Participatory Inclusive Land Readjustment in Huambo, Angola

After a protracted period of conflict, Angola has been reconstructing its social and physical infrastructure and developing new policies and legislation to address the chronic poverty that the majority of families still live in. The four decades of war were characterized by land expropriation, forced removals, resettlement, and massive internal displacement of rural and urban populations.

This paper maps out one such experience and discusses its applicability in the Angolan context. The authors propose that an adaptation of a model of “land readjustment” or “land pooling” may be appropriate in the context of Angola’s current urban crisis. The paper presents two cases illustrating the introduction of land readjustment, one successful and the other not, with the aim of learning from and adapting the approach in future public land and settlement policies in Angola.