This paper describes how a settlement profile, mapping and enumeration of Magada, an informal settlement in the town of Epworth just outside Harare, provided the basis for an upgrading programme. This was both in terms of the needed information and in terms of agreement between the residents and their community organizations and local and national government.

This paper discusses the land struggles of the urban poor in Zimbabwe and the emerging strategies used by the alliance of the Zimbabwe Homeless People’s Federation and its partner Dialogue on Shelter to address these struggles in the face of continued economic and political crisis.