80946 CITIES ALLIANCE CITIES ALLIANCE IN ACTION IN ACTION Expanding Land Tenure and Reducing Risk in Brazil’s Poorest Communities A decade ago, Brazil’s slums and informal settlements were estimated to have about 12 million substandard Project: Support for Land Tenure homes, which were shoddily constructed and lacked Regularisation and Natural Disaster Risk Prevention in Brazil’s Precarious Settlements, infrastructure and services. Their occupants did not including Toolkit legally own them, and their communities lacked natural disaster risk prevention plans. The Ministry of Cities Partners: Brazil’s Ministry of Cities, World Bank, was created in 2003 to carry out Brazil’s new urban UN-Habitat agenda, which included a new focus on land tenure Duration: 2004 - 2008 regularisation and risk prevention. Financing: USD 575,000 Brazil’s National Land Tenure Regularisation Programme aims to empower state and local Key Results: governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), • Facilitated dialogue between the national and local level on these topics and provide free legal counsel offices across the country • Built the capacity of local agents involved in to help (poor) residents gain property deeds—boosting land tenure regularisation and risk their land tenure security and helping end urban prevention segregation and discrimination on the basis of poverty. • Helped more than 2,000,000 low-income families gain property deeds The Cities Alliance and the World Bank supported the Ministry, marking the first collaboration in a fruitful • Prepare and deliver distance-learning courses (taken partnership between Brazil and the Cities Alliance. by 2,000 people), on sustainable land tenure and risk prevention; and The partnership with Cities Alliance helped the Ministry • Implement a system for monitoring and reporting of Cities to: on land tenure regularisation processes. • Create an online land tenure regularisation network that now has more than 15,000 participants “The partnership with the Cities Alliance (representing all 27 state governments, 500 has helped millions of Brazilians to realise municipalities, the Caixa federal savings bank’s their housing rights.� urban development divisions in all 27 state capitals, Celso Carvalho, Director of the Ministry of Cities’ Department of and 50 NGOs); Urban Land Affairs and Risk Prevention • Enforce the new urban legal order; • Publish local land tenure regularisation case reports, Scaling Up the Efforts compiling experiences from around the country; This partnership between the Cities Alliance and Brazil has succeeded in getting land tenure regularisation and • Establish a virtual library (www.cidades.gov.br) risk prevention in precarious settlements included in the containing legal texts, case reports, legislation, municipal urban development agenda. It has also models, and court decisions; enhanced communication between the Ministry of • Organise a seminar on the New Urban Legal Order; www.citiesalliance.org Cities and local agents, including in the more remote The toolkit was initially distributed to city officials and regions. And the success of the distance learning course members of the newly created network. Due to high led to more such courses (on other urban topics) that demand, it was reprinted in 2009 and has now been have reached more than 6,000 technicians and have distributed to all Brazilian municipalities, universities, supported mobilisation and knowledge-sharing efforts think thanks, NGOs, community organisations, and among professionals across the country. relevant Federal Government departments. The success of these activities prompted the government As of 2012, two million low-income families—residing to strengthen its financial commitment, allocating in 469 municipalities—had lodged land tenure claims. A nearly USD479 million to slum upgrading and land monitoring and evaluation system has also been regularisation efforts from 2004 to 2006. A new law incorporated into the Ministry of Cities’ information allowed free land tenure registrations, and an executive programme. order sped up the process of securing land tenure on federal property. The Cities Alliance support also led to the design of a Brazilian government programme that will invest nearly As a result of these efforts, within just two years, more USD500,000 to reduce risks in informal settlements by than a million low-income families, living in more than making hillside homes more stable. And in 2012, the 200 municipalities, had lodged land tenure claims. But Cities Alliance approved a new grant to help design the only a fifth of the claims had been recognised, and of National Monitoring System for Urban Settlement, those, only a third had been recorded. This highlighted a which will provide risk prevention data. need to do more to overcome the lack of legal and practical expertise among public agents charged with Lessons Learned carrying out regularisation procedures. Tracking the programme’s results enabled the Ministry to identify and address a bottleneck (the lack of To address these issues, the Cities Alliance expanded its expertise among public agents). Furthermore, capacity collaboration, enabling the Ministry to prepare a set of building and technical assistance initiatives are most publications targeting city officials, representatives of effective if they are regular and continuous. It was social movements, district attorneys, and community important to follow up the toolkits with training associations. It was envisioned that this toolkit would activities to help the recipients use the materials. help mobilise action and expand the scope and improve the efficiency of Brazil’s land tenure activities. The toolkit contained: • A handbook for local government and state managers, as well as non-governmental officials, with step-by-step instructions on: Land tenure regularisation processes; how to prepare local regularisation plans and projects; and what administrative and legal measures to take; • A CD version of the virtual urban law library; • The textbook from the distance learning course; and • A primer on land tenure regularisation, using simple Land tenure regularisation is helping millions of low-income Brazilians secure language and many illustrations, to help community housing rights. associations, social movements, and residents. www.citiesalliance.org