Why are there so many forced evictions in Nairobi, and how can the city fix them?

A new road in Nairobi, Kenya, is expected to move up to 30,000 residents of Kibera shantytowns. Bulldozers moved early in the morning as authorities continued to make a controversial decision to force people to leave. Kefa Otiso explains why forced evictions are so prevalent in Nairobi and what can be done to prevent them.

Why are forced evictions taking place in Nairobi?

They occur for many reasons. But the main ones are ambitious development plans, the high cost of land, an acute shortage of affordable housing and a lack of land rights.

Evictions occur when people do not lend or rent, or when they illegally or publicly occupy. private land. They also result from land conflicts – although some of them are criminalized through irregular or corrupt land transactions.

But the most obvious cases of forced eviction occur when the government recovers land for public purposes such as road building. This problem is not unique in Nairobi; it is widespread in many other African cities.

The exact number of evictions in Nairobi is not known. But they are quite common in the city, as have widely reported the newspapers. They should not be so widespread. The 2010 constitution protects individual rights and should reduce incidents of forced evictions in the city. But poor citizen awareness, high legal costs, unequal land access history, poor planning, high levels of corruption and inefficient land markets mean that evictions are continuing.

Are all expulsions legal? Some are legal, others are illegal.

Legal evictions use warnings and court orders to enforce the decision, which is enforced by armed police and bulldozers. In cases of illegal evictions, especially those involving corrupt land transactions, such subtleties are a luxury. Expulsions took place in the middle of the night, led by hired thugs, often with free destruction of property and attacks against the occupants.

These forced evictions, legal or illegal, are typical in the city. slum areas. They occur mostly unannounced during morning raids, when residents are either asleep or at work and are therefore less likely to resist. The last raid also took place in the early hours of the morning

What impact did they have?

By expelling people from their homes and denying them their right to legal process, forced evictions have a huge negative impact. the socio-economic well-being of people. They often lose their possessions and potential livelihoods without compensation, and have no other place to live.

Forced evictions also undermine local and national development by destroying accumulated social and economic networks and badets. Thus, displaced people often have to start and rebuild their lives from scratch in new places.

What does the government not do?

Kenya continues to face the lingering effects of nearly 70 years of British colonial rule. The colonial government voluntarily underinvested the housing of indigenous Kenyans by claiming that Africans were best suited to rural life. In reality, it was a ploy to ensure a sufficient supply of cheap African labor to European commercial farms in the former "White Highlands" of Kenya.

Moreover, the colonial government restricted Africans' access to Nairobi and put in and Asian access to the land of the city and other economic resources. As a result, the majority of the African population has settled in dangerous areas. These became the precursor of many modern slums and squatters who are vulnerable to forced evictions.

Although independence has legally changed many of these policies, their legacy persists, not least because the city's postcolonial governments have retained many urban remains. management tools, including forced evictions.

These policies have undermined African investments in their settlements because they have come to view the city as a temporary place of residence. Other African communities, such as the Nubian population, recruited into Sudan by the British army for the African rifle regiment, were deliberately settled on public land – which is part of the modern slum of Kibera. But as neither the British nor the independent Kenya gave the Nubians a land title until 2017, and even if it was only for a small part of the original land, the Nubians continue to remain stateless and landless for much of their history in Nairobi.

As a result, they have long been unable to expand their area or stop the growth of the shanty that surrounds them now. They, along with other residents of Kibera, endured numerous forced evictions.

Today, Nairobi is still in many ways a city with an elitist orientation that benefits mainly its relatively small and medium elites. While these elites often live in closed estates, the majority of the city's population is concentrated in slums and squatters at the center that lack basic services and services.

Are there lessons to be learned from other countries? are many.

First, Kenya needs to complete the creation of its national digital land registry. This will increase the transparency and efficiency of the city's land market, reduce corrupt land transactions and reduce forced evictions by reducing the number of land conflicts.

Second, more must be done to make the 2010 Constitution a reality. For example, citizens need to be better informed about their rights and responsibilities.

Third, recreate the municipal governments of Kenya which, under the 2010 Constitution, have been replaced by county governments. The municipal structure was similar to the US urban management system and is potentially more effective in managing the country's urban areas and creating more housing.

Fourthly, to make greater use of the planning and urban management experience of international actors – like the Last, Nairobi must make its political economy more inclusive, implement appropriate agrarian reform, domesticate its municipal planning and regulations related, and create a proactive slum and squatter.

This article appeared for the first time on The Conversation.