is reserved for paying members. Users of fab labs come from very diverse backgrounds. They are citizens, researchers, school pupils, students, artists, and businesses.

Today, fab labs are used by large firms as part of their digital transformation process. New ideas are prototyped with a view to defining their future positioning. Local communities also support fab labs to promote digital and social inclusion in their local area.

Numerous studies have categorized the spaces that have emerged in Western countries on the basis of their legal systems, target audiences, studio type, and funding methods (Bottollier-Depois et al. 2014; Eychenne 2012; Lô 2017; Merindol et al. 2016). The following observations have been made. In terms of economic models, many spaces offer services that are either free or subject to a fee (access to a space, training). This makes them hybrid models. At the same time, for many fab labs, the aim is to support the people behind projects and guide them toward entrepreneurship, particularly by proposing a series of training and support sessions (Browder, Aldrich, and Bradley 2017; Fonda and Canessa 2016; Mortara and Parisot 2016; Rayna and Striukova 2021; Stacey 2014).
Fab labs have also been developed in Sub-Saharan Africa, alongside the emergence of other spaces for entrepreneurship and incubation (Cunningham and Cunningham 2016; De Beer et al. 2017). The success of this movement is intrinsically linked to the fact that these places have been developed as urban commons (Mboa Nkoudou 2017). They are therefore enhancing an ecosystem that can address the challenges facing African cities, particularly those connected to population growth. They are also contributing to responding to Africa's digital needs that have continued to increase over recent years (Ninot and Peyroux 2018). Fab labs are therefore agile and innovative facilities that, by judiciously and effectively placing digital technology at the very heart of their model, can provide part of the answer to many challenges.

This movement has sparked the interest of public and private international stakeholders that view fab labs as a new lever for accelerating the development of growth areas in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly jobs for young people. In 2016, the Organisation internationale de la francophonie (OIF) (International Francophone Organization) highlighted the dynamism of digital production spaces in Africa supporting the creation of digital common goods (OIF and Idest 2016). Other large international organizations, such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and nongovernmental organizations, such as Terre des hommes, are involved in creating fab labs. African fab labs are also supported by large firms and European support mechanisms: the Orange Foundation in Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, the Arab Republic of Egypt, Madagascar, Senegal, and Tunisia and the European Union's Horizon 2020 program (Cousin et al. 2017).

We have focused on 13 fab labs in particular: BabyLab (Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire), BloLab (Cotonou, Benin), Defko Ak Niep (Kër Thiossane) (Dakar, Senegal), DoniLab (Bamako, Mali), FabLab Espace Créatif (Djibouti, Djibouti), FabLab Winam (Kisumu, Kenya), GreenLab (Akure, Nigeria), HarHub (Hargeisa, Somalia), Makerere Innovation and Incubation Center (Kampala, Uganda), OuagaLab (Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso), Sahel Fablab (Nouakchott, Mauritania), Twende Hub (Arusha, Tanzania), and WoeLab (Lomé, Togo).

## The key role of founders and forming a team

The people behind these spaces play a special role in the African fab labs we studied. They organize the space, create teams, and set up partnerships and funding. They often have prior professional experience in engineering or information technology (IT), for example. Their motives are altruistic, and they often open fab labs in their own homes. They are sometimes supported by online training in the form of massive online open courses. They benefit from peer-to-peer discussions with other fab managers, particularly at conferences (box 4.3). They are generally supported in the running of their space by teams of volunteers who have often studied at the same university as the founder.
BOX 4.3

BabyLab in Côte d'Ivoire

BabyLab was founded in Côte d'Ivoire in 2014 by Guiako Obin and a dozen of his computer scientist friends. It is the first Ivorian fab lab to become part of the MIT network. The founder wanted to create a place for socializing and digital development for local residents and children who face uncertainty, poverty, and crime. With a background in information technology (IT), and having previously worked as a developer, he took the massive online open course on digital technology run by the Institut Mines-Télécom Business School and set up BabyLab at his home in the working-class district of Abobo ("Baby" refers to Abidjan). His goal is to support potential technological innovation in the neighborhood and provide training sessions that meet the needs of the local area. Thanks to his commitment, BabyLab not only is listed as an MIT fab lab but has also been certified by the Orange Foundation as a solidarity fab lab.

His fab lab is enabling a wide variety of people from every part of society (children in school and those who are not, young men and women following social reintegration schemes and those who are not, organizations for young people, artisans, schools, social centers, local communities, cooperatives, and village communities) to learn about digital technology (through training sessions on coding, electronics, and robotics). They can also learn how to use tools in their professional lives (such as furniture production using tools like 3D printers and CNC machines), develop projects (prototyping), and recycle IT waste via the circular economy. For example, the fab lab runs a Kid Lab program for children ages 8 to 15 during school hours or during their free time to encourage them to tinker and start coding using Arduino kits and Jerry computers.

