Kabul : Urban Land in Crisis

Afghanistan is one of the poorest and longest suffering countries among members of the World Bank, and has been ravaged by chronic conflict and political instability. Afghanistan's infrastructure has been destroyed or degraded; its human resource base severely depleted; and its social capital eroded. Despite existing public administration structures, the majority of state institutions are only beginning to function effectively, and the economy and society have become fragmented. The purpose of this report is to provide policy guidance to the Government on how to manage three of the most important aspects of urban land management: i) development of urban areas using contemporary techniques of planning and regulation, and ii) the regularization of tenure in informal areas and iii) land rights dispute resolution. All three issues are intertwined since the regularization of tenure depends, in part, on the capacity to resolve land rights disputes, and the implementation of a realistic and affordable urban development plan requires a stable legal framework to establish land use rights. The rectification of the three issues is a necessary but not sufficient remedy for creating well function land and housing markets, a topic beyond the scope of this report.