Africa

Generating revenue, strengthening local government planning capacities, improving living conditions, and promoting equitable and sustainable development in a rapidly urbanizing part of the world

African cities and regions face increasing pressure to adequately house growing populations and provide much-needed public services without straining limited finances, land, and water. Increasingly, leaders are pursuing land-based solutions to manage and finance urban development and land conservation outside of cities, but greater institutional capacity is needed to develop and implement new land policies throughout most of the continent.

The Lincoln Institute supports these efforts by building and mobilizing networks of experts and practitioners, conducting new research, working with local partners to develop and deploy curricula on the property tax, and fostering the exchange of knowledge and ideas with other regions of the world.

Land-Based Financing Tools

Working with the Development Action Group, South Africa’s National Treasury, and other partners, our policy dialogue series helped stakeholders converge on critical policies and development strategies to support the use of land-based financial tools that promote affordable housing and municipal fiscal health.

Property Tax

Through a partnership with the African Tax Institute at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, we are developing curricula on the property tax and land-based financing for fiscal health with a long-term goal of replicating this training model in other institutions throughout Anglophone Africa. The African Tax Institute’s working papers contain lessons on property taxation in nations such as Uganda and Tanzania, as well as countries in other parts of the world.

Global Dialogue

We work with global partners to facilitate dialogue between Africa and other developing regions. In particular, we apply lessons from Latin America, which began its rapid urbanization earlier than Africa but faces many of the same challenges.

Land Conservation

The Lincoln Institute’s International Land Conservation Network connects African civic and private organizations and people with peers around the globe to accelerate the protection and strengthen the management of land and natural resources.

Land Value Capture in South Africa

In addition to hosting the policy dialogue series through the National Land Value Capture Programme, the Lincoln Institute is working with the Development Action Group and South Africa’s National Treasury’s Cities Support Programme to produce resources for practitioners interested in employing innovative land value capture tools. Two reports, Bridging Divides: Building an Inclusionary Housing Policy in Cape Town and Legal Aspects of Inclusionary Housing in South Africa, outline legal, political, and practical strategies for implementing inclusionary housing in South Africa.

The town of Stellenbosch’s Inclusionary Zoning Policy is one of the partnership’s biggest successes thus far. Since its adoption, the policy has already led to the approval of over 900 new inclusionary housing units, with additional applications currently under review. A case study, Bridging Divides: Building an Inclusionary Housing Policy in Cape Town, details the extensive technical, political, and community engagement work that underpinned the policy’s development.