The founder is now executive director of the space. He is working on creating a network of fab labs in Côte d'Ivoire, and he advises local governments on technological projects with the potential to transform the country. His work is not limited to BabyLab itself. His close relationship with the Orange Foundation, for example, has led to the "Carré lumineux" project (creation of a "smart classroom" with lighting provided by solar panels for pupils from the village of N'gorankro, 50 kilometers from Abidjan, which is not connected to the electricity network). The "Caravane Jeunesse Numérique" program also seeks to raise awareness about entrepreneurship among people living in the country's most isolated regions, in collaboration with the Ivorian Ministry for the Digital Economy.

BabyLab was particularly active during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Driven by its creativity and agility, 300 pedal-operated handwashing stations were produced and distributed to schools and public spaces, as well as 3,000 face shields for health care staff and customer-facing sales staff.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, fab managers are now key players in the fields of digital development involving the employment of young people and the urban transition. They act as an interface between their organizations, the media, and potential partners. Having worked on the ground and proven their leadership skills, they are natural activists for digital technology in their various countries. It should be noted that very few women belong to this network.

***The prominent position of digital technology***

Fab labs in Sub-Saharan Africa have digital and technological equipment that uses open-source software, mainly small tools and simple computers and printers. Open-source software and material such as Scratch and Arduino are often provided (Fagbohoun 2016) (box 4.4). More consequential equipment, such as 3D printers, depends on financing being available.

Fab labs that have received external support from the beginning, such as FabLab Espace Créatif (Djibouti), created in December 2019, are often better equipped, but they remain rare. Supported and funded by the IOM, this fab lab was initially equipped with five 3D printers, a large CNC milling machine, six computers, a 3D scanner, a laser engraver and cutter, a Dremel tool, and enough consumables to last a year.

Generally speaking, fab managers must innovate if they are to acquire equipment. They draw on local and international partnerships to salvage equipment that can be used to create new computers (like the Jerry computers deployed in schools). In this respect, fab labs implement creative, frugal, inexpensive, and easy-access solutions founded on the principle of recycling.

BOX 4.4

## The Digital Creativity of African Fab Labs

African fab labs, like their Western counterparts, use open-source equipment and software that are therefore very inexpensive or even free. However, in some instances, they have taken this approach even further, using the equipment to create new digital materials. Arduino microcontrollers (small, inexpensive open-source circuit boards combined with a microcontroller to create devices interacting with their environment) are widespread. For example, this device can be used to control a field irrigation or livestock surveillance system remotely via an app. Raspberry Pi nano computers (low-cost computers the size of a credit card) are also used in agriculture, health, home automation, and communication (Piuzzi 2021). Jerry computers were also created in African fab labs. These computers are made from recycled information technology equipment reassembled in a 20-liter container (a jerrycan). They are widely used in education. Finally, some places like WoeLab in Togo can use a 3D printer to replicate at least half the parts for another 3D printer so as to provide other fab labs, for example, with this kind of equipment (the RepRap [Replication Rapid prototype] project).
There are many illustrative examples. For example, French companies, includ-
ing Société Générale, provide BabyLab (Côte d'Ivoire) with IT waste. BloLab
(Benin) has a similar arrangement via IT donations from international organi-
zations. OuagaLab (Burkina Faso) has received equipment from French fab labs
(Artilect, ElectroLab, and LabFab).

Shaping African Cities through the Prism of Urban
Commons

African cities are developing rapidly and often informally. They are looking for new urban models and ways to construct a city that are specific to Africa (Chenal 2015). Faced with such a task, exactly how a city is fashioned day to day by those who live there needs to be understood. The initiatives described above suggest that, in the field of urban development, a route to collective and participatory methods for recycling and managing local resources does exist. The role of residents in shaping cities is an age-old theme. Our contribution is to analyze how urban commons, and the men and women who create and sustain them, can participate in shaping cities in Sub-Saharan Africa differently. In this final section, we consider what urban commons produce and what functions they fulfill, as well as the strategies they are developing to make themselves sustainable and expand. Finally, we take a look ahead, exploring two possible visions of how commons might contribute to the cities of the future.

Multifunctionality Built on Innovative Approaches to Education

All the urban commons we studied in Sub-Saharan Africa champion the values of ecological and social sustainability, as well as commitment to the local groups involved. Their role as intermediaries connecting diverse people, disciplines, scales, and worlds is essential. They also adopt experimentation and risk-taking. They develop innovative teaching practices by drawing on the dynamics of collective intelligence. This kind of upskilling enables groups to develop sustainable solutions to environmental and social challenges.

