Project R-14533

Land entrepreneurship and the challenges of housing development: contribution of public and private actors in rapid urban development in the peri-urban areas of Lubumbashi (Research)

The city of Lubumbashi was largely built, urbanised and developed by GECAMINES (Union Minière du Haut-Katanga), formerly Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK), a colonial company, and the SNCC (Société Nationale de Chemin de fer au Congo) on behalf of the colonial authorities (Dibwe 2009). The city's economy influenced its demographic expansion at the time. It was a town with a system of migrant labour, as the Upper Katanga Mining Union did not yet feel able to bear the family burdens of black workers. To improve production, UMHK was obliged to settle the workers (Dibwe 2023). Today, Lubumbashi is a post-conflict area, where the population lives on an average of one dollar a day, with two main activities: artisanal mining and petty trading (Useni et al 2017). The city is undergoing rapid, unplanned urban expansion. This is caused by rapid population growth due to the rural exodus of the past two decades. Population growth has had a major impact on the population density of Lubumbashi as a whole. The increase was 76.4% in 16 years. This means that the city has experienced two movements at the same time, namely the densification of the built-up area and the expansion of the city. Land use is changing rapidly and there is a lack of urban planning, land use planning and management of land resources (Useni et al 2017). Due to this double movement, there is almost no cooperation between the urban planning and development agency and the land registry department in the allocation of plots, so the city is faced with the allocation of plots in swampy areas, under power lines or on the banks of rivers, and in peri-urban areas, the allocation of plots is almost haphazard. There is a mismatch between land use and the presence of public amenities, i.e. the proportion of the population without access to drinking water and electricity (Dibwe, 2021).

01 September 2023 - 31 August 2027