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Cooperative and collective approaches to self-built working-class housing are receiving renewed attention as housing needs are identified in African countries in a state of rapid urban transition. Drawing on a discussion of the notion of ‘commons’, this article points out three key issues that need to be taken into account if housing projects are to contribute to urban inclusion: securing land use rights, the participation of inhabitants in the design of local projects, and price controls capable of limiting financial speculation on land. It then presents two empirical case studies, in Burkina Faso and Kenya respectively. The limits and contradictions arising from this fieldwork invite us to question the real scope of these experiments in contexts that remain favourable to the land-ownership approach, but also their potential to prefigure other ways of producing housing, supported by inhabitants.