Land and housing for all
This document is a draft strategy that seeks to stimulate discussion of the emerging strategy of UNHABITAT. It includes a questionnaire for your feedback.
UN-HABITAT has the mandate to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all. For 2008-2013 a six-year Medium Term Strategic and Institutional Plan (MTSIP) is being developed to help create the necessary conditions for international and national efforts to stabilise the growth of slums and to set the stage for the subsequent reduction and the reversal of the number of slum dwellers. The focus of the strategy is to put shelter back on the policy agenda by promoting an integrated approach, supporting local policy making and implementation and strengthening working with partners. The goal is to make land and housing systems work better for all and especially for the poor.
The problems
More than half of the world’s population now lives in cities. Developing countries in particular are experiencing massive and unsustainable rates of urbanisation for which they are not prepared. As a result nearly one billion inhabitants, or one out of every three urban dwellers, live in slums. This number is increasing at a rate of over 60 thousands per day.
Unsustainable urbanisation has many facets, some are:
> massive migration, globalised economy and environmental disasters upset land tenure
systems;
> less than 30% of land registered in developing countries leaves many with insecure tenure;
> well located land with adequate infrastructure is scarce and often hoarded for future profit;
> limited and badly regulated housing finance is a constraint and is at the root of the
financial crisis;
> building and urban codes, technological advances and financial systems, prioritise market
oriented solutions making it difficult for poorer residents;
> conflicts, natural and human made disasters have a strong impact on shelter;
> women, the elderly, the young and the disadvantaged within the poor have more difficult
access to shelter;
> urban land and housing issues are often not on the political agenda, or they are disjointed
sectoral policies that fail to serve at scale their target groups.
The objective
This strategy paper aims to promote adequate shelter for all within the overall goal to attain sustainable urbanisation. This means to enable an environment and create a long term process that makes accessible to every city dweller adequate land and housing that is well located, serviced with water and sanitation, in risk free areas and structures, at an adequate quantity, with secure tenure, at an affordable cost, and at the beginning of the household lifecycle.
The key principles
The Principles used here represent the core values derived from the Habitat Agenda and experience in implementation. In order to succeed, the proposed strategy and derived policies and practices should be constructed on the following principles:
Integrated. A holistic and integrated approach at the city level that links land, housing, infrastructure, finance, labour, institutional and regulatory framework.
Inclusive. All policies related to the city should include a special and clear consideration for the poor, women, elderly, the young and the disadvantaged. Actions should address the needs of all groups to be effective and ensure inclusiveness, which also means that interventions should impact at a significant scale.
Balanced. Individuals, groups and the governing bodies of a city have overlapping rights and responsibilities concerning land and housing in a city. Policies should always consider both issues together.
Equitable. An equitable distribution of costs and benefits is needed to ensure healthy and productive cities and avoid social exclusion.
Choice. Cities should enable inhabitants to have opportunities to choose shelter options. Regulations and markets should work together to increase adequate and affordable options for all, particularly the poor.
The policy areas
Studies of housing and land delivery show that success needs an integrated approach. It must combine reforms in governance and institutions, regulatory measures and financial systems with good planning and infrastructure provision. The policy areas described below need to be part of integrated packages designed to meet current local needs in a timely manner.
Each country, each city should engage in its own process of building policies that best contribute to attain the objectives. Each component itself comprises of a wide range of tools and instruments which need to be selected according to the local context.
Governance and Institutional. Good governance is a fundamental condition for improved performance. Leadership, competence and transparency are all essential if major improvement is to be made. Good institutions are vital to implement change failure in this area and it has been a major weakness in implementation of past policies. Change can be in existing organisations, but alternative forms should also be considered. Regulatory bodies do not necessarily need to be based on a governmental agency; urban land and housing may be produced by the private sector and dweller groups. Financial institutions may be community based, NGOs may act in more than an advocacy role; land owners associations may offer good solutions in growing areas; government agencies building houses may be strategic to trigger redevelopment in a blight area; private investors may enter through a trust to substitute irresponsive land owners, women and youth associations should act as watch-dogs of public space in neighbourhoods.
Regulatory. Regulations should allow alternative tenure and/or housing occupancy systems to coexist and should enable various modes of production whilst ensuring a wider variety and quantity accessible for the poor. Issues such as inclusionary vs. exclusionary zoning; performance vs. prescriptive standards; land rights with unclear responsibilities; rental and group tenure options and gender perspective need to be addressed. Frequently principles are already embedded in existing laws and what is called for is a social, political and administrative redefinition of how they are implemented. This is particularly relevant in post-disaster and post-conflict situations.
Financial. Locally based sources and cross-subsidy policies should be explored. The impact that infrastructure and land-use planning have over land values is an underutilised potential to finance adequate shelter. A wider variety of savings, borrowing and subsidy schemes, less prone to financial risks and collapse and more aligned with city objectives should be considered. In these lines, adequate property tax performance, creative value capture tools, aligned transfers to local governments, earmarking of housing subsides, enhanced micro-financing and community-based schemes, flexible mortgage systems and guarantee funds are instruments that have potential.