Innovative educational practices

The old African adage that “it takes a village to raise a child” is testament to the communal approach to education and training for young people in Africa. Hybrid African spaces employ learning methods that are both non-formal (noninstitutionalized methods aimed at a specific group using ad hoc tools according to need) and informal (all other noninstitutionalized forms of education) (Andriantsimahavandy et al. 2020).
Informal education covers the sociocultural aspects of a child's life: "It embraces the formation of character as much as the development of physical aptitudes, the acquisition of moral qualities, and the acquisition of knowledge and techniques required for life in all its many respects" (Andriantsimahavandy et al. 2020). Informal education is also described as "traditional" or "original" (Ngakoutou 2004). Traditional education is one of the characteristics of African villages and the rural world more widely, but the urban milieu does not lend itself to this community-based traditional education. They are "two types of society, two types of existence and culture, and consequently two types of people. On the one hand, the village, the rural milieu, where society is created alongside the individuals of which it is composed. . . . On the other, the city, the urban milieu, where society is made by members who feel united not by the natural ties of family but by the artificial bonds of work" (Elungu 1987, 124).

Urban commons are seeking to invent new teaching and educational models, reconciling the urban milieu with the sociocultural dimensions of traditional education. WoeLab (Togo) alludes to "new spaces for learning for young people."⁶ For the founders of all these spaces, such educational approaches are necessary "to encourage resilience and the ability to reinvent oneself," in the face of the environmental, social, demographic, democratic, and economic challenges confronting the continent (Andriantsimahavandy et al. 2020, 30).

Skills need to be acquired in four areas (Andriantsimahavandy et al. 2020): problem solving and solution finding, creativity, cooperative work and empowerment, and leadership and entrepreneurialism. Urban commons (box 4.5) and the individuals of which they are composed who are actively engaged in finding local solutions to sustainable development acquire these skills via "blending" (Serres 1992), interdisciplinarity, knowledge hybridization, and the horizontality of exchanges.

## Clear environmental and social functions

Urban commons sit at the crossroads between several functions. They combine environmental and social activities with educational work and action to spread the message about the collective aim being pursued. In terms of the environment (box 4.6), African urban commons can have a clear ecological aim: recycling, responsible consumption and supply, short food supply chains, or eco-friendly urban agriculture (permaculture, organic farming). Urban commons are one of the key elements required for sustainable local development in a given area (Mboa Nkoudou 2020). They are part of a rationale of circular urbanism through intensified collective uses of urban spaces and renovation (vacant lots, wastelands, rubbish dumps) or recycling (schools, public buildings) of existing sites and infrastructure. Some urban commons propose activities for those championing projects supporting the ecological transition.
BOX 4.5

Educational Skills and Practices Developed within African
Urban Commons

**Problem solving and solution finding:** Be it through design prototyping (FabLab Espace Créatif in Djibouti) or face shields during the pandemic (FabLab Winam in Kenya, OuagaLab in Burkina Faso, BabyLab in Côte d'Ivoire, and BloLab in Benin), fab labs employ design thinking and design sprint methods (Knapp, Zeratsky, and Kowitz 2017).

**Creativity** by developing a new collective imagination and desirable narratives and futures: In Rwanda, the Ishyo Arts Centre works on trauma related to the genocide in the 1990s. In Kenya, Kipaji Lab considers *Africanness* and the decolonization of Africa. In Nigeria, GreenLab is developing a narrative around local solutions and independence from imported products, as well as young people's abilities to invent and develop innovative solutions through prototyping.

**Cooperative work:** Exchanging a myriad of skills between people from diverse backgrounds and interdisciplinarity (Labrune 2018) are at the heart of various projects. The Ishyo Arts Centre in Rwanda and Terra Alta in Ghana use theater, music, stories, and photography. The founder of Terra Alta emphasizes the notion of "modularity" across the site and the hybrid nature of the spaces, stakeholders, and arts. The Réseau franco-phone des fablabs d'Afrique de l'Ouest (Francophone Network of West African Fab Labs) is illustrative of the desire for cooperation at the regional level.

**Empowerment, leadership, and entrepreneurship:** Developing these skills is the principal goal of many urban commons. Artistic training is provided at some sites: screenwriting lessons at Kipaji Lab (Kenya), awareness raising and artistic training at Terra Alta (Ghana). The Kër Thiossane community garden (Senegal) provides women with permaculture training. Central to the work of fab labs is the cultural integration of digital technology among young people from disadvantaged neighborhoods (Liotard 2020). Numerous workshops are therefore organized for children and teenagers, both boys and girls, during school hours to introduce them to programming and making simple connected objects: Dekfo (Senegal), OuagaLab (Burkina Faso) through the Jerry school program, and GreenLab (Nigeria) through the "One Student, One Arduino," "Katrina Golden Book," and "Mickey Mickey" programs. DoniLab (Mali), in collaboration with the Institut Mines-Télécom de Paris (Paris Engineering and Management Graduate School), runs a massive online open course on "How to Program an Object with Arduino" aimed particularly at students from Mali's School of Engineering, Architecture, and Urban Planning.