This Quick Guide proposes a range of policy and action frameworks that can steer urban development in positive directions, using the resources of knowledge and experience that exist within urban communities across Africa.

This Quick Guide 2 describes several ways of addressing low-income housing in African cities at the programme and project level. It focuses on well tried methods of improving the housing and living environments of people living in slums and informal settlements, and providing adequate housing for future generations of urban poor.

Key approaches to addressing the housing needs of the urban poor are outlined and alternative strategies are considered for what to do about existing slum conditions and informal settlements, and how to avoid future slums through the production of new housing.

This Quick Guide 3 looks at the different forms of land tenure which operate in African cities and examines some of the problems and benefits of these different land tenure systems.

It discusses how land is supplied, valued, financed and sold in the formal market, how this formal market is failing to make secure, appropriate land available to their cities' low-income populations, and why the majority of Africa's urban poor are being forced to obtain land for their housing through informal land markets.

This Quick Guide 4 explores how communities facing eviction have organized themselves, and drawn on the support of community-based networks and institutions in Africa and globally to find alternatives to the destruction of their settlements.

The guide presents guidelines to help governments and policy makers to develop better formal procedures to minimize evictions and to ensure that resettlement, if inevitable, follows international standards.

The objective of this Quick Guide is to introduce some of the key concepts of housing finance and to provide a quick overview of how a housing finance system works.

The guide presents information about both the formal and informal systems of housing finance and suggests ways in which the two can be better integrated. It sets out the different kinds of housing finance, and offers tips for policy makers to enhance access to affordable housing finance especially by the urban poor.

This Quick Guide 6 considers how governments and policy makers can work together with community-based organizations to address the problems that poor people experience in urban settlements, and find viable long-term solutions to their housing needs.

This Quick Guide 7 considers the characteristics of good quality rental housing and sound landlord-tenant rental arrangements, and presents policy options to promote and regulate the expansion of rental housing especially for the urban poor.

This Quick Guide 8 provides a brief overview of local government in Africa, and the urban challenges (and opportunities) that local government bodies need to respond to.

The guide shows how physical development, economic development and social development need to go hand in hand in order for interventions to be effective and sustainable. Some key tools for local governments to use when adopting these approaches are presented.