dc.description.abstract |
For a city to grow and develop in the long term, it cannot disregard its environment. An ad hoc approach to
environmental issues is fragmentary, expensive and inefficient. For a city to be effective and efficient it must consciously
integrate the environment particularly on the urban fringes into its planning and management mechanisms. This paper
describes the impact that land ownership information management systems as applied by the various stakeholders have on
the general environmental planning based on a study of informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya. First, a survey was conducted
using a questionnaire to get an insight into the current situation of the informal land development sector in the study area.
Structured interviews were used at the settlement level to gain knowledge on the operations of land management and their
impacts on environmental planning in the study area. Finally, focus group discussions were conducted with the village elders
and headmen at the settlements to gain more insights on land ownership systems. Data for the study was analyzed
descriptively using descriptive statistics. From the study, it was established that there is poor security of land information due
to lack of back-ups in these settlements and information on land registration, registration of rights and rights holders is in
itself insufficient and does not address environmental planning. It was thus recommended that Nairobi’s Informal
Settlements Coordinating Committee should be remodeled into a more effective and participatory framework with regard to
collection and management of land information for environmental planning in informal settlements. |
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