Modes of housing provision in developing countries

In the face of an estimated one billion people living in inadequate housing conditions in developing countries the need for scaling up housing supply has become an urgent focus of policy debate. To this end the expansion of the role of the private markets has formed the central thesis of the 'enabling strategy' for developing the housing sector as a whole rather than relying on project based approaches such as sites and services and settlement upgrading programmes. Policy recommendations emanating from such a standpoint concentrate on adjustments to supply and demand through deregulation and institutional development of the land and housing markets in developing countries in order to overcome largely external constraints to a more efficient market mechanism. This conception of the enabling strategy, however, has been subject to much debate and criticism for its over-concentration on the private markets and exclusion of alternative/complementary modes of housing provision from serious policy consideration. By utilising the structure and agency approach as its basic methodological tool of analysis this paper provides a comprehensive review of the scope and potential of different modes of housing provision in different contexts in developing countries. Thereby providing a firm comparative basis for examining the potential for expanded private market activity. The paper concludes that the severe underdevelopment of institutional capacities and human and material resources coupled with intricate and complex social, political, cultural and economic interactions between various agents and structures of provision create major obstacles to the efficiency of private land markets in developing countries. Therefore, while private markets can and should be supported they can not form the focus of the enabling strategy in most developing countries. Instead, the paper argues for a comprehensive approach to enabling strategies which combines adjustments to overall supply and demand conditions with the identification and inclusion of different modes and agents of housing provision in a holistic integrated policy. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved.