The urban land question in Africa: The case of urban land conflicts in the City of Lusaka, 100 years after its founding

•Land conflicts are becoming prevalent in the City of Lusaka.•Poor people seeking for shelter often invade vacant or idle land.•Well-resourced people sometimes hire poor people to invade land.•Access to urban land and housing is highly skewed towards those with resources.•Urban land question worsened by a weak land delivery system.

Pressure on urban land is growing in many cities across Africa and the developing world. This is creating various challenges around urban land administration, planning and development. Growing pressure on urban land is manifesting in various ways including the mounting urban land conflicts. In this paper we look at the urban land question in Lusaka, focussing on urban land conflicts. What we have found in this study is that the reportedly growing invasion of vacant or idle land in Lusaka is a more complex issue which involves not only the desperate urban poor looking for land to squat on, but also well-resourced groups, who sometimes hire poor people to invade the land on which they later develop residential and commercial properties. We argue in the paper that the prevalence of these conflicts points to the gap in the administration, planning and delivery of land and the accompanying services.