Equal Access to Shelter & Basic Urban Services
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Room: W4-1
09:00 – 18:30 “The availability of resources such as land at the right place, infrastructure, housing finance, building materials etc are important for ensuring access to adequate housing. However, availability alone will not ensure equality of opportunity to access housing by all. Ensuring availability and articulating measures for their equitable use go hand in hand. Measures can include inclusive land policies, availability of a range of financial products, strategies to make basic services available to all and availability of building materials at adequate prices and quantities”.
Banashree, E-debate on Equal Access to Shelter, September 2009. Briefing
The dialogue and thematic open debates under the theme “equal access to shelter” will unfold one particular dimension of the right to the city agenda of the forum: the right to an adequate shelter.
Adequate shelter, as defined by the Habitat Agenda, means more than a house. It encompasses the provision of land, infrastructure, affordable finance, sustainable and durable building materials, security of tenure and the right not to be forcedly evicted, in addition to basic urban services closely linked to housing and dwelling environments. Altogether these contribute to enhanced quality of life and an adequate standard of living. Click here to download the background document and know more about this dialogue theme
Click here to know more about the speakers and panellists
About the programme
The discussions under this theme of the 5th World Urban Forum will take place in room W4-1, and will be organised as follows: SESSION | TIME | Title | | 1. Dialogue 3 | 09:00 – 11:30 | Equal Access to Shelter & Basic Urban Services |
| 2. Thematic Open Debate | 13:30 – 15:00 | Access to Serviced Land |
| 3. Thematic Open Debate | 15:30 – 17:00 | Affordable and Adequate Housing |
| 4. Thematic Concluding Session | 17:30 – 18:30 | Taking Forward the Housing Agenda |
About the Sessions
The first session called Dialogue 3 covers the broad theme of Equal Access to Shelter. It opens with a brief presentation drawn from the internet-based discussions that highlights the critical aspects preventing equal access to shelter and explores ways to promote equal opportunities for all. Thereafter, panellists are asked to make their 5-minute key message opening statement. They will be probed by the audience and the moderator through an interactive and lively session.
Subsequently, the dialogue continues in two thematic afternoon sessions focused on particular dimensions of the theme: land, infrastructure, finance, housing and land markets and policy responses. During these sessions, specialists and experts share their view in a more inclusive environment. At the end of the day, panellists of all previous sessions join a concluding thematic session of the day which is opened by a wrap-up of results of the discussions by the rapporteur. All attending this session are given the chance to react and comment on the results, share views and suggest proposals for the way forward.
| Dialogue 3 | | Title: | Equal Access to Shelter & Basic Urban Services | | Day, Time & Venue: | Wednesday, 24 March, from 09:00 - 11:30, W4-1 | | Objective: | The main objective of Dialogue 3 is to identify policies and practices that enable wide access to land and housing and discuss to which extent it works as slum prevention strategies and offer equal opportunities to access adequate housing for all. The dialogue stimulates a discussion that includes but goes beyond the slum upgrading agenda.
The discussion is intended to help to disclose the different types of constraints that hinder the housing sector to work particularly for the poor, and clarify why informal settlements and slums have often become the only housing alternative for the poor. In this respect, the Dialogue hopes to enhance the audience’s knowledge about the deep-rooted causes of slum formation.
The dialogue will help to identify policy responses geared to provide housing opportunities for different social groups and bring alternatives to scale. It is hoped that the realisation of land and housing rights will be highlighted within the framework of the ‘right to the city’ approach. | | Topics to be Covered: | The following topics are expected to be covered by this Dialogue:
affordable housing policies; housing delivery systems and the supply of serviced land; infrastructure and basic services delivery; security of tenure; land and housing rights. Policy and instruments to enable access to land and housing; housing finance that works for the poor; slum upgrading, slum prevention, citywide land regularisation; | | Brief Outline of the Session: | The provision of affordable, well located and adequate housing is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. Data from UN-HABITAT reveal that the number of people living in inadequate housing and subject to conditions of inequality is worrisome and is on the increase. Even though the right to adequate housing has been recognised and provided for in international instruments, including the Habitat Agenda, it remains cumbersome and a difficult right for governments to fulfil. This has serious implications. By not prioritising equal access to housing, government misses unique opportunities to strengthen the considerable backwards and forward linkages of housing sector activities within other sectors of the economy which may lead to wider economic opportunities. In addition to this, the role of housing in poverty reduction and employment generation is not fully and optimally realised.
For the last 15 years or so, international organisations and Governments in developing countries alike have retreated from the housing sector resulting in housing provision being virtually or entirely left to the market. Data from UN-HABITAT clearly indicates that the rate of slum formation in various cities around the globe during this period is unequivocal evidence that this approach did not result in making available a wide range of affordable housing opportunities for the poor.
Fundamentally, there is a need for policies that make access to land and housing both financially affordable and physically appropriate. Formal housing markets do not provide for that. Conventional housing finance and formal mortgage services exclude the poor and those who earn seasonal incomes leaving households living in poverty with little option but to resort to slums, informal settlements and sub-rented and overcrowded accommodation.
The urban divide has a clear housing and physical/spatial dimension. The need to provide a wide range of housing opportunities in terms of price, location, size, level of completeness and incremental development is critical to bridge the urban divide. This dialogue was designed to explore these dimensions and discuss the impact of policies in making both housing finance and the supply of serviced land affordable and available at scale so that equal opportunities to access adequate housing is within reach of the majority of the population.
In addition, it has become evident that the malfunctioning of the housing sector, and particularly of housing markets, has pervasive impacts on the poor, on the structure and functioning of cities and in the overall economy. Never before has this linkage been as evident as is now revealed by the global economic turmoil. While unregulated and irresponsible housing finance institutions lie at the heart of the present global financial problem, the revival of housing and a holistic approach to it seem to indicate the road map to overcome the problems the finance sector has created. Thus housing is an important vehicle to tackle the urban divide.
An equal city offers all its inhabitants, without discrimination of any kind, access to decent housing, infrastructure, health services, sufficient food and water, education, and open spaces. The access to safe and healthy shelter and basic services is essential to a person’s physical, psychological, social and economic well-being. However, in this new urban age, it is generally recognized that the provision of adequate shelter to rapidly growing urban populations poses one of the greatest social challenges for humanity.
The Dialogue is intended to discuss the above issues as they impact upon housing supply in many countries and most continents. It will help to highlight many difficulties faced by those trying to provide equal access to appropriate urban land and financial provision and catalogue some progress made in providing land, especially for those who are not in the rich quintile of the population.
Indeed, while we hope for analysis of countries and cities that are successful in improving the living conditions of the slum population and preventing slums before they even are formed, the on-line internet debate that was organised in preparation of the 5th World Urban Forum demonstrated that still most of the discussion is focused on existing problems, with only a few examples of successful interventions reported by the active participants, mainly from India and Brazil. Until we produce new generations of policies and approaches to provide a wide range of housing opportunities, slums and the urban face of deprivation and poverty will continue to grow in scope and scale. | | Key Questions to be addressed: | RIGHT-BASED APPROACH TO HOUSING- Does equal access to shelter mean the supply availability of adequately located serviced land, thus supply of basic infrastructure, and the provision of housing finance and adequate building materials and technology that enables all individuals in society to have equal opportunities to access adequate housing within the city boundaries? Does this translate into the right to adequate housing?
CONSTRAINTS IN HOUSING SUPPLY - What are the factors that are constraining the production of affordable housing options for different social groups and particularly the poor?
- Assuming that the supply of serviced land at scale is a fundamental condition to boost the provision of affordable housing opportunities at a scale that can compete with the informal supply systems – thus preventing slum formation - what are the main bottlenecks in the land and infrastructure supply systems, and what needs to be done to overcome them?
AFFORDABILITY AND MECHANISMS TO ENABLE ACCESS TO HOUSING - Are there any measures e.g. institutional, legal, financial, technical, etc. that can be established in order to prevent housing solutions addressed to low income households to be high-jacked by economically stronger groups?
- If house price-to-income ration are disrupted, what are the policy, programme and technical instruments to bring housing prices down and increase the ability to pay for different housing opportunities e.g. housing allowances, subsidised solutions, serviced land, serviced land plus basic shelter, building materials credit, incremental guided land development, normative reforms to allow for smaller plots and houses, etc.?
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES - More and more urban poor communities are organising themselves into different forms of federations, savings groups, cooperatives and associations in order to provide for themselves affordable and adequate housing solutions that fit their needs and demand, which unfortunately has not gained the necessary scale. How can these initiatives be supported and be mainstreamed into public policies of scale? Which roles must be played by governments, NGOs, private institutions, financing and micro-financing institutions and others?
- We have noticed the increase of private sector participation and land and property developers getting involved in the provision of different types of housing solutions for low income people. Is there a role for the private sector and what and how should they get involved?
| | Keynote Speakers & Panellists | - Mrs. Dilma Roussef, Minister of Civil Affairs of the Presidency of Brazil, former Minister of Energy and Resources, and coordinator of Brazil’s Programme of Accelerated Growth-PAC.
- Mr. Adolfo Carrión, Urban Planner, Director of Urban Affairs of the White House, Government of the United States of America.
- Mr. Eric Makokha, Chief Executive of Shelter Forum, a networking and advocacy NGO. Co-chair of Land Sector Non-State Actors network and chairman of board of directors of social rights foundation, Kenya.
- Mrs. Kecia Rust, Coordinator of the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa, a Think Tank organisation part of FinMark Trust, South Africa.
- Mrs. Raquel Rolnik, Special UN Rapporteur on Right to Adequate Housing
- Mr. Graham Tipple, Dialogue rapporteur, moderator e-debate, Professor from the University of Newcastle, United Kingdom, author of many books on housing.
- Mr. Jaime A. Fabiaña, Chief Executive Officer of “Home Development Mutual Fund” (Pag-IBIG Fund), the Provident Fund and Home Financing Institution of the Philippines.
| | Thematic Open Debate | | Title: | Access to Serviced Land | | Day, Time & Venue: | Wednesday, 24 March, from 13:30 - 15:00, W4-1 | | Objective: | The main objective of this segment of Dialogue 3 is to provide the audience with an organised discussion focused on one of the most fundamental elements in the housing equation, that is to say the provision of land and basic urban infrastructure.
The panellists of this segment of the discussion will unfold the critical constraints in the supply of serviced land and elaborate on the policy responses and measures to bring the supply to scale in view of a buoyant formal & informal land markets.
The debate develops a better understanding of the functioning of land markets, its impact on supply of serviced land and in overall housing prices, as well as on its determinant role of social-spatial structures in cities.
At the end of this segment of the dialogue, the discussion will therefore narrow down to approaches that may generate more opportunities and equality in access to legally secure, affordable and well located land and the required basic infrastructure. | | Topics to be Covered: | Land delivery systems; institutional and legal constraints hindering land supply; provision of basic infrastructure; formal and informal land markets; land prices and housing prices; financing infrastructure. | Key Questions to be addressed: | What hinders the supply of affordable land at scale? What are the policy implications and measures to overcome institutional, economic, legal and other bottlenecks that prevent individuals and households to have equal access to land and basic urban infrastructure? | | Brief Outline: | The availability of land for development is vital for a sound and equal urban development process. Making this land ready for development and accessible for all is another challenge that governments often fail to realize. The reasons are vary. Cumbersome institutional and regulatory systems make land delivery costly and time consuming. Monopolies in land ownership constrain supply, affects prices and urban growth patterns. Lack of land management instruments and inadequate land and housing policies leave poor households entirely prey to market players. Lack of transparency in the market and land use restrictions elevate prices to exorbitant levels.
The result is that people revert to informal markets often triggering rapid rates of slum formation and informal land and housing processes. Cities are confronted with social and spatial fragmentation, social exclusion and clear physical manifestations of an unequal access to land, infrastructure and basic urban services.
