"Organization type ": Organización sin fines de lucro

Passiv Solar Verandas

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Passiv Solar Verandas

Mismatches Functional adequacy
Urban Design Urban fabrics Environments Liveability
Promotion and production Participatory processes Self-construction Progressive housing

Main objectives of the project

Since March 2014, over 1,500 Passiv Solar Verandas have been built onto the houses of people living in the remote Central Highlands of Afghanistan creating additional living spaces and providing warm air, which circulates round the house. More than 100 trained local craftsmen were involved in building the verandas, creating a livelihood for them and their families.

Date

  • 2016:

Stakeholders

  • Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Continent: Asia
Country/Region: Afghanistan

Description

Project Description

Passiv Solar Verandas are wood-framed structures built against the south-facing wall of a house. The project installs them in the highland region of Afghanistan where winter temperatures are cold and access to fuel is expensive and difficult. They act like a greenhouse using the sun’s warmth to heat the air. The warm air circulates into the rest of the house achieving an indoor temperature of around +20°C. The verandas are easy and cheap to install, constructed from timber or steel and polythene sheets. The veranda creates an additional room, extending the living space of the house.

Since March 2014, over 1,500 verandas have been built in the Central Highlands (in the Bamyan and Maydan-Wardak districts). More than 100 trained local craftsmen were involved in building them creating a livelihood for them and their families.

The project is scheduled to be completed in September 2017 by which time GERES aims to have trained a total of 170 local workers who will complete 700 verandas (in addition to those completed by individuals/communities without GERES’s input).

Acknowledged by global consulting firm Hystra as one of the world’s 15 pioneers in marketing for vulnerable populations, GERES deploys an innovative approach to the large-scale dissemination of pioneering and sustainable energy solutions.

Aims and Objectives

The project aims to help vulnerable and poor households overcome fuel poverty through a market-based approach. The veranda was developed in collaboration with households, by including them in the design and adaptation process, and then training local craftsmen. They are provided with the technical and business tools to support a veranda-based business. GERES introduced the veranda into the market but households are responsible for placing the order and paying between 80 and 100% of the total cost.

Passiv Solar Verandas offer a more sustainable means of heating than the traditional practice of cutting down trees for fuel, which has a negative impact on the environment, degrading soil fertility and leading to erosion.

There are two groups who benefit directly from this project:

  • The local people who are able to operate within the marketplace and generate additional sources of income.
  • Households who purchase the Passiv Solar Verandas (with or without a GERES subsidy) and benefit from a warmer house and an additional, warm day room as well as savings on fuel costs.

The objective is that the demand will be self-sustained once the project ends, providing households with increased comfort and warmth, while craftsmen gain an additional source of income. As the primary goal of GERES is to provide sustainable energy solutions to as many people as possible, large-scale dissemination is at the heart of its strategy. By the end of the programme, GERES aims to equip 3,000 households with energy saving solutions.

Context

The Central Highlands of Afghanistan is a mountainous area north of Kabul forming part of the HinduKush mountain range. The area is largely rural. Some parts of it are remote and very sparsely populated. The climate is dry and seasonal temperatures vary. In upland areas the average summer temperatures don’t exceed 15°C and average winter temperatures are below 0°C.

Afghanistan is a poor country ranking 175th on the United Nations’ Human Development Index. Its recent history has been affected by decades of conflict which has destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure and severely hampered trade. The Central Highlands is a relatively safe area. It is traditionally populated by the Hazara ethnic group, but there has been a significant rise in population as refugees from other ethnic groups have fled from other areas of the country to escape the war. The Hazara group has a history of being discriminated against and there are numerous reports of members of the group being attacked and kidnapped on the primary access roads that run through the region.

The population of the Central Highlands primarily relies on agriculture and livestock as a source of income. Livelihoods depend mainly on the availability and management of natural resources: land for pastures and agriculture; water for irrigation; biomass (wood) for cooking, heating and construction purposes. The area has suffered a prolonged drought. This combined with high population increases since 2001 have drastically increased the pressure on already scarce natural resources.

GERES’ passiv solar house technologies have been disseminated in remote regions of Afghanistan, Tajikistan and India since 2009. In Afghanistan, GERES has identified that the vast majority of the population live in uninsulated houses, with high indoor air pollution and energy expenses from heating. It also showed that 76% of these houses could be modified into passiv solar houses, which are cheaper to heat, energy efficient and locally installed. After a pilot initiative in the Bamyan region in 2010, and a larger scale project in Kabul, the project currently promotes the verandas at a larger scale in Central Highlands.

GERES implements its activities within the framework of the “Central Highland Rural Development Programme”, a consortium of three French NGOs (MADERA, Solidarités International and GERES as the lead partner) focused on improving the living conditions of the rural population in terms of agriculture, environment and natural resource management. Solidarités International focuses on agricultural development and water/sanitation activities and MADERA focuses on livestock and related natural resources management.

Key Features

The key features of the approach can be summarised as follows:

  • GERES works to find the best compromise between efficiency, acceptability, affordability and local ownership so that their technologies have a high market penetration rate and impact the largest number of beneficiaries. Finding the best balance among these four elements is the key to success, and requires lengthy analysis, research and development.
  • They maximise local added-value by developing or reinforcing value chains ensuring the local ownership and sustainability of their solutions by providing capacity building to local people (mainly craftsmen) so they can operate independently.
  • GERES also supports by generating demand through awareness-raising campaigns and enhancing policy frameworks.

Craftsmen are approached based on recommendations from the heads of communities. GERES then develops demonstration sites with these craftsmen in strategic places in their communities to raise awareness and share information about the benefits with local communities. The Passiv Solar Verandas are developed in collaboration with both households and craftsmen. GERES’ Research and Development team works with local households to identify their specific energy needs and problems and to create appropriate solutions.

Pilot designs are incorporated into houses and focus groups involving residents help ensure people’s inputs are incorporated into the adaptation process. Capacity building workshops were planned with local communities in order to explain how to use and maintain the verandas for optimal efficiency; Technical workshops were implemented with local stakeholders in order to clarify and explain the main purposes of the programme. Craftsmen were also consulted at this stage to make sure the technologies fit with their skills and the materials used are readily available locally.

What impact has it had?

In close cooperation with academia and UN agencies, the technologies and approaches developed by GERES are being embedded into the traditional construction designs of housing in the Central Highlands region of Afghanistan and GERES is currently working in collaboration with UN-HABITAT on improving the Afghan national standards for housing.

The project promotes and protects the rights of citizens by carefully considering cultural factors during the design process and by going to some lengths to ensure the solutions are affordable for the target community.

How is it funded?

The project was originally funded by the Government of France’s development agency ‘Agence Française de Développement’ (AFD) to work in Kabul with the support of the European Commission and private foundations. This agency fully funded the Central Highland Rural Development Programme (10 million euros; USD $11.1 million) for three partner organisations covering four components WASH, Agriculture, Energy Saving Solutions (ESS) in housing and capitalisation. Of these NGOs, GERES is in charge of the ESS and capitalisation components.

GERES’s development of the energy saving solutions component including the dissemination of Passiv Solar Veranda and other Energy Saving Solutions costs 4.5 million euros (USD $5 million). The annual running costs (14.5% of this amount) have been completed thanks to the support of private foundations (Fondation Abbé Pierre and Lord Michelham of Hellingly Foundation). The full implementation cost of the Passiv Solar Verandas project is 1 million euros (USD $1.1 million). This includes research and development, the direct material costs as well as a part of the HR and logistic resources needed for this activity, training and capacity building with craftsmen, toolkits and plans, demonstration units and awareness-raising and marketing.

The Government of France’s Development Agency (AFD) are fully funding the dissemination of the Passiv Solar Verandas in the Central Highlands area as a component of a wider programme of housing energy saving solutions. It is intended that by the end of the project the Passiv Solar Verandas will have been fully integrated into the local market ensuring financial sustainability for the local craftsmen. While the existing project funding ends in September 2017, additional funding is currently being sought to expand the project into new districts in the Central Highlands. At present, craftsmen have been trained in the construction of three different types of veranda. These range in price from approximately USD $130 to USD $350. The price variations are due primarily to the selection and availability of materials – from the more expensive hardwood veranda with a plastic cover through to one with a steel profile and then the cheaper round-pipe veranda. These variations make the Passiv Solar Verandas affordable for the majority of the target population.

Why is it innovative?

The programme has taken a proven technology and adapted it to deal with the challenges faced in an extreme environment due to the scarcity of materials and the geographic isolation of the community. An innovative approach to affordability has been strategically designed into this project. GERES has introduced the veranda into the market based on the need identified for such solutions in the community.

An innovative subsidy model has been used that keeps the verandas affordable without distorting the local market. The amount of the subsidy is calculated based on the average price of materials in the local bazaar and the expected time for construction. When a product is first introduced to an area a ‘high subsidy’ (approximately 12% of the total material and labour cost) is provided to the craftsmen. This ‘high subsidy’ remains for six weeks before moving to a ‘low subsidy’ (approximately 6% of the total material and labour cost). This low subsidy lasts for three months, or until the end of the project depending on the uptake in the different districts. The high subsidy coincides with a spring or winter promotional campaign which includes a series of awareness sessions and promotional events in communities to accelerate the acceptance of the technologies and increase the number of orders for the craftsmen.

A staggered subsidy campaign, with high subsidies available over two promotional periods (spring and winter) means that GERES contributes between 6% and 12% of the overall costs. This strategy allows for easier entry into the marketplace for craftsmen constructing these technologies and the staggered delivery is designed to eventually eliminate the subsidy to support the continuity and financial sustainability of the project. The subsidy is given to the craftsmen directly as they are the target beneficiaries of the project. It is then their responsibility to pass on the cost savings to the families.

The delivery is described as staggered as when the technologies are introduced into the community, the high subsidy leads to increased affordability and supports dissemination. As the subsidy decreases from high to low it is anticipated that a) the craftsmen will have gained more business and marketing skills (provided by GERES) and b) the technologies will be well known within the target area (meaning they will help to market themselves). This strategy eventually balances out to a point where once the subsidy ceases, the craftsmen have the start-up skills necessary to be sustainable, supporting themselves financially.

The programme has adapted its model as it has been implemented. The Passiv Solar Verandas developed in earlier GERES projects and at the initial phases of this project used imported Russian timber as the primary construction material. Given the lack of available local materials this timber was accepted locally and had improved durability and longevity over local materials. Since then however, the GERES team has developed variations of the timber veranda by using cheaper, locally available steel. While construction techniques differ slightly overall, these new techniques are more affordable for the most vulnerable households.

What is the environmental impact?

The veranda reduces the energy burden on the environment by significantly reducing the amount of bushes and wood that households collect to meet their daily heating needs. The Passiv Solar Verandas are primarily made up of the frame and polythene cover. The frame is made from either imported Russian timber, local timber, steel profile or steel pipes (based on the availability of material and financial constraints of the household). The local timber has the lowest embodied energy of these materials, however its poor quality and low density also make it the least sustainable in the long-term. Material selection in this region is based on availability and sustainable material selection for this project is an ongoing challenge in the Central Highlands area.

The verandas increase the household temperature by +10 to 15°C and reduce the amount of natural resources used as heating fuel in the household by between 5 and 30% per year. In the Central Highlands these fuels comprise primarily of dung, bushes and locally grown timber. The Passiv Solar Verandas, in combination with the other energy saving solutions disseminated by craftsmen as part of the programme, contribute to the overall awareness in the region of natural resource management, environmental stewardship and sustainable environmental best practices in general. For example, specific objectives have been outlined for the remainder of this project to train households on the reuse of plastic materials (at the end of each winter) and to create collection points for recycling.

Is it financially sustainable?

The programme has been developed so that once the funding comes to an end and the project is completed, the verandas will already be integrated into the marketplace and the trained craftsmen will have the capacity to further develop their enterprises without the ongoing support of GERES. The extensive replication of Passiv Solar Verandas in the project area indicates already that these technologies are being accepted into the local marketplace and are providing sources of income for craftsmen outside of the GERES project.

The current funding is guaranteed until the end of the project in late 2017. GERES is currently negotiating funding for a second phase of the project across different districts in the target provinces. While this funding is not guaranteed, it will not change the overall impact and ongoing sustainability of the current project. The project is specifically designed to ensure the trained craftsmen have a longer term source of income and will provide ongoing cost savings for the households involved. The business and marketing aspects of the project have focussed on the linkages between craftsmen and local material providers to ensure the current value-chain remains intact on completion of the project. While this project does not directly reduce the cost of building houses, the cost benefits achieved through fuel reduction does mean that household running costs are reduced.

What is the social impact?

The Passiv Solar Verandas project helps to facilitate greater cooperation and cohesion by working closely with communities and through awareness-raising activities. GERES ensures acceptance from communities by engaging community leaders in the decision making around the choice of craftsmen and the selection of verandas and other energy saving solutions.

Passiv Solar Verandas reduce social inequalities by allowing reductions in fuel consumption (giving financial savings), and increasing internal temperatures and improving living conditions in winter. In addition, the provision of an additional warm space in winter where people can undertake daily chores, such as washing dishes, looking after children and receiving guests has benefits for the whole household, particularly women, who are traditionally responsible for overseeing these activities.

The Passiv Solar Verandas project allows individual craftsmen to take a more active role in society by providing services that benefit their community. The marketing training provided allows them to reach out and generate business which increases the productivity of their enterprises. Craftsmen engaged in the Passiv Solar Verandas are trained on technical and business/marketing skills increasing their construction skills and also creating additional income opportunities for their enterprises. Given the harsh winter conditions in the Central Highlands region of Afghanistan the simple fact that the Passiv Solar Verandas increase the inside living temperature by about 10°C means the quality of life and overall health of the community is improved.

Barriers

The success of the Passiv Solar Verandas within the community is evident by the organic spread of this technology that is occurring within the community.  While this is a positive development and shows the acceptance of the concept by the community, the overall quality has not been to the standard prescribed by GERES; thus not delivering the same benefits.

Quality standards are being developed with local actors and UN-Habitat to create a minimum standards framework and ensure the safety of any Passiv Solar Verandas developed through this route.

Lessons Learned

The primary lesson learned by GERES in the Central Highlands is that of accessibility and availability of materials. The region is difficult to access and many of the communities live in remote, hard to reach areas. This presents challenges for the project team and the craftsmen seeking to disseminate the Passiv Solar Verandas in these areas. These geographic challenges also correlate to the availability of materials at an affordable price. GERES has worked hard to develop variations of the original Passiv Solar Verandas design to allow for easier access to more appropriate and affordable materials.

Evaluation

Three main areas of indicators are used to evaluate the overall success of the project:

  • The diversification of energy-saving solutions are evaluated using a number of data sets including structural tests, load bearing (with wind and snow), plastic weathering comparisons based on price of material and these are validated in the Research and Development work.
  • The strength of the value chain is demonstrated by the number of craftsmen trained/training sessions delivered, marketing material distributed and perceived demand from the community for the energy saving solutions.  These indicators allow the programme to assess the different stages of the value chain.
  • The overall impact of the project is evaluated using data regarding the dissemination of energy saving solutions, the reach of promotional campaigns and the overall mapping of the dissemination area.

Internal monitoring and evaluation activities track and analyse the implementation of the project on an ongoing basis in line with the overall objectives. External consultants have also been commission to undertake a mid-term and final review of the project activities. The overall conclusions presented as part of the mid-term review suggested that the fact that the spread of the verandas was happening organically and being led by the community themselves, without GERES’ involvement, was a testament to the appropriateness and effectiveness of the project activities.

Recognition

This submission is the first application from GERES for an award for this work. However, it is worth noting that two other solar passive technology projects by GERES in Ladakh, India have received some recognition: an Ashden in 2009 (passive solar greenhouses) and as a World Habitat Award finalist in 2011 (passive solar houses).

Transfer

GERES regularly publishes its work and attends related conferences at an international level. In Afghanistan, publications and studies are distributed via the Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University in the Dari language, so are accessible to a wider public. Professional, public, donor agency and academics regularly visit the project sites and there are regular field visits by representatives of provincial and national government.

The original veranda was developed in Kabul as well as being piloted in other districts. It has since then been transferred by GERES with the current project to the rural Central Highlands of Afghanistan. Provided there is a market and an identified need within the community there is little reason why the current Passiv Solar Verandas technologies could not be transferred and replicated elsewhere. The veranda technology could be transferable to other locations that face similar heating issues during the winter if the design is adapted to the resources available within those areas. In addition, the market-based approach could be transferred to any location. Similarly, the approach with which GERES researches, develops, pilots and validates the Passiv Solar Verandas technology could be transferred to other similar energy saving solutions and sustainable housing and construction initiatives.

GERES is interested in scaling up the existing Passiv Solar Verandas project provided there is a need and interest from the target community and there is affordable and easy access to the required materials. Future projects (currently under development) seek to build on the current successes of this market based approach to energy efficiency and cover additional districts in the provinces where they are currently working. A forthcoming project in Kabul uses a similar methodology in combination with a micro-finance element to further the potential reach of Passiv Solar Verandas in the capital of Afghanistan.

The current Passiv Solar Verandas design is an evolution of previous Passiv Solar Housing initiatives that have been implemented across part of central and Southern Asia including the dissemination of over 3,000 Passiv Solar Verandas constructed by 74 craftsmen in Kabul between 2009 and 2012. The current Verandas project has built on these successes and evolved the material and construction techniques through its Research and Development process to make the Passiv Solar Verandas more accessible and affordable for the target community.

Locally – through the consortium work, the partners integrate GERES technologies into their programmes.

Nationally – In Afghanistan, the Ministry of Public Health legislated for the inclusion of the GERES’ energy-efficiency standards into the construction of all public buildings.

Links

Authors:

World Habitat

More than Housing

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More than Housing

Mismatches New family structures
Policies and regulations National policies
Promotion and production Self-management Progressive housing Management and maintenance
Ownership and tenure

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2016:

Stakeholders

  • Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Zurich
Country/Region: Switzerland, Zurich

Description

Project Description

‘More than Housing’ is a large housing cooperative development that seeks to anticipate the future needs of its community and design buildings and ways of living that meet them.

The building is designed to use as little energy as possible but it also promotes sustainable lifestyles with low car use and low heating demands. This helps residents work towards the 2000 Watt society model that the City of Zurich has adopted.

The 2000 Watt society is an environmental vision originally promoted by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. It seeks a reduction of individual energy use to a level that would be supported by the continuous running of a 2,000 watt generator. Average energy use is currently about 5,000 watts per person in Switzerland. The City of Zurich has signed up to a target that would see its citizens meet the 2,000 watt level by 2050.

The development is built with the changing make up of households in mind. It is designed to provide homes for households of all types including older people, single person households and traditional nuclear families. The development has apartments of different sizes and incorporates common spaces and rooms that are designed to be relevant for different demographics and family types.

Thirteen buildings with nearly 400 housing units, 35 retail units and large shared community spaces were completed between autumn 2014 and summer 2015. The project was completed at the end of 2015 with all housing units and 90% of retail spaces rented out. In 2016, 1,200 residents and 150 employees live and work in the buildings within the project.

Aims and Objectives

Cooperatives in Switzerland aim to operate according to the principle of “helping people to help themselves”. The ‘More than Housing’ development was based on this tradition. Other objectives included creating a community that embraced households and families of all types. The ethos is a community open to all, especially those in need of affordable housing and affordable working space. It also sought to promote an ethos of initiative-taking and self-organisation in basic democratic structures and to put into practice the vision of a 2000 Watt society.

Context

The Swiss population is aging fast. Switzerland has one of the highest life expectancies and one of the lowest birth rates in the world. This has led to an increasing population of elderly people many of whom are single. As a result, the make-up of Swiss households is changing, with more single person households and more older people. Zurich has a large cooperative housing sector. More than 25% of all homes in the city are not-for-profit. The majority of which are owned by housing cooperatives. But for many years during the late twentieth century the construction rate in the city was extremely low. The situation caused market priced housing to soar in value and many people were priced out of the city.

In 2011, there was a local referendum in which the city voted to increase the proportion of not-for-profit housing to 33% by 2050. In order to achieve this, the local authority released a number of sites for the development of low cost housing. The area of Hunziker Areal, where ‘More than Housing’ is based, was one of the sites released. It was a large four hectare site on the northern edge of the city. The land was waste ground next to a recycling plant. It was generally considered to be an unfashionable district of the city. The nature, location and size of the site made development high risk. No single cooperative was able or willing to develop the site by itself. However, a consortium of 30+ cooperatives came together to form ‘More than Housing’.

Key Features

Participation is at the core of everything that ‘More than Housing’ does. A ‘dialogue process’ was introduced at the beginning of the design of the building and continued through development and into the operation and management of the completed buildings. The design, for example, was decided through an architectural competition, which resulted in focus groups where not only the jury and the winning teams participated but also future residents, neighbours, the founding cooperatives and local authority representatives.

Up until the construction began in 2012, the feedback and visions of the participating parties were taken into account. Specific open spaces and parts of the surrounding area where deliberately left unfinished when people moved in, so they could be adjusted when residents were in a better position to see how they wanted the spaces to be used. All tenants are invited to play an active role in shaping the neighbourhood. Ten non-commercial common spaces are available for them at no cost. Additionally, an annual budget of approximately CHF 80,00 (USD $83,000) from the solidarity fund is at the tenants’ disposal for community initiatives, such as farming and communal gardens, establishing a grocery shop, café, swap shops, dancing and yoga classes. This fund is raised by contributions from residents.

Currently, over 40 groups are registered with and supported by ‘More than Housing’. In addition, close relationships and joint initiatives with the nearby school and other social networks in the north of Zurich such as a youth work project have been established.

What impact has it had?

‘More than Housing’ was itself conceived as an innovation. This means that it is used to test various research projects such as the 2000 Watt society.

How is it funded?

The development was financed with equity provided by the founding members, loans from the City of Zurich, national funds for cooperative housing and commercial bank loans in total amounting to CHF $195 million (USD $202.5 million). ‘More than Housing’ believes it is on target to repay the loans ahead of the due dates.

The cooperative is based on not-for-profit principles. This means there are no commercial shareholders and there is no payment of surpluses to members other than paying interest on members’ equity. Almost all the income is obtained from rent. This income has to cover repayments on the development loan and running costs as well as providing funding for further renovations and infrastructure investments.

Apartments are let at rents that are generally lower than one third of household income. The average rent for a four room family apartment is CHF 2000 (USD $2,000) a month. This is about 70 to 80% of market levels.

Twenty per cent of households in the development have an income that is below the Swiss poverty level. The rent of these households is subsidised.

  • In Switzerland, a rent cap is imposed on cooperatives annually. Budgets are set and if necessary costs are adjusted to ensure that rents are within the rent cap. This cap corresponds to the amount needed for cooperatives to cover the cost of the financial duties (interest rate, deductions), reserves for renovation and the administrative costs. This is the maximum they are allowed to charge.

Why is it innovative?

The scale and extent of this project makes it one of the largest and most ambitious cooperative housing programmes in Europe. The environmental features of the development go way beyond legal requirements. The development is the largest 2000 Watt neighbourhood and is an extensive test bed for low-carbon living.

The deliberate policy to promote social diversity throughout the project is innovative. The concepts are included in the architectural design (to respond to multiple needs), through to the management to the allocation of tenancies (by engaging organisations working with different underrepresented groups). The project brings together the knowledge of traditional cooperatives and new ideas from more recent ones, to produce a complex, experimental new form of cooperative.

What is the environmental impact?

The building complex is designed to be 2000 Watt compatible. That means the building’s energy use is low enough that people can live in it and reasonably achieve the 2000 Watt target with realistic changes to their lifestyles. So far, the living habits of the residents have not yet reduced to keep energy consumption within the 2000 Watt target but the design and lifestyle initiatives promoted in ‘More than Housing’ have helped to work towards this objective.

Floor space consumption is 33 m2 per person, this is less than the average in Zurich (42 m2). There are no individual washing machines. Instead, shared, free launderettes can be found in every residential building, equipped with energy efficient machines. Large private freezers are replaced by centrally located freezer lockers for rent. ‘More than Housing’ generates 45% of its electricity through photovoltaic cells on the roofs. Heating is provided through a district heating system. The building was built with low embodied energy materials. Two houses are constructed entirely from solid wood, one was built with insulating concrete. All the buildings have extremely high levels of thermal insulation.

‘More than Housing’ is nearly car-free and has good public transport, above-average bicycle parking and only 106 car parking spaces for people with disabilities or retail tenants (e.g. bakery employees). Residents do not own cars but use the national car sharing scheme or choose between two electric cars and a bike sharing pool owned and managed by the cooperative. Native trees and bushes improve biodiversity and one house has a vertical garden. Two communal, urban gardens and spaces for herbs are cultivated by residents.

Is it financially sustainable?

The development is financially sustainable. It is on schedule to repay its development loans ahead of schedule. Repayment and operational costs are met by rental income. Every resident becomes a cooperative member and purchases shares. Through this, equity increases over time and the capital stock can be decreased. The development has created 150 jobs, which increases the community’s wealth. Rent is charged at 20% to 30% below market levels creating a saving for those moving from market priced housing.

What is the social impact?

An aim of the development is to create a lively neighbourhood where people like to live, work and spend their leisure time. The development is designed for people from all social strata and of all ages. By exploring the housing needs of the future, ‘More than Housing’ offers space for all kinds of households, from single units, family apartments to large cluster apartments with up to 15 rooms.

The project actively approached excluded groups and supported them through activities to facilitate integration. Although the rents are already low compared to the free market, 80 of 370 apartments are additionally subsidised by 20% by public authorities. Ten per cent of all apartments are reserved for charities and non-profit foundations that work with people with disabilities, families with immigrant backgrounds and restricted budgets or children in care.

The cooperative structure provides a framework where individuals are empowered to actively participate in and shape their community, which not only creates strong social networks but also provides a safe and appropriate environment. About 65% of the inhabitants haven’t lived in cooperative housing before and have been supported in learning and participating in the democratic structures of the cooperative. With over 300 children under the age of seventeen, a large community of young adults will grow over the next decade with a deeper understanding of ecological and social sustainability and an understanding of shared housing principles. Living in a community promotes social and intercultural integration. Exchanges with your neighbours also include having to learn how to deal with conflicts.

Barriers

One main barrier encountered was the complexity of the development, which was initially underestimated. To develop such a large project with five architectural practices, hundreds of specialist planners, who were asked to be innovative and a contractor under considerable cost-efficiency pressure (to keep the rents low), was a big challenge.

As a newly founded cooperative, another barrier was gathering initial funding. The help of the large and long-established cooperatives in Zurich proved to be crucial. They gave credibility to the reliability of the concept and provided the funding for the project development and their long relationships with the financial institutions and the City of Zurich helped secure low interest loans and guarantees.

Lessons Learned

Regarding the social diversity of the inhabitants, the development has a wide spread in backgrounds, income and ages but people older than 70 are underrepresented.

The development found that older people needed more time to decide and plan to move into a new community but there was financial pressure to rent all the apartments as fast as possible. They recognise now that they should have reserved more small units for older people to ensure they would have a greater chance of being part of the project. ‘More than Housing’ reserved a part of the site’s four hectares for future developments. This can be an opportunity to adjust the design and allocation of space based on existing and future feedback.

Evaluation

Three separate evaluations are underway but have yet to report:

  1. A three-year research programme is currently evaluating the development’s contribution to the 2000 Watt society concept.
  2. A three-year research programme in cooperation with the Age Foundation of Zurich is evaluating the demographic make-up of the cooperative.
  3. A financial evaluation is being conducted with the main contractor Steiner AG.

Recognition

  • Winner of an Urbamonde “European Community-led Housing Award” 2016 .
  • Best Architects Gold Award for “Mehr als Wohnen, Haus G” .
  • Winner of the Special Price Brick Award 2016 for Duplex Architects Haus A .
  • Shortlisted for “Auszeichnung für gute Bauten 2011 – 2015“ City of Zurich  (winners yet to be announced).

There is a series of publications on the Mehr als Wohnen website (go to Medienspiegel) in German, and the project has also been captured on TV and in films .

The cooperative offers guided tours for groups and individuals. Since May 2015, more than 3,300 people have visited the site. Most of them are from Switzerland but they have had visitors from all over the world.

Transfer

The establishment of ‘More than Housing’ was an important trigger and had a large impact on the development of the north of Zurich into a sustainable, lively new part of the city. Several construction projects started in the area, which was previously just an unattractive waste land, with similar aims and run by cooperatives or public authorities e.g. “Leutschenbach Mitte” by the City of Zurich or “Thurgauerstrasse West”, a cooperation between the City and cooperatives.

Links

Authors:

World Habitat

A Roof, A Skill, A Market

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A Roof, A Skill, A Market

Mismatches Cultural suitability
Policies and regulations Participatory processes
Urban Design Quality
Promotion and production Participatory processes Materials Self-construction

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2016:

Stakeholders

  • Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Continent: Africa
Country/Region: Burkina Faso

Description

Project Description

The project revives an ancient architectural approach to overcome the problem of unsuitable materials being used for roofs in houses in the Sahel. Traditionally house roofs were timber framed, but deforestation and the increasingly arid environment led to a scarcity of timber. In its place metal girders, concrete and sheet metal were used. These provide poor heat insulation, have to be imported at great expense and have high embodied energy.

The Nubian Vault Association’s programme “A Roof, a Skill, a Market” promotes a sustainable and affordable alternative: the vaulted earth roof. This approach uses sun dried mud bricks to create a vaulted roof that supports itself and so doesn’t need supporting beams or joists. The design borrows building techniques and materials used in ancient Egypt. A house built using this technique is more comfortable, healthy and robust than one with a sheet metal roof. It is also cheaper and can be made from freely available local materials. The project started in Burkina Faso but has spread to other parts of Western Africa including Mali, Senegal, Benin, and Ghana.

A previous submission to the World Habitat Awards from the Nubian Vault Association for ‘Earth Roofs for the Sahel’ – which was a finalist in 2009 – focused on the initial stages of this work in Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal. This submission describes how the Nubian Vaults programme has developed and achieved greater impact though the process of scaling up and the transfer of the programme to two other West African countries via training, capacity building and network development.

This market -based programme aims to generate, grow and sustain the local supply and demand for the Nubian Vaults via three interconnected concepts:

  • a Roof (referring to the development of appropriate housing within a local housing market),
  • a Skill (i.e. supporting the training of masons and entrepreneurs),
  • a Market (creating economic opportunities by encouraging those involved in the housing market to take up this solution).

The Nubian Vault Association works through pan-African collaborations and knowledge exchanges between a wide range of actors (masons, project leaders and key stakeholders) in order to progress the work at a regional level and learn from different experiences.

Since its inception, the association has constructed 2,000 buildings, and housed 24,000 beneficiaries in five countries, trained 440 masons and 400 apprentices, contributed 2.4 million euros (USD $2.6 million) to local economies and saved an estimate of 65,000 tons of CO2 equivalent (calculated over a 30-year lifespan of the building).The core target group for the programme are rural populations of West Africa, living on less than USD $2 per day and outside formal economies. But, the concept is flexible and appropriate for various uses and types of clients: urban and rural, private and community, low and high income. The association adapts the technical research undertaken in order to adjust their offer and techniques to these differing variety of needs.

There are several groups who benefit from the Nubian Vault Association programme:

  • Local populations with access to affordable and suitable alternative housing and improved livelihoods.
  • Women and children, in particular, are the primary users of houses and courtyards.
  • Local young people have access to vocational training, helping them to find a place in the workplace regardless of their previous level of education. Most of the apprentices and masons are seasonal farmers, with little income security. The jobs within the programme provide them with and additional income during the off-season; masons also learn from other masons from different west-African countries, enriching their experience and knowledge.
  • Local artisans and building companies benefit from a new product which enhances their competitiveness in a green growth context. The Nubian Vaults are low-tech and cost-effective, an ideal business solution.
  • Community members are trained as ‘key people’ – in charge of liaising with other members of the community, and through the programme they learn new skills of community organising and awareness-raising.
  • Local stakeholders using offices, shops, agricultural facilities, classrooms, health centres etc. gain access to adequate and appropriate infrastructure and increased levels of comfort.

Aims and Objectives

The main purpose of the programme is to help as many people as possible across the Sahel region of Africa access appropriate (affordable, decent and durable) housing. The programme also aims to boost the local economy, create jobs through the training of masons and reduce the impact of climate change. Ultimately the association’s goal is to significantly scale up the programme so that it delivers 300,000 homes and trains 60,000 masons by 2030.

Context

Housing is precarious for the majority of the population of the Sahel Region. Incomes are low and the local economy is weak. Urban growth and deforestation have led to the disappearance of the natural timber resources used in traditional architecture. Alternatives to traditional housing construction such as the materials used (cement, steel, corrugated iron roofing) and the monetary systems involved (imports, use of cash), have failed to deliver sustainable housing to the majority.

Sahelian societies are characterised as predominantly rural (80%) and are mainly subsistence farmers. These populations struggle to meet their daily basic needs and have a significant need for income-generating opportunities. Political involvement is usually weak, yet the interest in better housing solutions using local materials has recently grown, given the challenges posed by climate change. The National carbon reduction policies in Burkina Faso and Senegal specifically mention the Nubian Vault as an appropriate solution for sustainable development.

Key Features

The roofs are affordable because they use widely available material, and communities participate in the construction. For example a 25 m2 Nubian Vault in Burkina Faso would cost about 450 euros (USD $500), of which 300 euros (USD $332) is provided by the client in materials and sweat equity. By comparison, a cement and iron roof in the same area would cost about 1,000 euros (USD $1,107).

They are environmentally sustainable. Materials have low embodied carbon because they are locally available reducing the need for transport.  They reduce the local demand for timber which helps reduce the threat of felling trees. The techniques are embedded in local traditions as a revised version of a vernacular form of architecture. These offer a great degree of energy-efficiency and thermal stability. The strategic approach taken by the association is to create and sustain an affordable local market for the Nubian Vaults solution, both in formal and informal ways, in order to make it accessible to as many people as possible.

The initial dissemination methodology is focused on pilot villages, in which agents of the Nubian Vault Association supported by a ‘community stakeholder’ (a key member of the community) conduct awareness-raising activities in order to generate an initial demand amongst potential clients. The community stakeholder is a person with a certain degree of influence in the area, who believes in the value of the vaults as a solution for housing, employment and economic development and who has the capacity to convince others within their own communities. Typically, this person is a farmers’ group leader, or someone already involved in a similar organisation. Many of these key people are women. Their role is central to creating more opportunities to disseminate the concept. Similarly, local Civil Society Organisations play a key role in the dissemination of the concept and growth of a local market for the vaults. This dissemination also happens in parallel to the training of masons through apprenticeships and in some cases this training is delivered by masons from other countries where the project is at a more advanced stage. From these villages the Nubian Vault concept is spread to surrounding communities in order to stimulate a local market for the solution. The masons themselves participate in this dissemination by promoting it through their networks and activities.

In terms of spreading across the region: in the early stages of the programme, new countries (Mali, Senegal) came on board in an ad hoc way at the invitation of local NGOs. But as the project has reached maturity, it has made more strategic choices regarding which countries to work in. Representatives of the programme have undertaken exploratory missions to find out about that the quality of the earth, rainfall levels, types of beneficiaries and the interest levels of potential partners.

For each new country, an international volunteer is trained to lead the implementation by staff from the Burkina Faso office. As trainees participate directly in the daily activities of that office, overheads and training costs are kept low. A strategy for regional duplication is established from the start, to maximise dissemination opportunities, according to resources and relevance. A national team is put together to conduct awareness-raising activities among the local population generating a demand for the vaults and interest in training masons and other building professionals and among local civil society as well as local, regional and national institutions and private sector organisations.

One of the first actions when starting in a new country is building a new office. This itself is an important part of the programme, as the construction of this office serves as an opportunity to train local apprentices in the technique. The finished building becomes a demonstration model of the concept. The land on which the offices are built is not bought by the Nubian Vault Association but granted rent-free to the organisation by local landowners, in exchange for the transfer of the building ownership after an agreed term (around 10 years).

In recent years, building upon its success, the programme has developed new strategies to stimulate the market and reach as many people as possible:

  • They have developed more extensive technical and entrepreneurial training for masons enabling them to increase production every season and to successfully embed their work into their local market.
  • The programme also encourages other organisations to include the vaults into their construction projects.
  • The programme has introduced microcredits and subsidies to improve access to housing for those for whom the low cost of a vault is still too high.
  • Regular meetings of masons and organisations are held across the Sahel region so people can exchange experiences and increase their collective knowledge and to provide a platform for people to report back on progress and share achievements.

A key aspect of the programme is that it supports the relationship between masons and clients. It does this by marketing the concept of the vaults to the public in order to stimulate demand. It also mediates between masons and clients where there are misunderstandings and disputes. This helps reduce the risk of the mason leaving the work unfinished or the client leaving the mason unpaid. The programme also has a vocational training scheme. To date, 440 masons have been trained, there are currently 400 apprentices.

The seasonal nature of the programme complements subsistence farming. Vaults can only be built during the dry season, whereas subsistence agriculture (which is the major source of work) is only possible in the rainy season. Without this scheme there is little work in the dry season, this situation has led to an exodus of young men seeking work. The scheme helps stem this exodus. The Nubian Vaults Association works in an open source manner. This enables it to focus its activities on setting up the programme in new areas and then withdraw leaving the implementation and running of the programme to local people.

What impact has it had?

The programme has played an important role in helping countries of the Sahel region meet their climate change commitments. All United Nations member states were asked to produce commitments for climate change alleviation for the 2015 Paris Climate Conference (called “Nationally Determined Contributions” by the UN). These commitments were expected to show how the countries were going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transform practices to adapt to climate change. The Nubian Vault technique was identified by the governments of Burkina Faso and Senegal in their commitments to this conference.

The Government of Mali also chose to identify Nubian Vaults as an appropriate tool for development in its 2016-2018 Strategic Framework for Economic Stimulus and Sustainable Development. This is a public policy framework connecting economic growth and better living conditions for people. In Benin and Ghana the association has led sustained advocacy work throughout 2015 and although the Nubian Vault is not specifically mentioned in the Nationally Determined Contributions of these countries, there is recognition of the importance of the construction and housing sectors in climate change alleviation and adaptation. This represents a step forward in transforming the construction and housing sectors, by recognising that there needs to be a change. Although it is difficult to attribute the impact of this, in Ghana, interest within public sector organisations in the Nubian Vault increased after the Paris Climate Conference.

How is it funded?

The costs of running the programme have increased yearly with the growth of the programme.

  • In 2005, the annual budget was of 11,700 euros (USD $13,000), all staff were volunteers.
  • In 2012, with three countries in operation, the budget had grown to 366,000 euros (USD $405,000) and the programme had 20 salaried employees.
  • In 2016, the budget of 1.4 million euros (USD $1.5 million) covers five countries and a wider range of activities is supporting the work of 70 employees.

The Nubian Vaults Association itself is funded by grants.

  • The first major funding received was a grant from the French Foreign Affairs Ministry of 30,000 euros (USD $33,500) in 2003-2004. Prior to that, activities were funded through individual donations and the personal investment of the co-founders.
  • In 2015-2016, the association received half its support from public sources (French Development Agency, French Facility for the Global Environment) and half from private and corporate foundations.

Why is it innovative?

The innovation lies firstly in the technology itself, simple, replicable, modular and affordable. The mud bricks are sun-dried, requiring no machinery, and assembled with an earth mortar following a simple technique. The social entrepreneurship approach taken by the Nubian Vaults Association is innovative.  Rather than building houses directly, the programme creates and supports a local market in which local masons, apprentices, businesses and clients can operate.

The pan-African nature and cross-country collaboration of the programme is unusual. All country and regional teams meet every season for regular steering committee meeting. Masons in training also have the chance to meet annually at the Masons Congress organised in early June. In 2016, Malian masons were invited to the Burkina Faso congress, with the aim of enhancing skills, capitalising on knowledge and sharing experience from mason to mason across the sub-region. The programme also mobilises the most experienced masons – from Burkina Faso and Mali – to train the first generations of masons in the new countries (Senegal, Benin and Ghana).

What is the environmental impact?

The Nubian Vaults technique facilitates the construction of sustainable, low-carbon buildings and represents a real solution for climate change mitigation and adaptation for the housing sector in West Africa. The main building materials are sun-dried mud bricks, made from locally available earth and the vaults do not require iron roofing sheets, most commonly used in the Sahel despite their environmental inappropriateness (imported, heavy carbon footprint for production and transport).

Earth bricks have very low embodied energy: they are produced without any machinery or fuel wood, on or close to the construction-site and their use is sustainable given the geological nature of these territories. The thickness of the walls and roof and the natural isolation qualities of the earth bricks, provide improved thermal comfort compared to all other construction solutions available in the region. Comparative thermal measurement studies in Burkina Faso and Senegal have confirmed the advantage of the Nubian Vault solution in this respect.

This thermal stability also improves community buildings, such as health centres, schools (longer school hours are possible, in particular in the afternoons, and students and teachers alike benefit of better studying and working conditions), or agricultural facilities (better productivity, longer storage of perishable products). For a 25 m2 building and over a 30-year life cycle, carbon emissions are estimated at 20.5 tons. Nubian Vault constructions also safeguard natural resources, using neither wood nor straw. Traditional houses used both of these materials for the roofs.

Is it financially sustainable?

Costs are expected to grow in line with the growth of the work of the organisation and with the increased demand for its presence in new regions or countries. Expectations for forthcoming budgets are: 2 million euros (USD $2.2 million) in 2016-2017, 2.5 million euros (USD $2.7 million) in 2017-2018 and 3.3 million euros (USD $3.6 million) in 2018-2019.

The Nubian Vault Association maintains its fundraising activities in line with this projected growth. It is preparing to adjust its economic model in the near future to leverage more support from social investors. In keeping with its determination to work with others in an open market, the association aims to create a hybrid for/non-profit model to make it financially viable. This would transfer ownership of the development of a sustainable housing market to local actors (states, training centres, businesses etc.).

The association’s financial partners are not just philanthropists, they are social investors who expect social returns: houses built, masons trained, improved economies and climate change adaptation strategies. Results-Based Financing is a perspective on social investment that focuses on real impact rather than specific projects or processes. This approach allows the Nubian Vaults Association to build a comprehensive, integrated programme aiming to deliver its overarching mission, anticipating its results while providing it with the capacity to adapt its strategy to the context.

What is the social impact?

The Nubian Vault programme has already provided better housing for 2,000 households, with the associated health benefits of improved room temperatures etc., improved living standards and cash savings, especially in very low-income communities and rural areas. Women and children are key beneficiaries of given that they spend more time at home than men.

The nature of the architecture (using raw local materials) encourages the clients and their close circles to participate directly in construction. This helps reduce the costs of the building but also generates a greater sense of control, ownership and achievement, encouraging the custom of community participation and reinforcing traditions of cooperation. The programme has the potential to operate throughout the Sahelo-Sudanian strip, from Senegal to Djibouti, the Nubian Vault has the potential to transform the housing situation of millions of people.

As in most parts of the world, construction in the Sahel is traditionally a male profession. However, Sahelian women are responsible for domestic expenses, including the costs of building the homes. The participation of women in the programme is very important as women have a key role in choosing the type of house the household buys or builds. This does not imply that all decision-making is done by women, but that they often have a key role in household finances. The savings involved in Nubian roofs can help money be redirected to other domestic expenses such as health, education, food, and fuel.

Barriers

A first barrier encountered was the prejudice against earth construction, seen as too poor, too fragile, not modern enough. The Nubian Vault Association’s strongest argument to counter this prejudice has been the vaults themselves, which demonstrate the versatility and modernity of earth architecture. Today, demand is stronger than the supply of masons, proving this challenge has been successfully overcome.

A second barrier is the lack of organisations involved that support the growth of a sustainable housing market. From the start the programme has had a sustained advocacy strategy but the response was initially slow. With environmental challenges and climate constraints, there has been recently a positive change, indicating the early stages of adoption of the Nubian Vaults by organisations and market stakeholders who are looking for sustainable and low-carbon solutions for human settlements. The Nubian Vaults Association continues to capitalise on this progress in order to boost and accelerate replication.

Lessons Learned

The Nubian Vault Association’s experience initially demonstrated that its exclusive focus on rural communities was not sufficiently efficient: for macro-level impacts they realised they needed to reach to all layers of society and include all possible actors (rural, urban, private, institutional etc.).

The strategy is therefore now much broader and the inclusion of beneficiary communities in the activities (key people in communities, masons, training apprentices, local partners replicating the method), is also a key to long-term success, to enable better knowledge transfer and dissemination.

Evaluation

The programme is evaluated annually, through a bottom-up data collection process in which information is incrementally transmitted from field agents to the international coordination, to create a country-level report. External evaluations also take place regularly to provide non-biased analysis. The results demonstrate the programme’s significant success, with a 30% average growth in the Nubian Vault market.

Analysis has shown that demand is now higher than the level of supply achievable with the number of trained masons, indicating potential for further growth. Consequently, the association has established activities aimed at accelerating production (training units, entrepreneurial support and financial incentives for masons) and the adoption of the vaults solution.

Recognition

The work of the Nubian Vaults Association has received considerable international recognition and over 15 awards for its work for better building in Africa.

Nubian Vaults are frequently visited by neighbours and people who have heard of the concept (in the country or abroad, including other continents).

All built Nubian Vaults serve as ‘model homes’ for the programme and act as key dissemination tools by showing the benefits directly (temperature, comfort, solidity, aesthetics etc.).

Transfer

Initiated in Boromo, Burkina Faso, the programme has since spread to other regions of Burkina Faso (2006) and to neighbouring countries: Mali (2007), Senegal (2010), Benin and Ghana (2014). A few pilot construction projects were also led in other countries, Zambia (2010), Mauritania (2014), operated by local or international NGOs.

Its change of scale began in 2007 with the opening of a second country programme and has accelerated since 2014 and the approach has considerable potential for growth (300,000 houses, three million beneficiaries, 60,000 masons and apprentices by 2030). The association hopes to deploy its programme to other countries of the Western Sahelian region, adjacent to its present territories of action. These would include: Togo, Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea and is also looking to expand to other African sub-regions: Sudan, at the Eastern tip of the Sahel-Sudanian strip, and Rwanda, a key location for expansion both towards Eastern and Austral Africa.

The Nubian Vault construction technique is potentially transferrable to any area where there is low rainfall and timber is in short supply. The association is constantly working to disseminate the concept to local community-based organisations.

Imagery credits: C. Lamontagne Cosmos

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World Habitat

Rent to Buy Scheme

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Rent to Buy Scheme

Mismatches Services Diversity
Policies and regulations Regulation Building capacity
Urban Design Liveability Regulación Técnica
Promotion and production Self-management

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2015:

Stakeholders

  • Promotor: World Habitat

Location

City: Inverness
Country/Region: United Kingdom

Description

The Highlands Small Communities Housing Trust (HSCHT) ‘Rent to Buy Scheme’ helps people on low income living in the remote highlands of Scotland to find an affordable home. At the heart of the scheme is a financial mechanism which enables low income families to save up to buy a home whilst they are renting it.

 

Project Description

Aims and Objectives

  • The main aim of this programme is to provide local people in some of the remotest communities of the UK with access to affordable housing and to ensure that the houses that are built remain affordable into the future.
  • The benefits of the scheme extend beyond those who buy the homes. Local contractors benefit from the construction work when the houses are built. Indeed the scheme specifically targets small local building firms. HSCHT also supports training and development and provides a route into apprenticeships for local young people in rural communities. This support is provided in partnership with the University of Highlands and Islands and the contractors employed to deliver Rent to Buy properties.
  • Rural communities retain a greater mix of people, helping local employers retain staff.
  • The affordability of the homes is protected over the long term through a legal mechanism.
  • Local authorities also benefit from reduced pressure on the housing waiting list.

The Rent to Buy Scheme is one of a number of approaches used by the Highlands Small Communities Housing Trust to help small rural communities access affordable housing. The model was designed by HSCHT and is being delivered in partnership with the Scottish Government and the Highlands Council.

The scheme builds new houses and lets them to families at below market rents. Part of the rent is retained by HSCHT and is available as a lump sum that is used as a deposit to buy the house. The scheme is self-financing and does not require a government grant but is supported with development loans from the Scottish Government.

Context

The Scottish Highlands is a huge area covering much of the North of Scotland. As its name suggests it is a mountainous, remote and undeniably beautiful area. It is one of the most sparsely populated parts of Europe, comparable in population density only with Northern Sweden and Finland. The area has become increasingly depopulated over many years.

The Highlands has a thriving tourist industry, which provides employment but does create distortions in the housing market. A large amount of the housing stock is used as second homes and holiday lets. This limits the amount that is available for the local population to rent or buy. The problem is particularly acute in the summer when tourists and seasonal workers in the tourist industry occupy much of the available housing. The effect of this is many local people are forced into inadequate or inconvenient alternatives (for example using caravans or ‘sofa surfing’). Many families unable to find decent housing choose to leave the area altogether.

Since the economic crash of 2008, the availability of mortgages has become much more restricted in the UK. In particular lenders require large deposits (often 25 per cent of the house value) before they will offer a mortgage. House prices in the Highlands vary, but because incomes in rural areas trend to be lower than in urban areas, the ratio of incomes to prices makes renting and buying expensive. For families, repayments on a mortgage remain comparable to the price of renting. This means that many families who could afford to buy a house are unable to do so because of they do not have enough savings to pay the deposit.

Key features

Rent to Buy is a financial model which provides affordable access to home ownership. Tenants rent a property through the scheme with the option to buy it after five years. If they take this option they get a cash-back sum to help them with their mortgage deposit. The selling price is fixed, based on its value at the beginning of the five year term. This provides certainty for tenants and a potential benefit for them if the house goes up in value.

The scheme uses loan finance so the funds can be recycled. Interest on the original loan is repaid on the sale of the home making the scheme cost neutral. Rent levels are set so they can be covered by state benefits if the household has a low income. This means that tenants have a safety net if their income drops or they become unemployed during the scheme.

Affordability is protected using a legal mechanism (called the Rural Housing Burden); this gives HSCHT the right to purchase the property back from the owner if the owner decides to sell it. It means that HSCHT can allocate the house to another family who fits the criteria at the same equity share. This mechanism protects the future affordability of the property.

What impact has it had?

The scheme has provided 30 new affordable homes, with another 34 under development. In 34 small communities, housing 143 people and helping to sustain rural communities. Twenty-two local construction firms have been involved in delivering the schemes. Many have strengthened their links with local communities and have been able to protect their employees and retain their workforce. Young people have also had the opportunity to access training with contractors.
Funding has been agreed for a further phase. HSCHT are identifying sites and carrying out feasibility and financial viability studies.

The project has helped to raise awareness and increase the focus on rural affordable housing delivery both locally and nationally. The cost neutral nature of the scheme has drawn considerable interest as reductions in government subsidy on housing have been introduced in Scotland and other parts of the UK.

The Scottish Government is keen to see the scheme made available across Scotland.

The affordability of the housing has been protected by the ‘Rural Housing Burden’, ensuring that the new properties remain available to local people and aren’t sold on the open market.

HSCHT uses small local contractors and supports local business wherever possible. The houses are modern in design, and use large amounts of timber in their construction. This reduces embodied carbon and allows the houses to be highly energy efficient. Although designed locally, many of the houses look very different from traditional local houses which tend to be built from rendered stone or brick.

HSCHT supports local employment and training by working with the University of Highlands and Islands allowing contractors to set up apprenticeships for local young people.

Community engagement sits alongside the process of delivering Rent to Buy homes. In particular communities are able to feed into allocations policies so that they are able to take account of specific issues (such as a need for key workers like teachers or carers).

How is it funded?

The Scottish Government provides a development loan to cover the house building costs for the scheme. They have so far provided three loans to cover three building phases. For each phase the loan is due to be repaid after six years. The rental income covers the interest on the loan, maintenance, insurance and provides the cash back reserve paid to the tenants when they purchase the homes. HSCHT retains any surplus to contribute to its overheads.

 

Why is it innovative?

  • The project achieves the remarkable feat of providing high quality housing at a below market price without the need for government grant.
  • The model is transferable and can be used by others, for example communities or local businesses. The approach also supports the rural economy. Building contracts allow and encourage the use of local contractors.
  • For households in need of affordable housing with limited access to finance, the cashback element of the scheme gives them a deposit. This accumulates from rental payments over the five year rental period, meaning households don’t have to stretch themselves financially. A fixed price at the outset gives certainty to households using the scheme.

 

What is the environmental impact?

In the Scottish Highlands the weather can be particularly challenging and a focus on high levels of insulation, air tightness, suitable heating systems and the use of renewable technologies where needed (for example photo voltaic panels) have been encouraged on all builds, all of which reduce the running costs of a home.

The first phase of the Rent to Buy Scheme includes seven different developments. Each contractor chose their own house design as appropriate for the site conditions and location. Features include careful design and siting to reduce wind cooling and to increase passive solar gain; high levels of insulation; elimination of fabric thermal bridging and high levels of air-tightness; wood fuel stoves with back up electric heating; low dual flush WC’s; and flow reduced/aerating taps and showers rated at no more than 6 litres of water per minute.

The use of local contractors and local materials also reduces the overall carbon footprint of building activity.

 

Is it financially sustainable?

The Rent to Buy Scheme is self-financing. It creates an income through rent payments and the sale of the houses. The income pays for the cost of running the scheme and allows funds to be reinvested into building new houses.

The scheme generates a predictable income for HSCHT. This has enabled them to retain a skilled staff team. The scheme has helped to raise HSCHT’s profile within communities and with local and national government; providing greater funding opportunities for other projects and schemes.
The use of local contractors ensures as much of the investment as possible remains and circulates within the community and supports other local businesses, shops and services.

 

What is the social impact?

HSCHT works with a network of councils and other bodies such as local development companies – these partnerships have helped to identify a hidden housing need within rural areas. Building more affordable homes in hard to reach rural areas reduces the pressure on more highly populated areas. It also strengthens informal care networks and helps to retain key workers locally (key workers provide essential services, for example health workers, fire fighters, teachers or police). Not only do these benefits reduce costs for central and local government, they also ensure an improved quality of life for people living in rural communities.

Affordable homes help communities retain families with a range of incomes and skills. Training and development provided through the scheme also improves opportunities for young people in rural communities.

 

Barriers

Land needs to be purchased at well below market value. This limits the scheme to places where either public land can be transferred or where there are legal obligations, or where a local landowner is prepared to sell land at a greatly reduced price.

The scheme relies on low interest rates on the loan capital; this was provided by the Scottish government. The scheme also relies on mortgages being affordable for families taking part in the scheme. The UK has benefited from low interest rates in recent years. A rise in the future may affect the attractiveness and viability of the scheme in future.

Some mortgage lenders do not lend on properties with the Rural Housing Burden. This narrows the range of lenders for purchasers.

For Phase 1, there was a short window of opportunity to use “underspend” funding provided by the Scottish Government, so the final project had to be drafted over just four months. This included land purchases, providing a certificate of title for each of the landholdings, assessing total project costs, potential cashbacks and selling prices, agreeing loan drawdown schedules and creating the draft offer for each tenant/purchaser.

The topography of the Highlands creates challenges for building, for example where there is a steep slope. On one site this was addressed by building into the hillside and on another by building a house on stilts. This added to the building costs.

 

Lessons Learned

  • Talk to as many local partner organisations and involve them wherever is feasible. They could have land, expertise and/or access to finance that may be useful.
  • Carry out extensive feasibility work to make sure sites are viable and identify any development issues prior to starting construction activity. Some sites will be rejected but budget overspends will be prevented. Build in a realistic contingency in the financial assessment – there is always something unexpected.
  • A clear design brief should be provided to contractors at the beginning. Smaller firms can be encouraged to tender for contracts through flexible procurement processes.
  • In working with local contractors allow flexibility in the contract. Delaying the start of a build by a month or two may allow the contractor to meet the contract terms more easily. Maintaining open communication channels is important.
  • Working with local contractors is worthwhile in challenging build environments – they are more aware of local issues and can come up with inventive solutions.
  • Continuously look out for potential future building sites. Always have a few back up sites in case additional funds become available.

 

Evaluation

In 2015, the Scottish Government carried out an evaluation of the project to explore the possibility of rolling the model out across Scotland. This has yet to be published.

Follow up surveys with tenants will be carried out after around 18 – 24 months of moving in to their homes when they will be asked to quantify (as far as possible) the impact of access to an affordable home on them and their family.

 

Transfer

A second and third phase have been agreed by the Scottish Government and this will extend the scheme to more areas of the Highlands. The Scottish Government are keen to use the model across all areas of Scotland. Other organisations have also been keen to find out more, for example, communities looking to invest community benefit funds, community landowners and other housing providers, such as Housing Associations.

So far (in 2015), no other organisation has adopted the scheme but the Scottish Government is supportive of the housing model and may use it in other areas in the future.

Links

Authors:

World Habitat

Empowering the Poor: building the capacity of urban and rural communities

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Empowering the Poor: building the capacity of urban and rural communities

Mismatches
Policies and regulations Local policies Governance Participatory processes
Urban Design Inclusion Equity
Promotion and production Public promotion Self-management

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2015:

Stakeholders

  • Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Continent: Africa
City: Lilongwe
Country/Region: Lilongwe, Malawi

Description

Following the Slum Dwellers International approach and challenging Malawi’s ‘hand out culture’, this project is very much community-driven. It focuses on poor communities across the country, particularly in urban areas, and takes a comprehensive approach to development by empowering communities to organise, improve their living conditions and infrastructure, and increase their incomes by setting up viable enterprises.

 

Project Description

Aims and Objectives

The main aim is to empower poor people so that they are able to transform their own lives. This is done by working with the Federation of the Rural and Urban Poor using the Slum Dwellers International approach in the following areas:

  • Development of poor people’s organisations: carrying out activities such as assessment of community needs; developing partnerships; community-to-community learning; fundraising; community mobilisation and awareness campaigns; training on leadership, governance, financial management and budgeting.
  • Community data for change: empowering organisations with skills and knowledge to collect and present data about their communities using SDI tools such as community-led profiling, mapping and enumerations.
  • Basic services and infrastructure: setting up and lobbying for funds to support slum upgrading; construction of sanitation units, waste management and water connections; construction of housing and training of community contractors.
  • Skills and livelihoods: achieving self-sustainability for the community members including setting up savings and loan groups; business development training and learning exchanges between entrepreneurs.

NGO CCODE is dedicated to empowering the poor in Malawi, through providing support to the Federation of the Rural and Urban Poor, a Federation of organised groups of poor people. CCODE particularly focuses on the fields of decent housing, water and sanitation, income generation, governance and rights. CCODE works to make people aware of the benefits of participation in their programmes. No activity is undertaken without communities giving their prior commitment. CCODE is one of few organisations addressing Malawi’s fast-paced urbanisation, providing infrastructure and housing but also pushing for policy change.

Context

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world, with more than 60 per cent of the population living below the poverty line. Poverty is both rural and urban but cities have seen a rapid rise in population and with an annual growth rate of 5.2 per cent, Malawi is one of the fastest urbanising countries in the world.
Informal settlements without adequate infrastructure and basic services have increased in number and size and this urbanisation trend is set to continue. Currently 15.3 per cent of the population lives in cities. This is expected to double by 2030 and reach 50 per cent by 2050.

Despite this, the country’s political priorities and resources for development are still largely focused on rural areas and although some government initiatives are aimed at helping the urban poor, no approaches have reached scale and hundreds of thousands remain in need.

In the capital city Lilongwe, only 37 per cent of the population lives in permanent housing. There are no government programmes relevant to low income, informal sector workers, who are unable to apply for formal loans. There have been some attempts to provide micro-finance for shelter but these remain very limited in scale and politicised.

Key features

Demand-driven, continuous support to organised groups/communities: unlike most NGOs working in Malawi, CCODE sets up activities based on the real needs of the communities instead of the demands of donors. CCODE works with communities that show an interest in participating and leading on projects.
Recognising the urban poor as active leaders of their own development and supporting processes so that people can improve their living conditions themselves rather than focusing on handouts. The approach is very practical, using tools such as revolving funds to provide infrastructure or housing loans, skills development and support for business start-ups. The Federation members live in the communities where CCODE operates and they play a key role in the planning and design of the activities and projects.

Empowering communities through data and skills: through the ‘Community Data for Change’ and ‘Building Organisations of the Poor’ programmes, CCODE helps communities to have an open dialogue with government and other stakeholders.

In addition, CCODE believes sustainability and impact depend on long lasting partnerships at various levels, for example:

  • Design and planning: working closely with donors and networks, especially SDI’s members in Southern Africa, to plan strategies and programmes based on good practice and experience.
  • Development: working with communities, different levels of government, local universities and service/utility providers to carry out, monitor and evaluate activities.
  • Ongoing management: the Federation plays a central role in the planning and management of the activities undertaken by CCODE.
  • Other: relationship with Enterprise Development Holdings (EDH) and its subsidiaries as part of a long-term financial sustainability strategy.

What impact has it had?

  • Between 2003-2013: over 1,000 households achieved secure tenure and decent housing as result of CCODE programmes. This included setting a precedent for cooperative housing in Angelo Goveya.
  • Secured tenure for 372 families in Salima and Liwonde.
  • More than 2,500 households accessed improved sanitation.
  • More than 1,500 households have accessed piped water through CCODE water loans that leverage on relationships with service providers.
  • Improved food security for 500 households by using manure from ecological sanitation toilets.
  • Improved public sanitation in four market places through the construction of ecological sanitation (EcoSan) public toilets managed by women’s groups – increased to nine market places by 2015.
  • Enlisted over 70 communities onto a slum-upgrading programme, generated real and updated data through profiles and enumerations.
  • Increased income through skills development and help in setting up small-scale businesses.
  • For the wider community, improved governance (a stronger civil society making government more accountable), organised communities, increased social equality, improved public health.
  • Impact on various policies. Negotiations with the local councils and the Ministry of Land and Housing successfully led to the reduction of standard plot sizes to 13×18 m2 making housing more affordable for low income families.
  • Advocated for funding for community-led housing initiatives. The government of Malawi has provided MK 16 million (US$33,800) towards Federation housing in Salima district.

WHA2015_MALAWI4

How is it funded?

As of 2015, the financial turnover of CCODE is MK 309,126,554.00 (US$702,560) per year.

Resources to run the organisation come from several donors – including Reall, Comic Relief, WeEffect, Slum Dwellers International (SDI), UN-Habitat, Practical Action, African Development Bank, Tilitonse Fund, Scottish Government, Cara Malawi, European Union, SHARE project and Selavip.

In terms of the Federation, it started as network of savings groups and the Mchenga Fund, the successor of these original groups, and is made up of the contributions of Federation members and additional donor funding. This fund enables people in poor communities to access loans for housing or income generation.

In 2013, Enterprise Development Holdings (EDH) was created as a sustainability social enterprise of CCODE. It is made up of a number of private companies that provide different services and products including: marketing; research on development and urban issues; housing construction and rental; ecological brick construction; land development; financial management and business advice; solar products; procurement services; administration and human resource management. The profits from EDH’s activities provide grant funding to CCODE. Reall supported the setting up of EDH through the Community Led Infrastructure Finance Facility scheme.

 

Why is it innovative?

  • Working through long-term continuous community support, instead of donor-driven, time-limited projects is innovative within the context of Malawi.
  • The link with the Federation provides access to the ‘heart’ of communities enabling the work of CCODE to be genuinely community-driven.
  • CCODE works with communities through processes that lead to greater long-term commitment when compared to projects based on handouts.
  • The continuous ‘micro up-scaling’ of initiatives allows communities to learn from each other.
  • CCODE’s focuses on urban issues, as opposed to the rural focus of most national or international development projects in Malawi.
  • The focus on long-term collaboration with government at different levels is another innovative aspect. Most organisations avoid the challenges involved but CCODE believes making government accountable to citizens is a key aspect of sustainable development.

 

What is the environmental impact?

  • All construction (housing, toilets) is done with locally available materials.
  • Eco Matters (EDH’s subsidiary) introduced Vertical Shaft Brick Kiln technology into Malawi, a low-embodied energy and highly efficient brick production method.
  • CCODE also partners with Green Energy, a solar-lantern retailer, for awareness and distribution of solar products in low-income areas. Electrification in Malawi is around 7 per cent, and as a result many families use firewood for lighting and cooking, increasing deforestation.
  • Construction and sales of ecological cooking stoves by a Federation enterprise in Salima, decreases the amount of firewood needed. The stoves are made with locally available materials and sold to households for around US$1 per stove.
  • Training women from the Federation as ‘solar engineers’ at the Barefoot College in India means they earn an income from the installation and repair of solar systems in rural areas, and will be training girls who are school leavers.
  • EcoSan toilets have environmental benefits as they do not require water and produce organic compost that can be used instead of chemical fertiliser.
  • When connected to the water supply network, families receive training on the appropriate use of water, to avoid expensive bills and safeguard the environment.

 

Is it financially sustainable?

For CCODE:

  • Having diverse sources of funding from donors helps increase financial security by spreading the risk of losing a source of funding.
  • The income from EDH’s activities provides an additional source of funding.

For the communities:

  • One of the four themes of CCODE’s work is ‘Skills and Livelihoods’ which focuses on developing skills and income streams, which enable people to save, improve housing etc.
  • Housing loans and access to land provided for the most marginalised communities.
  • CCODE also helps create enterprises by providing business skills training.
  • Training and employment of local contractors for the construction of household EcoSan toilets.

 

What is the social impact?

  • Community cooperation and organisation are both a requirement and result of CCODE’s activities. This happens through bringing communities together to discuss their development priorities and create Community Development Strategies.
  • CCODE believes that strong community leadership is essential and therefore supports training on leadership skills.
  • Building advocacy skills helps communities take an active role in society. It empowers communities to negotiate with authorities and other stakeholders to encourage support for their initiatives.
  • More ‘applied’ skills including settlement planning and situational analyses, entrepreneurship, finance, community fund management, construction, etc.
  • CCODE encourages ‘the training of trainers’ and peer exchanges activities for different groups to learn from each other.
  • Appropriate construction techniques increase the safety of residents, as previously many houses were destroyed during natural hazards, putting people at risk.
  • There are increases in hygiene and sanitation through improved toilets and household water connections accompanied by awareness campaigns on health issues, such as ‘HIV and Housing’ programme in Salima.
  • There is a focus on women and young people and on the need to increase the participation of these marginalised groups in all programmes. Currently around 80 per cent of participants in the programmes and activities are women. This helps reduce social inequalities.

 

Barriers

  • Working closely with many stakeholders (public authorities, service providers, private sector) means there is a need to adapt and adjust to different timings and priorities. Delays are common. To counteract this, CCODE and the Federation conduct regular meetings with stakeholders to follow-up on issues and develop memoranda of understanding where possible.
  • The culture of charity and handouts that exists in Malawi creates problems when trying to develop leadership and entrepreneurship in communities. Some people with expectations of handouts can be disappointed by the community-led approach. To overcome this, CCODE focuses on building awareness of the advantages of leadership, creating a culture of the ‘collective good’ and promoting the benefits of communities ‘doing it themselves’.
  • The lack of commitment of some communities, individuals or organisations can create a challenge. A community-led approach is not possible where the ambition for improvement does not exist. In response, CCODE maintains a flexible approach with plans or areas of work being modified according to the ‘readiness’ of the communities.
  • Poverty in Malawi is a challenging factor, as the country’s institutions and systems are weak – creating a difficult context.
  • Limited capacity: despite growing and evolving over the years, CCODE is still a grassroots organisation with limited capacity and funds. Monitoring and Evaluation systems, documenting and other internal processes are currently in development.

 

Lessons Learned

  • The power of working collectively: groups can achieve much more than individuals. For example, repayment rates show that group-loans perform much better than individual loans, since support and peer-pressure make people more accountable.
  • Managing expectations: in a country dominated by NGOs and aid based on handouts, it takes some time and work to help people understand the value of long-term collective efforts.
  • Working with women: women are a vulnerable group and in Malawi there are social constraints that make their participation difficult. However, once included in the programmes, their commitment and determination to achieve goals help move things forward in incredible ways. Women, who make up 80 percent of the Federation’s members, have proven to be strong and resourceful leaders and members.
  • Achieving more with partnerships: collaboration between different organisations is not common in Malawi. CCODE, however, realised that uniting efforts can help achieve much more and stretch resources further.
  • Listening and adjusting: CCODE believe that it is not worth getting to a destination quicker, but rather getting there in the best way possible.

 

Evaluation

Monitoring and evaluation activities have been carried out since the beginning of CCODE’s work mostly according to donor demands and criteria for specific projects. Since 2014, an internal monitoring and evaluation position has been created to develop comprehensive systems for the organisation.

 

Transfer

Scaling up: The project has been expanding in scope and scale throughout the country using a ‘multiplier approach’: projects are local, small-scale and focus on groups of up to 20/30 people on the ground. These initiatives are then replicated in the cluster, neighbourhood, city and region or across the country. People learn from each other, through the training of trainers, peer exchanges and community-to-community exchanges.

Transfer by other organisations: In Lilongwe, after negotiations and the securing of land for pro-poor housing construction, the City Council adopted the same approach for its work with other organisations such as Habitat for Humanity. Nationally, CCODE’s approach has been also adopted by other City Councils like Blantyre, Mzuzu, Kasungu and Salima, who followed the example of Lilongwe in terms of land provision for the poor. At international level, CCODE, works with other SDI affiliates in the region to support the transfer of the approach through mutual learning, with countries like Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, etc. CCODE and the Federation receive regular visits from SDI network members and other organisations such as WeEffect or the national government of Mozambique and have hosted international exchanges/workshops to share aspects of the project and learn from others.

Links

Authors:

World Habitat

Nashira, a Song of Love, a women-led project

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Nashira, a Song of Love, a women-led project

Mismatches Diversity New family structures
Urban Design Urban fabrics Inclusion
Promotion and production Public promotion Progressive housing

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2015:

Stakeholders

  • Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Continent: South America
Country/Region: Cali, Colombia

Description

Nashira Un Canto de Amor (a song of love) is an eco-village in rural Colombia built for and by women who have suffered displacement as a result of Colombia’s fifty year civil war and/or domestic violence.

Project Description

Aims and Objectives

  • The project offers a safe, permanent and affordable housing solution for women who have been displaced or subject to sexual or domestic violence.
  • It minimises costs (houses cost approximately US$10,000 each to build) enabling houses to be offered rent free; enabling women to escape from poverty.
  • It aims to empower women. The village is run by a series of committees and production centres are all chaired and run by women from the village.
  • It creates employment opportunities by establishing workshops where women can manufacture their own products. The income achieved through the sale of these products can further help them escape poverty.
  • The village provides a secure and nutritious supply of food grown on its own land and has its own clean water supply.

Nashira is an eco-village of 88 homes in Southern Colombia. It was built for and by women who suffered domestic violence or who have been displaced by the Colombian civil war. The project is funded by the Government’s Rural Housing subsidy.

Costs are kept to a minimum by using sweat equity and low cost or free recycled materials. These savings enable the ownership of the houses to be obtained without any costs as they don’t have a deposit or mortgage, they are free. As they are houses which have been developed by the community, they are family assets which cannot be seized so the houses cannot be lost as a result of debts. The project enables women to set up productive task teams that allow them to earn a regular income. There are task teams dealing with organic food production, a Saturday market, a restaurant and rooms within the houses for homestay tourism.

The project is a model of how different ways of living together can make a community more resilient, both ecologically and socially. The project offers a secure supply of organic food grown on its own land. Water and waste are managed in low-cost and ecologically sustainable ways. Reedbeds are used to filter the water, an aqueduct brings water to the village and waste is either recycled or composted.

The project was set up by the Nashira Women’s Association for a Better Quality of Life (Asociación de Mujeres Nashira por Mejor Calidad de Vida) (Nashira) through the purchase of 3.3 hectares of land that had previously been a banana plantation. The purchase costs were met by a donation from the Douglas Dolmetsch Foundation.

Context

Colombia is a country that has been locked in a civil war for fifty years. Since the mid-1960s, the country has suffered from a complex low intensity conflict between the government, paramilitaries’ and guerrilla groups. Over 220,000 people have been killed and according to UNHCR nearly six million people have been forced out of their homes. This has created the largest number of internally displaced people of any country in the world apart from Syria. In addition to this, the drugs trade has displaced thousands of people as drug producers attempt to expand their cultivation of coca into remote farmland areas.

The effects of this have been highly damaging to individuals and families. There is widespread evidence of sexual violence against women and many families have been broken up. The majority of displaced people are women. Thirty per cent of women in Colombia are single mothers and 35 per cent of children live in single parent families. Seventy per cent of single parent families are below the poverty line.

Key Features

Women build their own houses. They are expected to contribute at least 1,200 hours in total towards construction.

Houses are constructed from recycled materials in innovative ways. For example, walls are constructed with walls made out of rubbish and some are of plastic drinks bottles filled with soil. Stairs are made from used car tyres and windows are made from recycled glass bottles.

Homes are provided rent-free.

The project provides clean drinking water. This was a particular challenge as the local ground water is contaminated. A large aqueduct brings in fresh water from a nearby spring.

There are eleven production centres, which create income for the village. These include: homestay for tourists in spare bedrooms; waste recycling; small scale market gardening producing fruit and vegetables; fish farming and ceramic production.

Nashira operates its own currency for financial transactions in the village. This helps keep the income generated within the village.

What impact has it had?

The village has achieved its aims through the successful self-build of houses and the communal facilities in the village.

The quality of life of the women in the village has significantly improved. Most women previously lived in poverty in slums in nearby towns. All have been lifted out of poverty and health outcomes have improved significantly.

The village is close to being financially self-sufficient.

How is it funded?

The project was established with a grant from the Douglas Dolmetsch Foundation. Other set up costs were provided by the Colombian Government Social Housing Programme. Donations and grants have also been provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the water company Aquavalle. In the early stages the government charged women 10 per cent of the costs of building the houses. This was a condition of the government grant. The village has negotiated a change whereby in-kind costs are counted as a financial contribution by the government. This has allowed the charge to be dropped.

The village aims to be self-sufficient in its running costs. It has created a number of income generating activities called production centres. Many of these provide personal income for the women who live in the village and others help provide operating costs for the village’s communal facilities.

 

Why is it innovative?

  • Nashira has demonstrated that an eco-village can operate as a viable and self-sufficient concern. It also demonstrated that eco–living is not necessarily only a life-style choice for high income earners but an effective way of helping people out of poverty.
  • Nashira has led the way in providing women-centred housing where the women are in control. This approach is new to Colombia.
  • The building techniques make use of very low cost materials and use what would otherwise be waste.

 

What is the environmental impact?

The village is highly sustainable environmentally. It creates little if any waste, consumes little energy and creates few pollutants. Carbon emissions, although not measured, are likely to be very low.

 

Is it financially sustainable?

The village is close to being financially self-sufficient. Operating costs are covered by income generating activities. The village has achieved its aim of doing so without charging rent. The village does not appear to have large reserves and so any significant improvements and changes to the village have fundraising implications.

 

What is the social impact?

The project succeeded in improving the living conditions and quality of life for women who had suffered domestic violence or been displaced by the Colombian civil war.

 

Barriers

  • At the start of the project, women were expected to pay 10 per cent of the upfront cost to build the houses. This was a government subsidy condition. Many were not able to cover this. When women started contributing to the actual construction of the houses the upfront cost was removed.
  • There has been some opposition from local men and from relatives who did not want women to be the homeowners.
  • Some of the income generating businesses proved not to be viable and have failed.

 

Lessons Learned

  • An eco-village is not just an idealistic notion but a viable way of living. It can successfully be used to lift people out of poverty.
  • Living rent-free is a key way of helping people out of poverty. Without the need to make regular rent or mortgage payments, women were better able to improve their lives.
  • Although the village was set up for women, from the beginning it proved sensible to include some male relatives, such as long-term partners, who remained heads of households. However, as some of the women were abandoned or mistreated, some men had to be excluded from the village which left the women as the sole heads of households even though men are still welcome. This showed that the Nashira approach worked.

 

Evaluation

An ongoing feature of the project over its 13 years has been the link with academia which has led to the formation of a research group which evaluates and monitors every stage of the project. Amongst the organisations most closely involved are the University of Valle and its environmental, urbanism, gender, sociology and solidarity economy programmes. The community psychology programmes of the Cooperative University and the environmental programmes of the National University are also involved. Several postgraduate theses have been written, which analyse and evaluate the programme as a whole.

 

Transfer

Within Colombia seven other eco villages for women have been set up.

UN Habitat has initiated a project in Santa Marta using some elements of Nashira.

Internationally, UN Habitat is helping to set up Nashira- inspired projects in Mexico and El Salvador.

Links

Authors:

World Habitat

TECHO – Development of Habitat

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TECHO – Development of Habitat

Policies and regulations National policies Governance
Urban Design Inclusion Participatory processes
Promotion and production Materials Self-construction

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2015:

Stakeholders

  • Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Continent: South America
City: San Joaquín
Country/Region: Chile, Santiago

Description

TECHO is an NGO working with residents and young volunteers to overcome the poverty in which thousands of people live in informal settlements across Latin America and the Caribbean. TECHO’s ‘Development of Habitat’ projects aim to implement permanent solutions in the settlements in the different countries in which it operates. ‘Development of Habitat’ projects are currently in place in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Colombia.

Project Description

Aims and Objectives

TECHO focuses on overcoming poverty in informal settlements.  The organisation was started in 1997 by a group of students and soon became a Latin American institution with hundreds of employees and thousands of young volunteers. It works with the families living in informal settlements to develop shared strategies for the improvement and transformation of their communities based on their needs. The programme aims to improve their access to basic services, regularise land use and improvements to their housing wherever the families are.  TECHO works to integrate families into the ‘formal city’ so that everyone has the change to develop new skills and exercise their full rights in society.

TECHO operates in 19 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean.  The ‘Development of Habitat’ programme focuses on Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Colombia, having started in Chile in 2006.

Context

UN Habitat estimates that 80 per cent of the population of Latin America lives in cities. Most informal settlements don’t have access to basic services, such as water, sewerage and electricity. Most informal housing is substandard in quality and much of the land where the houses are built is not regularised (i.e. the use of the land has not been agreed with the land owner).

Key Features

To date, the Chile, Argentina and Uruguay programme has reached and helped 23,000 people. Five thousand, nine hundred permanent homes have either been built or redeveloped, land use has been regularised and access to basic services and the urban infrastructure have been improved.

They have achieved this by setting up local design workshops composed of local families, community leaders and volunteers. They work together to identify the needs of the community, to devise practical solutions and plan the improvements.

The programme brings together young volunteers from different disciplines such as architects, lawyers and engineers to evaluate and work on the land in the informal settlements. This enables the groups of volunteers to practise their skills and understand the challenges related to rapid urbanisation. It also helps create crucial social connections between the ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ city.

The programme is supported by a series of partnerships with local government, utility providers, architecture firms, law firms and other institutions. These partnerships are tasked with effectively solving the needs of the communities by obtaining legal land security, accessing basic services and designing improved infrastructure and housing.

WHA2015_CHILE3

What impact has it had?

TECHO’s projects have had a direct impact on the lives of the participating families: besides improved living conditions, people are also trained in management which allows them to lead their own projects and deal with issues.
The project also provides direct experience to the volunteers involved.  Young qualified volunteers are recruited and can practise their technical knowledge and improve their skills.

How is it funded?

The programme is funded by a mix of partners from public, private and international development institutions, as well as individual donors. This diversification of funding sources makes the project more sustainable in the long term.

The costs vary by country and type of project. On average the cost per household is US$24,000 (£15,500).

The largest share (60 per cent of income) of the organization’s funding comes from corporate donations while the specific ‘Development of Habitat’ projects are financed at a local level, including with the support of government subsidies.

Why is it innovative?

  • TECHO provides a long-term, large-scale answer to improving living conditions in informal settlements.
  • TECHO’s approach maintains a long-term relationship with the communities it works in. It aims to fully transform informal settlements into socially and territorially integrated communities.
  • TECHO’s approach is far greater than simply improving buildings. It brings together all the key stakeholders who can play a role in upgrading: the families, community organisations, local governments, utility providers, architecture firms, law firms and government.

What is the environmental impact?

  • Families are trained on housing maintenance resulting in a more efficient use of energy and water.
  • The community has better access to basic services.
  • Families in some of the communities in Chile have participated in large scale planting of grass and trees. As the families themselves were involved in planting, these new green areas are looked after and kept clean and tidy by the families themselves.

Is it financially sustainable?

The organisation is financed by a combination of corporate donations (60 per cent), international cooperation funds (20 per cent), individual donors (5 per cent) and conducting various campaigns and fundraising events (15 per cent).

TECHO also has two fundraising offices in the United States (Miami and New York) and two in Europe (UK and Germany).

What is the social impact?

  • Apart from helping to deliver high-quality housing and security of tenure, TECHO encourages communities to form relationships between the settlement and external stakeholders. The aim of this is to help transform the settlement into a fully functional neighbourhood.
  • TECHO helps to strengthen community leadership to become validated and representative, encouraging self-management and the participation of thousands of residents to generate collective solutions to shared problems.
  • TECHO works with young volunteers who work with the families on a daily basis. Thanks to this, strong and long-lasting social connections between the volunteers and the families and communities develop.

TECHO’s Development of Habitat projects address six issues:

  1. Regularisation of property for the legal security of the land;
  2. Formalised access to basic services;
  3. Access to city infrastructure, such as paved streets, public lighting, proximity to public transport, schools and hospitals;
  4. Living spaces, dimensions and materials, ensuring high technical standards and appropriate common spaces;
  5. Ensure that the solution is supported with public investment with additional added-value;
  6. Communities organised based on their collective needs, able to find sustainable solutions to their problems.

Barriers

Time: Projects have an average duration of three to five years. Keeping communities active in a process that does not provide immediate results is not straightforward. This is overcome by letting communities lead the entire process from designing to managing the housing solutions.

Access to land: There has been a shortage of vacant land with the right conditions for the development of the projects. Given this, some projects had difficulties in regularising land.

Lessons Learned

  • TECHO found that it is important to accept that regeneration processes are long-term and need constant adaptation.
  • The active participation of families in the project, was an essential part of its success.
  • TECHO found that efficient implementation depends on many specific requirements that make the project technically feasible, economically viable and socially desirable. Working with all stakeholders to meet these requirements is crucial.
  • TECHO found that projects need to be adapted to meet the specific needs of each community.
  • The transfer of information and coordination with other actors has been crucial at all stages of the projects.
  • A real understanding of the urban and land issues in the areas where the settlements are is essential, as is an understanding of the legal issues relating to the land and a knowledge of the community.

