- Peace Building in Afghanistan through Settlement Regularization    1459 kb by    Popal, Abdul Baqi & Turkstra, Jan | jan.turkstra@unhabitat-afg.org    Short Outline This paper describes the incremental regularization of informal settlements and how communities and urban planners in Afghanistan are contributing to development and security. Abstract Peace Building in Afghanistan through Settlement Regularization Afghanistan is a country suffering from decades of conflict, but it is also a country in which its 29 millions inhabitants are trying to make a living. Urban areas are expanding rapidly (5.4% pr year) and informal settlements are inhabited by 70% of its population, mainly rural-urban migrants, returnees, Internally Displaced Persons, including demobilised fighters. These Informal areas are also the hiding place for insurgents and if Afghanistan and the International Community want to contribute to Peace Building those informal settlements are the key to achieve peace and development. The Governance and Development Support Programme (GDSP), implemented by UN-HABITAT, aims at an integrated community based approach to improve the living conditions of low-income families living in informal settlements in Kandahar city. Besides upgrading the programme is also aiming to increase the security of tenure in 2 stages: 1. Land and property registration and, if certain conditions are fulfilled, occupancy recognition by the Municipality. 2. Transfer of the land to the recognized occupants against a nominal fee (around 10% of the market value). The president of Afghanistan recently approved the transfer of Government owned land to the occupants. Around 12,000 parcels are in the process of registration. All land parcels are surveyed and measured and the data of the occupants, parcel size, quality of building and location are recorded into a Geographical Information System. The project contributes to the security and consolidation of the inhabitants of a large informal settlement benefiting some 100,000 people. Even more important is that the UN-Habitat approach of incremental regularization of informal settlements in Afghanistan is based on an agreements between the community and local-central Government. The ’People’s Process’ developed by UN-HABITAT aims to strengthen local Governance through an effective city-community partnership to achieve improved living conditions and security. Keywords Settlement Regularization, Peoples Process Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2010: Sustainable City - Developing World   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper