ABSTRACT
Security of tenure – or ‘the right of all individuals and groups to effective protection from the State against forced evictions’2 – is a major concern for hundreds of millions of slum dwellers and other poor people. The possibility that individuals, households or whole communities may be evicted from their homes at any time is a major safety and security threat in urban areas the world over. The following two chapters address a range of issues linked to the increasingly prominent and fundamental issue of security of tenure. The analysis explores a wide range of questions linked to secure tenure from the primary perspective of human rights and good governance, augmented by experiences in various countries. The chapters compare and contrast various initiatives taken by states and analysts on the question of secure tenure, and seek to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the most prevalent approaches taken to procure security of tenure throughout the world. More specifically, Chapter 5 explores the scope and scale of tenure insecurity in the world and trends surrounding tenure, while Chapter 6 provides a review of policies that have been adopted to address tenure concerns.
