Imagine waking up in the morning to find the bulldozers moving in - no warning, nowhere else to go.

This is the reality for millions of people living in urban slums where residents have no security from forced evictions and no reason to make their homes and neighbourhoods better places to live in.

Five years ago at the UN City Summit in Istanbul, governments recognised that slum dwellers needed security of tenure over their plots and the homes that stand on them. Five years on, as those same governments meet in New York to discuss what progress has been made, Earth Report takes a look at a number of land tenure schemes that are not only giving the urban poor security but a stake in their future.

Holding back the bulldozers - Kenya, Nairobi

Kenya's bustling capitol is a magnet for the country's underprivileged seeking jobs and a steady income. The sprawling squatter settlements, built with what materials exist to hand, have no electricity or piped water and little sanitation. But they are home and the people who live here must live with the constant threat of, often violent, eviction by ruthless landowners to make way for lucrative real estate developments.

But two schemes are giving some security to the urban poor.

The Temporary Occupation Licence - an official document that allows poor people to set up businesses cheaply and securely - may also have implications for housing and ease the battle over land.

'The Community Land Trust' gives poor people a communal land title and a safer future. The advantage of this system is that it binds a community together. In one such Trust, a democratically elected residents committee resolves disputes and plans improvements. Security of tenure means residents are willing to invest in long-term improvements.

Getting a title - Lima, Peru

Lima, the capital of Peru, has attracted more than 6 million Peruvians in the last forty years alone - most scratching a living in the seemingly endless shantytowns.

Unlike most cities, the government owns the land around Lima. Since the early 1990s a centralised scheme run by Commission for the Formalisation of Settlements, COFOPRI, has set about granting land titles to anyone who can show they have lived on their plot for more than one year. Although the system is slow, it means that people are willing to invest in their plot in the knowledge that they will be granted land ownership.

Doing a deal - Bangkok, Thailand

In Bangkok over a million people live in what are known as 'informal settlements' within the city boundaries. Here, communities co-ordinate with housing organisations to develop mutually agreeable solutions with landowners - like negotiating contracts for the long-term lease of land.

Investing in the poor - India, Ahmedabad

The heavily industrialised town of Ahmedabad in India was once the home of Mahatma Gandhi. Long after his death, the signs of the Gandhian legacy are still strong. Here the city has decided to embrace slum inhabitants as the future of their city's prosperity and growth.

Almost half of Ahmedabad's 3.5 million inhabitants live in slums. Although there's work, there's been little improvement in slum living conditions but that 'poverty trap' hopefully won't exist for much longer thanks to the dream of a few local visionaries who ten years ago developed a plan to integrate the slums.

The Slum Networking Project identified the security of tenure as the most important issue and guaranteed residents' security for ten years. In return they asked each household for an investment of 2000 rupees (nearly US$50) to install services necessary to improve the neighbourhood. But the planners believed that slum dwellers should be involved in the development of their neighbourhoods. Encouraged by Initiative for Urban Equality, a local NGO, the residents helped set up basic services like healthcare units.

But the biggest achievement to date was the setting up of an informal bank, which today has 445 accounts and offers micro-loans for business and home improvements.

The city council found that the more they invested in the slums, the more the people invested in themselves. Now some areas are so smart it's hard to believe they began as slums. What's more, it's a scheme that could easily be replicated in other cities around the world.