Pro-poor land policies have recently emerged in reconceptualising access to housing
finance in low income settlements in developing countries. In Tanzania, this concept
has been adopted to enable dwellers in urban informal settlement to enjoy perceived
tenure security. Settlement upgrading has further increased perceived security. Interestingly,
titling projects aimed at facilitating access to credit from formal financial
institutions have been implemented in already upgraded settlements. Based on empirical
investigations in two settlements in Dar es Salaam, the paper explores the
take-up of titles and subsequent use to access credit. Findings show that take-up is
slow and very few property owners have accessed credit. In contrast to arguments by
several scholars, tenure security is not a simple matter of being legal or illegal or
formal or informal. In the illustrated cases, loans were neither used to improve
houses nor open businesses, but to expand on-going profitable businesses. Loans
were repaid and no property has been taken away, presenting a win-win situation.
The paper concludes that the use of titles to expand on-going profitable businesses
provides new lens with which to look at alternative uses of residential licenses (RLs).
Through this lens, property owners were able to use titles to access relatively large
microenterprise development loans. It recommends further, that there is a need to
promote the acquisition and use of titles. Financial institutions are challenged to design
and implement context specific housing microfinance products that make ownership
of RLs a necessary condition for accessing loans.