This segment of the dialogue 3, organised in the form of a thematic open debate, is structured to address all these issues in a lively and substantive debate between experts, scholars and the audience. | Keynote Speakers & Panellists | - Mrs. Banashree Banerjee, Indian scholar and international consultant focusing on various aspects of land and housing developments.
- Gustavo Gonzalez Soto, housing cooperative campaigner and leading Latin American practitioner in self-help, mutual-aid and self-management land and housing development.
- Martim Smolka, leading land scholar and director of the Latin American and the Caribbean Programme of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, advising and training decision makers on land markets and land policies.
- Mark Napier, director of LandMark, a programme that functions as think-tank, promoting dialogue, focusing on making urban land markets work better for the poor.
- Mr. Graham Tipple, Dialogue rapporteur, moderator e-debate, Professor from the University of Newcastle, United Kingdom, author of many books on housing.
- Mrs. Evaniza Rodrigues, National Forum of Urban Reform in Brazil, Civil Society Representative at the Council of Cities of Brazil.
| Thematic Open Debate | | Title: | Affordable and Adequate Housing | | Day, Time & Venue: | Wednesday, 24 March, from 15:30 - 17:00, W4-1 | | Objective: | The main objective of this segment of Dialogue 3 is to make an in-depth discussion about the policies, approaches and strategies to make housing affordable and accessible for all different social groups. The debate is focused on the delivery of adequate housing in a variety of outcomes, types and solutions that enable low-income households to realize their housing needs and aspirations. Thus, the debate is expected to disclose both the critical impediments hindering equal access to housing that is adequate and affordable as well as measures, instruments and policy interventions that bring these housing options to scale. | Topics to be Covered: | Affordability and adequacy in housing outcomes; housing finance; housing delivery systems; constraints in supply; housing policies; housing sector reforms; housing typologies; institutional and regulatory frameworks; | Key Questions to be addressed: | What are the most critical constraints that hinder the provision of affordable housing to low-income households? What is required in terms of policy interventions, institutional and regulatory reforms and other measures to generate a variety of housing options that meets the demand of various social groups? | Brief Outline: | Government responses to the housing problems in the developing world have gone through many stages and modalities with different results and impacts.
Approaches and policy responses have evolved from strong government provision and public housing strategies towards broad institutional and policy reforms to enable housing markets to work more efficiently. Different approaches have been designed and executed with mixed results.
National governments engaged in policy reforms, dismantling and/or rehabilitating housing finance institutions and opening avenues for private sector provision. Large subsidised housing and serviced land programmes have also been executed. Different modalities of sites & services, sites without services, mutual aid and cooperative programmes have been experimented but without halting the poor from resorting to informal housing and informal land supply mechanisms to access housing.
The dramatic growth on slums during the last decade is an unequivocal evidence that leaving housing exclusively to market provision not only resulted in exclusion of large parts of the population but also made clear that the housing sector does not provide diversity of affordable and adequate housing options at a scale compatible with the level of demand.
This debate is intended to disclose some of the fundamental bottlenecks hindering the delivery of a multiplicity of housing options which are adequate, affordable and well-located. Furthermore, the discussion amongst scholars, practitioners and policy makers will enhance the array of policies and strategies that can actually work for the poor. | Keynote Speakers & Panellists: | - Dan Ericsson, State Secretary and Deputy Minister of Finance, politician and member of parliament of Sweden;
- David Smith, director and found of the Affordable Housing Institute, Boston, USA;
- Nabil Bonduki, scholar and housing practitioner, key advisor of the national housing policy and the national housing plan of Brazil;
- Geoff Payne, scholar and international land and housing practitioner, consultant and advisor to several international development agencies.
- Barry Pinsky, executive director of Rooftops Canada, housing expert with wide experience in grassroots, municipal and national housing processes, with a particular focus to cooperative housing.
