Recent Perspectives on Housing and Economic Development

Cognizant of the factors that inhibited the success of the above four major housing policies and programmes on the one hand, and the need to facilitate the implementation of the Habitat Agenda on the other, UNCHS in partnership with a number of development partners designed and launched novel housing strategies and programmes. The rethink became imperative given the central role of good governance as well as the need for a holistic and proactive approach to housing. Moreover, a number of international conferences were held, culminating in novel agendas and declarations relevant to the housing sector. Recent perspectives on housing policy and economic development are also based on the theory that housing investments generate economic multipliers that, in turn, generate income and employment in the macroeconomy while the broader urban development component generates agglomeration economies, fiscal sustainability, and higher production from enhanced health in improved slums and squatter settlements, decent housing, and liveable urban settlements. Furthermore, since 2000, emphasis has shifted to market-based housing subsidy, microfinance and involvement of civil society. The contribution of housing investments to social development was also given greater attention.

The sustainable urban development phase

Since 1983 a more holistic approach has been taken by the global community to better deal with the problems and challenges of the housing sector. Even though the enabling strategy phase focused in part on urban settlements up to the early 1990s, there was still a continuing concern with the state of the world’s cities and how they could be made sustainable. This phase has continued to be emphasized since it commenced in the mid-1990s. During this phase, the focus of attention has been the comprehensive and environmentally sustainable planning and management of cities.

The policy instruments adopted during this evolutionary phase entailed all previous instruments in the preceding phases but in a much more integrative manner.Therefore in partnership with UNEP, UNCHS launched the Sustainable Cities Programme (SCP) in the early 1990s. The second phase of the programme, from 2002, concluded in 2007. The fundamental objective of this programme was to promote environmentally sustainable local development and to more fully realize the critical and growing contributions that human settlements could make to national socioeconomic development.

This grassroots-oriented programme was designed to provide local and municipal authorities with the capacity to change the urban environment through consensus building and the democratic establishment of development priorities. Utilizing a set of Environmental Planning and Management (EPM) tools, the programme built the capacity of local and municipal authorities in the sustainable planning process. Ibadan in Nigeria and Ismaila in Egypt were among the five pilot cities selected for the programme. In Nigeria, the programme was replicated in other cities like Kano and Enugu.

The Habitat II phase

Following the Second Habitat Conference, held in Istanbul in 1996, where farreaching strategies were agreed upon by heads of governments, UNCHS initiated new programmes to ensure adequate shelter for all and sustainable human settlements development in an urbanizing world. Consequently, new programmes emerged, including the Global Campaign for Secure Tenure (GCST) launched by UNCHS in 1998. The GCST is designed to promote adequate shelter for all by recommending sustainable housing and land policy, especially for women. Its overarching principle is that security of tenure is a sin qua non to social and economic development and that its provision exerts enduring positive impacts on numerous stakeholders. The GCST recognizes the diversity of nations, their strengths and weaknesses and socioeconomic inequalities, but emphasizes public-private partnerships and active involvement of the poor. It also encourages decentralization policies, especially in developing countries and in countries in transition. The principles and concepts of the GCST that have been launched in all continents are as follows:

• Housing for all;
• Security of tenure as essential for city stability, human dignity and urban development;
• Gender equity, to ensure active inclusion of women in development;
• Partnership, as a means to ensure sustainable development through the participation of all stakeholders; negotiated resettlements rather than forced relocations;
• Transparent and open land markets to tackle corruption and reduce speculation; and
• Land availability to meet the needs of the urban poor.

This programme has been implemented in Mumbai and Prune in India, as well as in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, with remarkable success. The Cities without Slums Programme was launched in 1999 as the action plan of the Cities Alliance jointly designed by UNCHS and the World Bank. The programme has formed an alliance with other institutions and donor agencies that are interested in mobilizing resources and commitment to meet the housing challenges of the urban poor in the developing world. In September 2000, the objectives and principles of the Alliance were given impetus by its inclusion as one of the targets in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the Millennium Summit held in New York.

The same commitment was also reaffirmed in the Declaration on Cities and Other Human Settlements in the New Millennium and adopted at the Istanbul +5 special session of the UN General Assembly. This coalition of cities, supported by its development partners, aims to eradicate slums and poverty in cities, creating properly managed cities and promoting economic development at the local level. The programme is based on the premise that successful slum upgrading cannot be realized in a piecemeal manner but should rather be part of a holistic city-wide slum upgrading strategy. It is presumed that once mobilized, the urban poor constitute an important resource in urban development.

The Safer Cities Programme was also launched by UNCHS in 1996, at the request of African mayors in order to address the problem of urban violence. While this programme is not directly aimed at housing provision, it was clear that urban crime and violence are antithetical to economic development, secure housing, liveability and sustainable development in a poor continent like Africa.

The main objective of the Safer Cities Programme is to create a culture of prevention and a safe environment for all urban inhabitants by helping local authorities, the criminal justice system, the private sector, urban planners and civil society partners to address urban safety and reduce delinquency and insecurity. Since the programme was started in Johannesburg and Dar es Salaam it has been extended to many African cities.