The Advocacy Program HFHCI is an advocacy campaign and promotion of access to property and land
security of disadvantaged for the right to housing. Through its innovative project Solid Ground
worldwide, HFHCI intends to participate in reforms to access to land ownership in favor of
vulnerable groups, including rural women.
Indeed, HFHCI actor first plan on the ground continues to conduct operations to identify
communities to form coalitions of groups to conduct advocacy campaigns with authorities on rural
land security. This project for a period of 3 years should eventually enable the delivery of
6,000 village certificates to the applicants to facilitate their access to land. To this end,
the SIADES firm conducted a study on the identification of the problem of land and housing in
Ivory Coast in order to highlight all the problems related to land and housing.
The study was carried out in 16 localities of the 05 largest areas of the country (North, South,
East, West and Center) to identify the problems related to housing and land. It emerged after
the field investigations that the problems are related to ignorance of the texts and procedures
related to land. Added to this, the technical problems and financial difficulties are also part
of the challenges.
Regarding land issues for access to land, the study highlighted the shortage of urban land and
the problems associated with the customary allocation of land.
On the legal aspect, it should be noted that the difficulty of applying the 2013 legislative
decree, even if it is an advantage for the average citizen. In addition, studies have also
showed that the customary practices studies are also a factor depicting the inequality to access
to land, including the transfer of land by inheritance. The study also mentioned the problem of
rights issuance done in a symbolic manner and therefore appear to be illegally unsafe, the
recurrent problem of land selling business done without any title deeds for the buyers are all
issues deserving to be scrutinized . Therefore, it generally appears that the land access
difficulties are a sad reality in every community who has been the subject of this study.
The ceremony on identifying the problems of land and housing in Cote D’ivoire was held on Saturday, 18th of February 2017, in the town of Katiola, precisely at the Hambol hotel. Indeed, The meeting was attended by the administrative authorities, customary and mutual development of the region and the Hambol GBEKE community. Speaking on behalf of the Prefect of the Hambol region, the Prefect of the Department of Katiola, Mr.GNAHORE Ligui Pierre, General Secretary of the Prefecture of Katiola, said that this study helps provide legal tools for policy makers and useful for the public authorities to facilitate access to land titles and housing for all.
He thanked Habitat for Humanity Cote D’ivoire for the initiative which is in line with the Government and helping to reduce poverty and social inequality for a peaceful and lasting social cohesion.
The SIADES firm that exposed his study, allowed the audience to know the real problems related to land and housing, among others, lack of information and awareness of populations, difficult access to land because customary rights, inadequate technical and human resources of decentralized structures, the administrative burden and inequalities based on gender.
To these problems, few solutions have been proposed by the SIADES firm to land difficulties.
This included on the one hand for the state, the local governments and technical bodies to raise awareness, to simplify and to reduce the CDD acquisition procedures (Concession decision decree), to facilitate the easy access to CDD counters and carry out new allotments developments.
On the other end, the meeting was necessary for organizations of the civil society, including NGOs that are supposed to raise awareness on the importance of legal texts and the importance of the CDD to initiate affordable housing projects in small towns taking into account the social status of applicants. At the end of that ceremony of restitution, participants were confident about the quality of the proposals and their applications on the field.