Tinkering with tenure: the community land trust experiment in Voi, Kenya

The paper shows that despite provisions for strong community control, the CLT model has not been able to achieve the above goals. A variety of reasons are given for the model's poor performance, including the legal complexity of the model, a lack of on-going governmental support for the model and the project, and the divisive issue of land allocation for remaining parcels of land within the settlement. The paper concludes that on-going experimentation with the CLT model is not advisable at this time. Rather, the paper recommends that planners involved in informal settlement upgrading need to understand and recognize informal or customary institutions and try to incorporate them into de jure institutions in order to enhance tenure security and better manage urban land (Reforming urban land policies and institutions in developing countries. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1992; Habitat Int 25 (2001) 415).