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* REPORT : 56
Prepared
by: Alexey Hartlieb-Shea
(An Intern, People’s Dialogue) (PDG)
Report
of
Ministry
of Works and
25
& 26 May, 2005
National
2015 Housing Strategy Policy Review and Action Planning:
Strategizing
Toward the Millennium Development Goals
Organizers: Ministry of Works and
Collaborating Agencies: UN Habitat, IHS
A&A, COHRE, Architects Registration Council and People’s
Dialogue on Human Settlements/ GHPF
Key participants: The conference assembled key personalities,
institutions and bodies in the housing sector. Participating were,
Academia, Professionals, NGO’s, Government Officials, UN Habitat,
Slum Dwellers International (SDI), HI and the Ghana Homeless People’s
Federation (GHPF) and PDG. One striking feature of
this Conference was the active participation and commitment shown
by the Hon. Minister of Works and Housing & his two Deputies.
Introduction:
The conference was planned through
a series of meetings held over the course of the previous months
by the heads of several interested agencies including the Center
on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), UN-Habitat, the Architects
Registration Council (ARC), IHSA&A, and People’s Dialogue on
Human Settlements Ghana (PDG). Farouk and People’s Dialogue were in a unique
position to make sure that the discussion was focused on issues
surrounding housing for the poor, specifically the urban poor. PD’s participation in the planning of the meetings
created the space for representatives of GHPF (in particular) Slum/Shack
Dwellers International (in
general) and Homeless International (HI) a chance to share and discuss
their experiences and ideas at the conference.
The
“round-table discussion” took place at the
After
two introductory speeches, the conference began.
Hon. Minister
of Works and Housing
The Honorable Minister began the conference
by citing the importance of creating and implementing a functioning
and practical housing policy for the good of the nation. Some of the issues, which he stressed, were
that housing costs must go down considerably.
He suggested that changing the building standards, methods,
and styles for low-income homes could help reduce the cost of building
homes for the poor but explained that somehow a middle ground had
to be found so that new homes would still be adequate but at the
same time inexpensive to construct. He said affordable housing must not exceed $8,000
US per unit but conceited that even this was to expensive for most
people to afford especially using current banking methods for purchasing
houses and acquiring loans.
Another point the minister stressed
was that at conferences like this one, lots of suggestions are made
and ideas disseminated, but after, there is little action. He urged people to not just say that they could
build an inexpensive house, but also demonstrate their claims with
prototypes. Finally, the
minister talked briefly about the necessity of “urban and rural
regeneration,” and even mentioned slum upgrading, but said that
all regeneration projects should be carefully planned, monitored,
and evaluated.
Jane Weru,
( SDI) .
Jane’s speech was brief and to the
point but in conversations after the conference, clearly aroused
the most interest. She responded
directly to some of the Ministers concerns and questions and devoted
her speech to stressing three main points: the importance of 1)
organization, 2) information, and 3) design.
She began the body of her speech by
talking about the SDI model of developing saving schemes in informal
settlements. She explained how saving on a daily basis not
only helps build up capital to aid in financing community projects
but also builds trust and brings the community together and is used
as a mobilizing and organizing tool.
She stressed the importance of land for housing and responding
to the Minister’s speech before her talked about how Pamoja
trust was able to build lots of housing units for extremely low-income
families and communities for under $3,000.
Jane then talked about how important accurate and reliable
data and information is. She reminded the conference that you cannot
plan without information and explained again that one method SDI
employs for gathering information is community enumerations and
mapping exercises carried out by the community members themselves.
Finally Jane spoke on appropriate and affordable design. She mentioned land subsidies and public subsidies
as a way of acquiring land for housing and also warned against the
gentrification of houses ostensibly built for the poor. As a further suggestion Jane used Old Fadama as an example. She
said that an example of appropriate design might be the construction
of hostels for the Kayayo (Female
head carriers) as opposed to houses.
Malcolm Jack,
Homeless International
Malcolm spoke after but in conjunction
with Jane. He focused his
talk on financing opportunities.
He began by explaining that because independent financing
is problematic for people living in low-income communities, the
only solution was group or community financing.
His speech was a litany of pertinent suggestions and opportunities
all sharing a common theme of community development and involvement.
Some of his ideas included subsidies for housing, cross subsidies
where some units built in low-income housing projects would be sold
as either commercial space or sold to outside buyers as a way of
funding such projects, land sharing, building of hostels where appropriate
as Jane suggested, and rental units.
Throughout his presentation Malcolm cited a number of successful
programs in other developing countries.
Hon. Minister of Works and Housing
After Malcolm finished, the Minister
interjected and applauded Malcolm and Jane’s ideas. The Hon. Minister also expressed serious interest
in learning more about and seeing the houses built by Pamoja Trust. Jane
suggested that an exchange visit could be arranged. (PD to arrange for the visit later)
The
minister also applauded Malcolm’s “new and innovative” ideas to
finance housing for the poor and agreed whole-heartedly with Jane
that information and appropriate design were crucial to any housing
strategy. He also voiced his opinion that Jane’s suggestion
of building hostels for the Kayayo
(female head carriers) was very good.
Sandra Baffoe-Bonnie,
UN-Habitat
Mrs. Baffoe
Bonnie gave a basic overview of UN-Habitat’s objectives and methods
of operation. She began her
power point presentation by speaking about Target 11.
She went on to talk about land rights and security of tenure. The UN representative said that forced evictions
were unacceptable and that government had to work in conjunction
with the poor to find alternatives.
Security of tenure is a mobilizing tool, and if the government
can work with organized communities they can find solutions to forced
evictions. Government should provide an enabling environment
for community organization. While
on the subject, she explained that the tenure issues of Old Fadama community in
The rest of the presentation centered
on how the UN-Habitat program sought to work towards Target 11 however
the presenter failed to give any sort of concrete suggestions but
rather looked only at broad concepts.
According to Mrs. Baffoe-Bonnie
the UN’s strategy was 1)mobilization and organization of communities, 2)gathering
information on communities and what they have already done or are
doing to improve their situations, 3)Drafting an action plan, and
finally 4) implementing the action plan, however she did not fully
explain how any of this would be accomplished, only that this was
the way problems of urban poverty should be tackled.
There were 10 delegates from the Ghana Homeless
People’s Federation, drawn from Old Fadama, Ashaiman, Avenor, and members
from the emerging Takoradi savings groups
who were also in
Michael Mutter,
UN-Habitat (SUF Team)
Mr. Mutter gave a brief presentation on how the Slum Upgrading
Facility (SUF) and Community Led Finance Facility (CLIFF) could
be used to address issues of urban poverty.
He began by saying that the two facilities were used to improve
human settlements by helping municipalities and community leaders
to get private and financial institutions to partner with them.
He went on to talk about the importance of slum dwellers
in any city because they form the base of the work force and the
economic pyramid.
Interestingly, Mutter went on to talk
about Old Fadama, in his PowerPoint presentation.
He zoomed parts of the Old Fadama settlement
on the Screen citing the area as an example of an organized community
and one that could potentially benefit from SUF or CLIFF. He showed pictures of the old fadama Federation office, talked about the construction of
roads in the community to prevent fire-outbreaks and concluded by
saying that Old Fadama and many other
communities across the country were organized and ready to work
in partnership with the government and the private sector to improve
their settlements.
Prof. Stephen
Owusu, Dean, Institute for Human Settlements Research, KNUST
Prof. Owusu
gave a long and mostly abstract history of
Dominic Ayine, Director,CEPIL
& Ms. Mawuse
Anyidoho, COHRE
Dominic began by saying that there
were two ways in which the government could accelerate the creation
of more houses through bureaucratic means (MWH, HFC) and then through
legal means. He went on to argue that both systems were broken
and listed a plethora of problems- Rent Magistrate Courts are overburdened
and corrupt, there is a lack of coordination between the MWH and
other ministries because there aren’t any clearly defined parameters
for what ministry is in charge of what, there is a lack of coordination
between national and local government, there is no clearly defined
law on housing, the judicial mindset is unacceptable because there
is always a difference between practice and statutes.
In the end Mr. Ayine concluded by urging the government to create tax incentives
for real estate developers to build houses for the poor, and argued
that housing was a fundamental human right and therefore it was
the governments responsibility to protect the right to adequate
housing.
Ms Mawuse
gave a very brief speech and argued that the state was held responsible
to provide housing and shelter for people when families were unable
to do that themselves. She
cited many laws still in effect today that clearly suggested that
housing was in fact the government’s responsibility and echoed Dominic’s
concerns when she asked the audience why Ghana Ghana
Group
Participation Exercise:
After lunch everyone reconvened in
the auditorium to begin the “group participation exercise.” People split into groups of 6-7 people to come
of with lists of “Needs” for the housing policy, “Means” of remedying
the “Needs,” and “Tools” needed to augment the “Means.” For the most part this section of the conference
was unorganized, and generally unfocussed however, it did afford
Federation members attending the conference an opportunity to join
other groups and let their voices be heard.
Federation members were able to interact, brainstorm, discuss
and work in teams with Minister of state, Senior Technocrats of
Ministries, banks, NGOs, and government officials about how they
saw the housing policy and what their views were.
It was a very unique opportunity for the Federation.
Conclusions:
While not all of the discussions and
presentations were immediately helpful or relevant, Participating in
the conference represented a major milestone in spreading and sharing
of the SDI approach, People’s Dialogue and the Ghana Homeless People’s
Federation in
Firstly, the conference was yet another unique
exposure opportunity for the Federation and Dialogue and a chance
to influence and shape
Secondly,
Jane (Pamoja Trust, SDI) and Malcolm’s
(HI) joint presentation was the most talked about presentation of
the day.
For
full report and presentations visit the official website
: www.ghanahousing.com