Improving Urban Legal Frameworks For The Extension And Densification Of Cities (Cities Alliance Funding)

The proposed Guide will not dwell on the weaknesses of previous efforts at urban legal reform but will instead draw directly on the experience of people with extensive practical experience in the field.  It will highlight cases where particularly successful outcomes were achieved, with an identification of the factors that led to those outcomes.  It will also draw attention to problems that have been experienced, but again with a concerted attempt at understanding the factors that contributed to those problems.  Wherever possible it will draw on experiences from African countries, covering the range of legal traditions found on the continent.  In some cases lessons will also be identified from Latin American and Asian experience.  The Guide will have to be both written and presented in a manner that communicates clearly to people across disciplines.  Although it is aimed primarily at government officials and urban legal experts it must also be written in a way that is accessible to members of the public and civil society organizations.  It must also resonate with readers in countries with both the civil and common law traditions, i.e. the Anglo-, Franco- and Lusophone countries.  It will be published in English and French.  Should resources be available then it will also be translated into Portuguese.

A secondary objective for the Guide must be to support effective participation by civil society and the private sector in state-led law reform processes.

A third objective is that it will be a useful resource for the continent's schools of planning and law in their teaching of planning law and the achievement of this objective will be strengthened by the close association that the Urban Legal Guide development enjoys with the Association of African Planning Schools (‘AAPS').  The ACC is also closely linked to the recently established African Urban  Research Initiative and the Urban Legal Guide will be integrated into the work of that group of pre-eminent African urban research institutions.