councilors, of the administration and of rich speculators and when these gains are insufficiently redistributed that the population strongly protests.

# **7. CONCLUSION**

## **Improving access to land in African cities: A highly sensitive issue**

Access to land in urban and peri-urban areas and the rural hinterland of African cities is a highly sensitive issue in a context characterized by widespread poverty and a high rate of urban population growth. The dysfunctional land sector is an impediment to investments and economic development, with major consequences for living standards, social peace and political stability. Inappropriate policy directions and loss of control over land delivery represent a major challenge and threat to governments.

The government of Mali has been aware of this problem at least since the early 1990’s,<sup>76</sup> but has not rolled out successful measures to ensure more efficient and equitable access to land and limit speculation. The March 22, 2012 military coup was, to a certain extent, fuelled by a general dissatisfaction due to inappropriate public land policy, gaps and weaknesses of land governance and corruption in land administration as evidenced by street protests and the tough resistance of communities and households threatened by evictions during the months that preceded the coup. Nationwide debate in the press concerning malpractice in land management and corruption in land administration has intensified after the coup.

Whereas the stakeholders involved in land markets acknowledge the shortcomings of the land policies implemented over the past two decades and the widening gap between household incomes and the cost of accessing land, elected representatives, government officials, decision-makers and professionals seem helpless to address this problem. This is not only due to divergent interests among them, or the lack of appropriate tools or political will. It is also the result of insufficient understanding of the procedures for accessing land and of the diversity and complexity of the mechanisms and dynamics involved in land delivery.

## **How have land market issues in Bamako been analyzed and addressed to date?**

The synthesis report of the Land Convention<sup>77</sup> ( _États Généraux du Foncier – EGF_ ) of 2008-2009 identifies the main constraints and problems that compromise the improvement of land governance in Mali and especially those related to access to land. Four main issues have been identified and discussed: the legal, regulatory and institutional frameworks; the harmonization of state domain management with sectorial development policies; land management tools and procedures; and social participation and capacity building in land administration. It is, to date, the most comprehensive consensual diagnosis of land and tenure issues and policy in Mali. However: (i) it does not identify the structural causes of the problems encountered; (ii) their dynamics over time are not addressed in the report, which rather gives a snapshot of land management and administration problems; (iii) the relationships and interactions between the sets of issues are not discussed in the report as if they were independent from one another; (iv) for each set of issues identified, the report proposes a series of recommendations (more than 60), but neither their compatibility nor their contradictions are considered and they are not prioritized according to their relative importance and timing for implementation.

Our objective with the present study is not to propose another set of technical or policy measures to improve the functioning of land markets, but rather to propose a grid of analysis for a systemic analysis of the various modes of access to land. We believe that it is only through such a systemic analysis that policy makers may anticipate the consequences on the whole land delivery system of specific measures concerning any one of its components.

## **Access to residential land in Bamako relies on various land delivery channels and land markets, which coexist and frequently overlap**

> 76 _États Généraux du Foncier Rural_ (1992); _Conférence Nationale sur le Foncier_ (1994); _Forum régional de Bamako_ (2003). 77 Ministère du Logement, des Affaires Foncières et de l’Urbanisme, Commission Nationale d’organisation des États Généraux du Foncier (2010). États Généraux du Foncier. Rapport de synthèse (du 30 juin 2008 au 11 décembre 2009).

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