Enabling planned urban settlements through land readjustment - A case study from Kigali, Rwanda

Urbanisation in sub-Saharan Africa has been characterised by inadequate infrastructure services due to insufficient financing coupled with prohibitively expensive approaches to land acquisition from private owners. Land readjustment (LR) has been promoted as an approach that has the potential to overcome financial challenges but studies on LR design in the context of sub-Saharan Africa are scanty. Using Nunga LR project in Kigali, Rwanda, this study analyses the adopted LR model, highlighting its benefits towards enabling development of formal urban settlements and suggests improvements. The results show that Nunga LR model overcomes the challenge of assembling land for infrastructure, has resulted in development of settlements adjacent to the project area with similar standards, but faces drawbacks that include inadequate land and cash contributions, inequitable sharing of project costs, inadequate construction of roads, uncertainties, and conversion of land planned for green spaces and social infrastructure. Establishing equal land contribution ratio and a revolving fund, levying betterment charges, designating and subsidising plots for social infrastructure and social/affordable housing can help curbing those drawbacks. This study contributes to the discourse on the application of LR as an innovative approach to overcoming infrastructure dearth and enabling formal human settlements in rapidly urbanising countries. These findings have implications for urban planning in the context of cities in the global south, where the rate of urban growth is high but city authorities face constraints in timely providing infrastructure.