Technical and physical. Shelter polices should revisit issues such as building technologies and spatial design. New issues such as climate change bring new challenges in terms of materials, densities and location. Research and utilisation of innovative technologies for housing, land and infrastructure as well as design of efficient land use patterns often have a significant impact in achieving shelter goals.
The role of UN-HABITAT
UN-HABITAT has the vision of linking land and housing and placing shelter on the global agenda through innovations in policies and tools. Its role is also to enable, support and work with partners to implement this vision. This should be done by leveraging access to experience, both local and international, and preparing the ground for more effective use of investment and other support. It is able to use its mandate and capacity to help to strengthen and support local sources of knowledge and policy advice, both directly and via partners. It should play an effective role by being a catalyst for national and city shelter policy development.
A policy building process should be strengthened. For shelter policy to work it must have local political support, it must be developed locally, be responsive to local changing conditions, and be supported by local politicians and by their advisors from professional and academic communities, and by local NGOs and CBOs. This means that external support should focus on stimulating and strengthening the normal local support institutions rather than by working directly. In order to put shelter “back on the map” the importance of policy development and implementation needs to be promoted and ownership developed by local institutions involving campaigns, conferences and focussed publications.
UN-HABITAT’s strategy to foster access to adequate land and housing is on the principles outlined above. The policy areas are also addressed in an integrated, systemic and participatory manner. The strategy will be demand-driven and involve UN-HABITAT partners, including programmes for post-disaster reconstruction, local economic development, environmental management and climate change mitigation. The overall goal is to attain positive impact and at scale, it requires improvements in the capacity and performance of institutions and in the regulatory and policy frameworks. This takes time; it should be supported by programmes and initiatives aiming at systemic change involving the public, private and NGO sectors.
Strengthening of national and local institutions and facilitating their networking should relate to clear performance targets which are regularly monitored, evaluated and reviewed to make sure they continue to be relevant. In the end the aim is to improve the shelter situation for the poor.
The strategy
The strategy includes what we propose to achieve, how we propose to do it, when and with whom?
What? We want to strengthen national and local shelter policy development and implementation so that it performs better in meeting the goals of the Habitat Agenda.
How? In terms of how, the strategy is to provide support through three main means:
> Knowledge generation and management
> Advocacy
> Capacity building and technical advice
It works with these at two main levels:
> Broad global support and
> Focused country and city level support.
At the national level we will focus on the UN Habitat programme countries and link using our Programme Managers to support local, formal and informal knowledge networks which have an interest and potential in providing policy advice and knowledge support to national and local governments. These should include local universities, professional associations, consultants, NGOs and CBOs. An entry point will be the National Habitat Committees established in all countries.
Knowledge generation and management
At the global level
> Embedding the vision of linking land and housing in knowledge generation and
management;
> Reviewing work on shelter indicators with urban observatories ensuring feedback on
performance;
> Increasing the number of countries developing shelter profiles and feeding into global
reviews;
> Improving reporting on shelter progress over time with regular reporting to adjust activities;
> Improving generation of and access to learning cases and appropriate tools for suitable
contexts;
> Tailoring materials to relevant target groups, short for decision makers, detailed for
practitioners;
> Developing partner support networks that strengthen in-house UN-HABITAT resources.
At the country level
> Expanding work on shelter sector profiles as an input to local policy development;
> Strengthening of local policy “think tanks” and using external partner support when needed;
> Policy strengthening through local, regional and international networking;
> Developing knowledge through support to practice oriented research and knowledge sharing;
> Empowering universities and training institutions to become active local partners in
development;
> Developing pilot projects to demonstrate impact of policy instruments.
Advocacy
At the global level
> Increasing the shelter profile on the global agenda;
> Raising awareness in UN-HABITAT campaign with shelter as 2010 proposed focus;
> Emphasising a) policy and its implementation, b) it is possible to improve performance;
> Using regular meetings of ministers to increase awareness and the potentials of concerted
action;
> Ensuring relevance of shelter agenda in economic development and climate change;
> Building on experiences and networks of GLTN to promote a broader shelter agenda.
Capacity building and technical advice
At the global level
> Facilitating development and access to generic training materials linked to knowledge
generation;
> Developing network of global partners to place the vision and implement it jointly with UN-
HABITAT.
At the country level
> Involving education and capacity building institutions in research, publication,
communication, and advice;
> Networking to better integrate learning into action and vice versa.
Conclusion
Focusing on shelter policy and implementation will significantly improve performance, through:
> An integrated approach focusing on land and housing and their linkages to other sectors;
> Advocacy and support for national and local shelter policy development and implementation; > Effective work with partners both globally and locally.
We appreciate your feedback by filling in the questionnaire we designed.
If you have further questions regarding the strategic paper, and/or the survey result, please contact: Mohamed.El-Sioufi@unhabitat.org or y.fang@ihs.nl.
