Despite a renewed interest for the notion of “commons” within the academic world, little work has been done about land and housing issues in cities of the Global South.

Yet access to urban land is a major issue for dwellers of these rapidly growing cities and a determining factor for the improvement of their living conditions and for their access to “adequate housing”, according to UN terminology. The mainstream approach to urban land tenure, based on full individual private ownership and the free market, generates speculation and land grabbing, and exclusion of the most precarious households.

The critical dimension of the commons notion opens up innovative ways to produce housing in the Global South, according to plural perspectives that take into consideration the inhabitant’s needs and their agency abilities.

This research project aimed to highlight the diversity of hybrid, permeable, evolving commons within space and time.  These commons aim at getting and securing access rights to land and housing and associated services, which often arise from unexpected opportunities.

The research team looked at innovative ways of holding land: commonly held, with a housing function and in a nonspeculative perspective (when the transfer of land is carried out according to a framework decided beforehand by a community, without any capital benefit).

The methodology was based on case studies in developing cities:

• The first phase of the study (2017-2018) led to three field surveys in Burkina Faso, Kenya and India.
• The second phase (2018-2020) consisted of two additional field surveys (Brazil, Mexico), as well as the follow-up of the work carried out in New Caledonia by students in the framework of the School of Urban Affairs (Master’s Degree « Urban Planning Cycle») of Sciences Po Paris.

The team consisted of:

• An academic with authorization to supervise research (HDR), who directed the study;
• A research engineer, who provided the scientific coordination of the study;
• Local researchers specialising in land and urban issues in survey countries.

The study consisted of five phases: documentary research, field research, data processing, drafting of deliverables, valorisation of  research findings. 

This research project resulted in the publication of several research papers:

• “Land-based commons for inclusive cities” (available in French): this research paper presents the conclusions of 8 case studies, focused on securing popular habitat through shared ownership of the land.
• “Does Mexico’s social land still bear commons?” (available in French): Mexican common land has undergone major transformations since the 1990s. This research paper presents the study on the outskirts of the metropolitan area of Mexico City led by the students of the Urban Planning Programme of Sciences Po Paris, under the supervision of Jean-François Valette.
• “Regularizing Rio favelas through land pooling?”: the paper sheds light on an original system of collective land regularization in precarious neighborhoods, which puts into practice the notion of “plural property” running through Brazilian law, and which defends the right of the inhabitants to remain in place.
• “User cooperatives in Uruguay: the challenge of housing as common” (available in Spanish)

The final report of the research project on urban land-based commons for housing in the Global South can be downloaded here.

All the publications and events related to the research project are listed on the following website: Communs fonciers pour l’habitat – Quelle contribution à l’inclusion urbaine dans les Suds ? (hypotheses.org)

"The commons can be understood as a social policy of housing, offering access to housing to the most vulnerable social categories. Moreover, they can provide an alternative path to classical public housing policies which favor individual private property. Indeed, even though these initiatives emerge from dwellers organizations, they might be supported and framed by national governments. Often acknowledged, supported and even presented as standard to be followed, the commons have drawn increased attention recently from dwellers federations, associations, NGOs and international institutions that document their functioning and contribute to the international circulation of these alternative ideas." (Simonneau & Denis, 2021)

Contacts: 

• Claire Simonneau, professor and researcher at Université Gustave Eiffel and researcher at the Laboratoire Techniques, territoires et sociétés (LATTS)
• Stéphanie Leyronas, research officier at AFD

While significant progress has been made in access to education in the Sahel since the 2000s, major challenges remain in terms of access, quality of teaching, and reducing inequalities—particularly between girls and boys, and between urban and rural areas.

In this context, many school-age children are educated through religious-based, mostly Arabic-language education systems rooted in Islam. Deeply embedded in many societies, this so-called “Arab-Islamic” education is highly diverse. It spans a continuum from highly informal, family-based units focused exclusively on religious instruction, to more formal institutions that are partially or fully integrated into public education systems, as well as a range of evolving, intermediate forms.

This widespread educational reality cannot be ignored in the design of local public education policies.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the production of updated and relevant knowledge on Arab-Islamic education in the Sahel—a complex and deeply rooted phenomenon that is widespread across Sahelian societies but remains largely overlooked by both research and public policy. The project also aims to inform policymakers in Sahelian countries, as well as international donors, by providing them with the information needed to design and conduct education policies.

A nuanced understanding of the various forms of arabo-Islamic education is a prerequisite for any intervention—whether to regulate the most controversial practices, to integrate this educational offering into national education and vocational training policies, or to support a system that may prove particularly relevant in times of crisis, especially in the context of insecurity.

As the first large-scale study of arabo-Islamic education across six Sahelian countries, this research project was conducted by a multidisciplinary and multinational research team, coordinated by Dr. Hamidou Dia (IRD).

The project relied on extensive inventories—including inventories of existing research, grey literature, educational institutions, quantitative data, and press articles—combined with field surveys and interviews with key actors involved in Arab-Islamic education. A series of research workshops and stakeholder dialogues helped discuss research findings, feeding into the development of country reports and a regional synthesis (available in the section below). All reports followed a common framework to allow for cross-country comparisons and the identification of transnational or regional trends.

The study confirms the dynamism of Arab-Islamic education in the Sahel, shown in particular by the renewal of audiences. In Chad and Niger, more than 50% of students are girls, and the presence of the middle classes has increased. The re-emergence of Arab-Islamic universities in some countries (notably in Niger and Mali) also shows this dynamism.

The study highlights the diversity of Arab-Islamic education funding resources, which vary widely from country to country and from school to school. Depending on the context, the importance of resources coming from abroad gives a significant weight to foreign actors and dynamics in the evolution of Arab-Islamic education.

The study also shows that the positioning of this offer vis-à-vis the State varies according to the actors, schools of thought, forms of intervention and methods of financing. Depending on the type of educational offer, the place of residence or the profiles of the pupils, Arab-Islamic education can either be complementary to or a substitute for classical education, which is the case especially in regions where public services are destabilized.

You can find below the various research papers related to this research program:

• Summary report of the Arab-Islamic Education (EDUAI) in the Sahel project
• State of play of EDUAI in Niger
• State of play of EDUAI in Senegal
• Overview of EDUAI in Chad
• Overview of EDUAI in Mauritania
• State of play of EDUAI in Burkina Faso
• State of play of EDUAI in Mali

This study confirms the existence of a plural and evolutionary educational offer, with the emergence, in recent decades, of new formats, sometimes pushing towards a modernization of education, sometimes towards a return to traditions, with tensions between actors and/or important intra-national divisions around religious and linguistic issues.

The positioning of this offer vis-à-vis the State and the institutions varies. In some countries, attempts at reform by the State ended up in crystallizing tensions and confirmed the duality of the system. Nevertheless, the growth and dynamism of this educational offer in the region calls for a deeper exploration of the possibilities of establishing bridges with secular education.

Highlighting the diversity of this educational offer and the actors who carry it, this research project helped to understand better Arab-Islamic education and to guide the decision-making of AFD, its Sahelian partners or donors.

• Dr Hamidou Dia, socio-anthropologist, research officer at IRD
• Linda Zanfini, research officer at AFD