Afesis-corplan, with the support of Urban LandMark, is hosting a conference on Managed Land Settlement (MLS) on Wednesday, 10 March 2010 in Johannesburg.

Afesis-corplan and Urban LandMark have been working on a LANDfirst campaign. LANDfirst is both an approach to settlement development that emphasises incremental development, and an emerging network of civil society organisations campaigning for dignity through land. LANDfirst includes both accommodating people on land they have already settled (through the upgrading of informal settlements programme), and allowing people to settle on new land with basic services and tenure as a first step to longer term upgrading (which does not have any dedicated programme for implementation.)

The conference will review previous experiences of MLS and explore the possibility of implementing MLS in the present context. Afesis-corplan and ULM have commissioned research to look at previous attempts at MLS-like programmes, such as the Mayibuye Rapid Land Release programme in Gauteng, the Accelerated Managed Land Settlement programme in Cape Town, the 4 Peg Policy in Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality, and the Rural Housing programme in the Eastern Cape.

The conference will:

• Report back preliminary findings from the case study review exercise;
• Hear about existing initiatives that take a Managed Land Settlement perspective;
• Hear perspectives on how MLS-like projects could be financed; and
• Discuss how MLS could be promoted and supported in the presented context.