Just access to land for affordable housing in Tanzania Inattention to land speculation issue has limited the extent to which‘invis­ible’ and‘voiceless’ households access land and housing. This also has effects on the availability of public land. Na­tional urban policies on inclusiveness in urban planning and development have not been enforced. The earlier policies and schemes during the socialist era (1962-1984) did not recognize infor­mality of any sort in urban areas. For example, the Slum Clearance Program of 1962-1972, and the subsequent Squatter Upgrading Scheme(SUP), and the National Sites and Service Projects (NSSP), opted for redevelopment of the areas with limited focus on the out­comes for the displaced households. They adopted a top-down approach which overlooked the aspirations of the households impacted by the result­ing actions. These schemes failed on three accounts. First, they were ambi­tious in that they attempted to resolve all housing related challenges for all in­come groups within a limited period of time and with minimal involvement of the communities. In the second count they proved to be expensive as they relied largely on government funding. Finally, they failed as they ended hav­ing insignificant impact on the housing problem(Gulyani and Debomy 2002). In tandem with the above observa­tions, it can be argued that past efforts failed due to low capacity in the imple­mentation of policies that would have addressed urban sprawl, displacement of population and improving fairness in access to land. As a result, the housing problem has remained unresolved. It is however true that Government efforts in these directions were laudable but were constrained by rapid urbanization, high levels of unemployment in urban areas; and they have met these steep challenges with inadequate poverty re­duction measures and low investment in infrastructure. Regularization and formalization approaches advocated by the Land Act No. 4 of 1999 and Nation­al Land Policy of 1993 have not ade­quately addressed the land and housing problem. In the implementation, piece­meal actions have led to more densifi­cation, and degrading urban environ­ment(Izar and Jean-Baptiste 2019). 5. Conclusion Land access for housing in Tanzania is still faced with three basic problems (1) Undersupply of land for housing to meet the fast-growing urban population (2) Persistent increase of informal settlements and low-income housing areas and (3) Poor condition of infrastructure. In urban areas, access to land is ei­37