Informal settlements: upgrade in place or relocate residents?

Strongly prefers in-situ slum upgrading over relocation, conditioned on community participation, secure tenure, and enabling institutions.

The World Bank Group's 1999 position strongly favors in-situ slum upgrading over relocation, citing multiple successful examples—including Aguablanca (Cali), El Mezquital (Guatemala City), the Million Houses Program (Sri Lanka), and KIPs (Indonesia)—that reduced costs, improved targeting, and provided security of tenure. This approach is conditioned on community participation, individual initiative, and enabling institutional frameworks—particularly clear property rights, functional land markets, and supportive partnerships among municipalities, NGOs, and community-based organizations. Relocation is not advocated; instead, the report critiques top-down public housing provision for failing due to inappropriate locations and unaffordable regulatory standards, and emphasizes that upgrading must address spatial mismatches by situating improvements near economic opportunity.

Favors in-situ upgrading with tenure security—formal or community-based—over relocation, contingent on local institutional capacity and functional land rights systems.

The World Bank Group's 2002 position, as reflected in the World Development Report 2002, favors in-situ slum upgrading—including formal or community-based land tenure regularization—over relocation, provided that context-specific conditions are met: where informal systems remain functional and enforceable (e.g., through customary tenure), where formal titling is feasible and effective (e.g., with expedited processes and institutional capacity), and where upgrading yields measurable benefits like increased investment, credit access, and dispute resolution. Relocation is not advocated as a default; instead, the emphasis is on securing tenure and improving services within existing settlements, recognizing that forced or poorly planned displacement risks undermining livelihoods and social cohesion.

Strongly prefers in-situ slum upgrading with secure tenure; relocation only acceptable if paired with guaranteed tenure and services.

The World Bank Group's 2003 position strongly favors in-situ upgrading of informal settlements over relocation, grounded in the principle that secure tenure—defined as protection from arbitrary eviction through due legal process—is foundational to poverty reduction, service delivery, and community empowerment. It emphasizes that regularization of tenure status (e.g., through legal recognition, street addressing, or municipal favela legalization in Brazil) enables residents to invest in housing, engage collectively for infrastructure, and negotiate with authorities—while cautioning that relocation, when necessary (e.g., for safety like Mumbai’s railway project), must guarantee secure tenure and basic amenities in resettlement sites to avoid reproducing vulnerability. The report explicitly warns against titling without services or forced displacement, and highlights successful in-situ models in Pune, Santo Domingo, and Brazil where tenure security catalyzed local agency and service improvements.

Favors in-situ upgrading with incremental tenure security over relocation, conditional on strong governance, community voice, and safeguards against displacement.

The World Bank Group's 2006 position favors in-situ upgrading of informal settlements over relocation, emphasizing secure tenure—especially through incremental, low-cost, and socially legitimate instruments—as a foundation for improving living conditions without displacement. It explicitly warns that titling programs can backfire and lead to forced relocation to marginal areas when governance is weak and the urban poor lack voice, citing Phnom Penh as an example; thus, in-situ approaches must be coupled with safeguards like group land rights and participatory governance. The report highlights successful in-situ models, such as Trinidad and Tobago’s three-tier statutory security system, which prioritizes occupancy rights and gradual formalization without requiring upfront infrastructure or surveying. Relocation is implicitly treated as a last resort—only permissible if unavoidable (e.g., due to extreme environmental risk), and even then, only with guaranteed alternative housing rights and protections against predatory displacement.

Prefers in-situ slum upgrading integrated with infrastructure, tenure security, and urban integration—but accepts relocation where justified by spatial, environmental, or land-use constraints.

The World Bank Group's 2009 World Development Report advocates for in-situ slum upgrading as the preferred approach—especially when combined with infrastructure investment, institutional reform, and complementary policies to foster social and economic integration—but acknowledges relocation as a legitimate option in specific cases, such as when spatial inefficiency, environmental risk, or land-use constraints make upgrading unviable. It emphasizes that neither upgrading nor relocation alone is sufficient; both must be embedded within broader urban integration strategies—including transport access, tenure security, flexible zoning, and participatory planning—to avoid displacement, preserve livelihoods, and reduce spatial inequality. The Report explicitly rejects the 'slum-free cities' ideal as unrealistic, instead endorsing rehabilitation (either in-situ or through relocation) as a pragmatic, rights-informed response to urban poverty.

WBG 2017 reports do not state a position on upgrading in place versus relocating residents from informal settlements.

The World Bank Group's 2017 reports do not explicitly address the choice between in-situ upgrading and relocation of residents in informal settlements. While the World Development Report 2017 discusses land tenure reforms, urban land interventions, and risks of elite capture in resettlement and regularization efforts, it does not articulate a preference for or against either upgrading in place or relocation as a general policy stance for informal settlements. The excerpts highlight concerns about corruption, patronage, and inequitable outcomes in land-related interventions—including resettlement—but do not evaluate or compare the relative merits of in-situ upgrading versus relocation.

Favors planned, vertical in-situ slum upgrading as a win-win, but only if land market, financing, and local governance constraints are addressed.

The AIIB's 2023 reports acknowledge the scale and severity of informal settlements—home to over one billion people—with poor housing, inadequate utilities, and severe environmental degradation. It identifies in-situ slum upgrading through planning and vertical development as an economically and environmentally 'win-win' strategy, but explicitly conditions this approach on overcoming credit and land market frictions and strengthening local government capacity. The reports do not mention or endorse relocation/resettlement as an alternative; no discussion of displacement, resettlement protocols, compensation, or comparative merits of relocation appears in the provided excerpts.

No position stated: the 2019 ADB excerpts contain only bibliographic references, with no discussion of slum upgrading versus relocation.

The provided 2019 ADB excerpts do not contain any substantive discussion, policy position, or analysis regarding informal settlements, slum upgrading in situ, relocation, resettlement, urban housing, land tenure, or displacement. The cited pages consist solely of a bibliography and fragmented reference list with no descriptive text or operational guidance from ADB on the topic.