- Mr. Graham Tipple, Dialogue rapporteur, moderator e-debate, Professor from the University of Newcastle, United Kingdom, author of many books on housing.
| | Thematic Concluding Session | | Title: | Taking Forward the Housing Agenda | Day, Time & Venue: | Wednesday, 24 March, from 17:30 - 18:30, W4-1 | Objective: | The main objective of this segment of Dialogue 3 is to wrap-up the thematic discussions under the main theme of “equal access to shelter and basic urban services”, highlight the critical aspects and contributions made throughout the day and point out directions on the way forward. | | Topics to be Covered: | As a wrap-up and concluding session, issues covered during the previous sessions as well as issues not sufficiently addressed up to this point will be brought forward. Topics range from the right to adequate housing as part of the right to the city agenda, to issues such as land and housing delivery systems, financing mechanism and institutions, markets and policy responses. | | Key Questions to be addressed: | What are the most critical constraints that need to be addressed in order to bring the provision of adequate and affordable housing options to scale? What roles, responsibilities and obligations are expected for the various stakeholders involved in housing? | Brief Outline: | By the time we reach this stage of the dialogue, it should have become more evident to all panellists and the public in general that equal access to shelter and basic urban services requires a multitude of actions and fundamental shifts in current land and housing policies. Some are more obvious than others. Nevertheless any shift in thinking and practice, in housing policy formulation and implementation aiming at producing equality in opportunities to access adequate housing is likely to require sustained political commitment and engagement of all public, private and community stakeholders. This concluding session will review the most important contributions made by all speakers, calibrate some fundamental concepts and understanding built throughout the previous sessions and unpack fundamental steps to be pursued in search for a housing agenda for the future. The session will start with a wrap-up presentation by the rapporteur | | Participants: | - Mrs. Dilma Roussef, Minister of Civil Affairs of the Presidency of Brazil, former Minister of Energy and Resources, coordinator of Brazil’s Programme of Accelerated Growth.
- Mr. Eric Makokha, Chief Executive of Shelter Forum, a networking and advocacy NGO. Co-chair of Land Sector Non-State Actors network and chairman of board of directors of social rights foundation, Kenya.
- Mrs. Evaniza Rodrigues, National Forum of Urban Reform in Brazil, Civil Society Representative at the Council of Cities of Brazil.
- Mrs. Kecia Rust, Coordinator of the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa, a Think Tank organisation part of FinMark Trust, South Africa.
- Mrs. Raquel Rolnik, Special UN Rapporteur on Right to Adequate Housing
- Mrs. Banashree Banerjee, Indian scholar and international consultant focusing on various aspects of land and housing developments.
- Gustavo Gonzalez Soto, housing cooperative campaigner and leading Latin American practitioner in self-help, mutual-aid and self-management land and housing development.
- Martim Smolka, leading land scholar and director of the Latin American and the Caribbean Programme of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, advising and training decision makers on land markets and land policies.
- Mark Napier, director of LandMark, a programme that functions as think-tank, promoting dialogue, focusing on making urban land markets work better for the poor
- Dan Ericsson, State Secretary and Deputy Minister of Finance, politician and member of parliament of Sweden;
- David Smith, director and founder of the Affordable Housing Institute, Boston, USA;
- Nabil Bonduki, scholar and housing practitioner, key advisor of the national housing policy and the national housing plan of Brazil;
- Barry Pinsky, executive director of Rooftops Canada, housing expert with wide experience in grassroots, municipal and national housing processes, with a particular focus to cooperative housing.
- Mr. Graham Tipple, dialogue rapporteur, moderator e-debate, Professor from the University of Newcastle, United Kingdom, author of many books on housing.
- And others.
| Main Language of the Presentations: | English, Spanish and Portuguese, with simultaneous translation. | Dialogue Coordinator: | Claudio Acioly (UN-HABITAT) | Organizer from UN-HABITAT: | Pro-poor land and housing (Focus Area 3) and ENOF | Partner / Organisation: | Ines Magalhães, National Housing Secretariat of the Ministry of Cities, Government of Brazil. | Contact Persons at UN-HABITAT: | Claudio Acioly Jr. claudio.acioly@unhabitat.org
Rasmus Precht rasmus.precht@unhabitat.org
Jean D’Aragon jean.daragon@unhabitat.org
Helen Musoke helen.musoke@unhabitat.org
+254207624231; +254207623117; +254723215727 |
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