Evaluation

  • The technical aspects of the projects delivered by TECHO have been compared with projects from other institutions.
  • All the ‘Development of Habitat’ projects are undertaken by a multidisciplinary team from TECHO (architects, lawyers etc.) who plan and deliver all the processes and stages in the projects.

Transfer

TECHO’s model, first established in Chile, has been replicated and improved through ongoing learning across Latin America.  The transfer of the ‘Development of Habitat’ programme involves the experience and learning from the development work in the originating country. To implement it in another country it’s vital to adapt the project to the local situation and within the opportunities provided by the political and social context.

It is now being replicated in three other countries:

  • Argentina (in Buenos Aires and Córdoba since 2012 and Salta and Río Cuarto since 2014)
  • Uruguay (in Montevideo) since 2012
  • Colombia (in Bogota) since 2015

Two professionals working in Chile for the last three years moved to live in Argentina and Uruguay in 2012. This was the first time transfer of the programme occurred to other countries and cities in Latin America.

Initially they formed teams with local volunteers to gather information within informal settlements with the aim of planning the local work. Currently this work of transferring the experience to the other countries in which TECHO works continues.

Links

Authors:

World Habitat

Back to Rio

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Back to Rio

Policies and regulations Local policies
Urban Design Urban fabrics Liveability Inclusion
Promotion and production Participatory processes Self-management

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2015:

Stakeholders

  • Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Continent: South America
City: Rio de Janeiro
Country/Region: Brazil, Rio de Janeiro

Description

This huge scale public arts project has radically transformed the image of one of the most notorious favelas in Rio de Janeiro. It mobilised a community to paint the façades of their houses creating massive works of art. The effect has been to redefine their surroundings and turned a no-go area into a dynamic community.

Project Description

Aims and Objectives

The ultimate aim of the project is that the painting of the houses in the favela will act as a catalyst for the wider regeneration and empowerment of the area and thereby improve people’s lives.

As a next stage, the project aims to continue, involving painting a further 50 buildings.

Back to Rio is a grassroots arts project started by two Dutch artists, Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn, founders of the Favela Painting Foundation. They first visited Vila Cruzeiro in Rio in 2006 and painted a 150 m2 mural of a boy with a kite on the wall of one building. They returned a few years later creating a much larger mural covering a public stairway. This artwork depicted the stairway as a river with Koi fish swimming in it. They returned to Rio de Janeiro in 2010 to undertake a very large community artwork on a big public square in Santa Marta.

After they completed the Santa Marta project, their vision was to do something even bigger and paint a whole favela. Work then restarted in Vila Cruzeiro, in the main street of this favela. This project is called: Back To Rio. A serious gun battle in 2014 temporarily halted the work and also caused them to rethink. They relocated and chose a more visible and public place, partly for security reasons, but also to help create a more positive image for the area after its darkest moment. The project involves painting thirty-four connected buildings creating a vast 7,000 m2 artwork.

The artists initially hired six local young people to take part. Participants were given training in plastering (the houses were bare brick and had to be repaired and rendered before they could be painted). Later in the projects they trained twenty-five young people from the favela in painting and art techniques. Participants were all paid and learned a skill.

The project has drawn positive attention to Vila Cruzeiro in particular and Rio’s favelas in general. The brightly-coloured paintings have received wide scale international media coverage and the area has hosted several celebrity visitors. For the first time the media was reporting positive news from the Favelas. Santa Marta is now a tourist destination, with regular organised tours provided by locals for visitors to the city.

Context

Vila Cruzeiro is an informal settlement (favela) in Rio’s North Zone. It has a reputation for criminality and violence. In 2010, The Rio Times described it as “one of the most dangerous favelas in Rio.” It went on to say “The zone is responsible for over one third of the city’s murders and a common cause of death amongst inhabitants is stray bullets”. The settlement was built in the early 1970s and most of the buildings have been little improved since. In 2010, the area was targeted by police aiming to break a local drug gang. A street gun battle ensued, which lasted five days and resulted in the death of 37 people.

Estimates vary on the number of people living in Rio’s favelas, but in 2009 New Yorker magazine estimated that the city had more than one thousand favelas, inhabited by three million of the city’s fourteen million population. This number has almost certainly increased in the years since, with most of the city’s population growth occurring in favelas.

What impact has it had?

Back to Rio has delivered training and capacity-building within communities in some of the poorest neighbourhoods in Rio.
The project has attracted significant media attention, both nationally and internationally and has helped to change people’s perceptions of the favelas.

How is it funded?

Back to Rio is funded by a continuous fundraising campaign. The project was set up after a successful US$100,000 KickStarter crowdfunding campaign. It has been sustained by further crowdfunding, donations, private money from Haas&Hahn and a grant from the Johnnie Walker Foundation.

Why is it innovative?

  • The Favela Painting undertaken as part of the Back to Rio project offers a very unusual approach to neighbourhood improvement in deprived communities. None of the actors involved see themselves as urban planners, development professionals or community organisers. They’re artists with a social conscience, understanding the power of art as a way to bring people together in positive action.
  • The project has very effectively used media coverage to draw positive attention to the favela. Most previous media coverage concentrated on crime, drugs and violence.
  • The painting has created a tourist destination which has brought income to the area employing local guides and increasing sales in local shops.
  • The artists believe the project has high street credibility, drawing in people who were previously hard to reach or even involved in criminal activities.
  • The project has used its media coverage to drive a successful crowdfunding campaign that paid for much of the costs of the project.

What is the environmental impact?

Whenever possible, the painters experiment with coloured plaster; using pigments in plaster instead of paint which is then sprayed onto the houses which, in the long term, is more sustainable. To support this, a Dutch team of residents from Vila Cruzeiro are currently setting up a pilot for a self-sustainable paint factory in Providencia (another Favela) which will be used to transform even more houses and, if successful, export the paint to other places where favela painting projects are happening.

Is it financially sustainable?

The financial sustainability of the project depends on the successful use of innovative funding mechanisms, for example crowdsourcing.

What is the social impact?

  • The project helps change public perception of favelas.
  • It has provided a positive focus and new image for an area that has undergone violence and tragedy.
  • It empowers residents of the favelas to feel a greater sense of participation in local development without the government being involved.
  • Participants are trained in arts, painting techniques and project management.

Barriers

Despite safety having improved in Vila Cruzeiro, the project has been halted due to the ongoing conflict between the police and drug gangs, which led the project to move to another more central and safer location.

The project is heavily reliant on the two Dutch artists being on site. They immerse themselves in the community, which is one of the success factors of the project because it allows them to develop an in-depth local understanding and the creation of local teams, but it also makes it very time-consuming.

All the tenants and homeowners living in the streets where the project takes place need to be willing to get involved in the project and all of them need to come to an agreement on the design and colour scheme of the art work. The project has developed a methodology using colour-lab workshops in which people come together to make a first draft together. These workshops can also convince homeowners who were not yet sure about their participation.

Lessons Learned

People can play a major role in neighbourhood improvement without the involvement of government and can also be actively involved via different approaches to participation, which don’t follow the traditional urbanism approaches to participatory planning.

Evaluation

Locally, results are evaluated, changes implemented and re-evaluated by the local crew leader until everyone is satisfied.

The longer-term impact of the project has not as yet been evaluated.

Transfer

The project started with one mural in a favela in Rio and has since been replicated in Port-au-Prince (Haiti), Philadelphia (USA), Gothenburg (Sweden) and Willemstad (Curacao).

The project ‘Germen Crew’ in Mexico painted an entire informal settlement in Pachuca City was inspired by Favela Painting.

Links

Authors:

World Habitat

Comprehensive Community Development for Poverty Alleviation

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Comprehensive Community Development for Poverty Alleviation

Policies and regulations Planning
Urban Design Urban fabrics Inclusion Equity
Promotion and production Self-promotion Transformation and adaptation

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2015:

Stakeholders

  • Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Continent: Asia
City: Thimphu
Country/Region: Bhutan

Description

This project focused on the Olep ethnic group who live on the western fringes of an important national park in the west central part of Bhutan. Originally a nomadic hunter gatherer community, the Olep were encouraged by the government to settle in Rukha in the early 1970s, so that they could benefit from the development initiatives that were taking place in the country. With no experience of settled living and their earlier means of living off the forest no longer available, the community fell into extreme poverty. This project, run by the Tarayana Foundation, has developed skills and encouraged a self-help ethos that has successfully helped the community recover and prosper. Originally focusing on the village of Rukha, the project has spread to 150 other villages across Bhutan.

 

Project Description

Aims and Objectives

The project’s main aim was to empower the local community so that they could help themselves out of poverty. This was achieved through the key objectives:

  • Awareness creation of the roles, rights and responsibilities of the community members towards a future they wanted.
  • Education of the children as well as non-formal adult literacy programmes for the adults.
  • Capacity development.
  • Document the language and traditional folklore.
  • Promote local stewardship of their immediate environment.

Tarayana Foundation is a non-profit organisation working to enhance the lives of vulnerable individuals in rural and remote communities in Bhutan. It was founded in 2003 by Her Majesty the Queen Mother Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck (who remains Chair and President of the organisation). Although independent, Tarayana works with the Bhutanese government and the local communities to help achieve its objectives of improving rural prosperity.

Tarayana focuses on extremely remote areas that would otherwise be considered too difficult and isolated to work in. The Foundation worked around logistical and practical issues of reaching and serving these far-flung places. By doing this, they recognised small, marginalised communities as important groups to support in accessing opportunities and maintaining their unique culture. This is important as remote ethnic minorities often risk isolation and/or see young people leaving for more vibrant places.

Context

Rukha is a small, remote village of 18 households (147 people). The people are from the Olep ethnic minority. The Oleps settled in Rukha in the early 1970s as part of a government programme to settle nomadic communities so that they could benefit from the planned development that was being introduced. The government gave the community three acres of farm land in addition to half an acre for house construction and kitchen gardens.

Families settled on the land in temporary, makeshift small houses made from bamboo with bamboo leaf mat roofs. The original expectation was that these houses would be replaced with more permanent housing. However, the community had little experience of settled living and lacked the skills to improve their houses. As a result, not only was the housing not replaced, it was not well maintained and fell into disrepair. The community’s background also meant that they lacked the experience and skills to sustain arable farming. Over several years, the farm remained partly cultivated with more fallow fields that fell out of agricultural use. The nearest school was many hours walk away and few children were educated.

After the initial three years of support from the Ministry of Agriculture, where terraces were made and basic farming skills taught, they were on their own. With the failure of reliable irrigation, the crops failed, and the lack of awareness regarding seed selection and storage, the villagers slowly fell into extreme poverty. At the time of a visit from Her Majesty in 2001, the living conditions had deteriorated significantly and there was evidence of poor health and malnourishment.

Key Features

The project’s philosophy was to encourage the community to lead their own development.  Tarayana’s role was to facilitate community involvement and engage key actors in helping the community to prosperity. Tarayana’s Field Officers worked and lived in Rukha with the community. This helped them understand the Olep lifestyle and concerns and build a relationship of trust.

The project used the Rural Participatory Appraisal Approach to engage the whole community in project planning as it did not require participants to be literate. Through this, the community formed a committee which drew up the project objectives and strategies. Housing improvement was given the first priority, concluding that better shelter was an essential basic need and the first step to feeling secure and confident. Other priorities included revitalising farming and starting up traditional handicraft businesses as a source of cash income.

Three sub committees were set up to oversee the three priority areas:

  • Housebuilding and renovation: The committee mobilised the relevant community members in receiving skills training such as carpentry, masonry, rammed earth and laying stone walls. The training and site supervision was provided by a master builder brought in from a nearby village. Additional labour was provided by trainees from the Construction Training Centre. Over a two year period, all of the bamboo houses in the village were replaced by two-story timber and mud houses built in the local traditional style. Tarayana provided materials (corrugated roofing sheets, timber, nails, etc.) The whole community took part in the construction. They drew lots to decide a fair construction schedule.
  • Revitalisation of traditional handicrafts: The committee oversaw training in traditional handicraft skills which included making cane and bamboo products and also many items made of maize cob sheaths.
  • Environmentally friendly farming: A committee was formed by women from each family to ensure that vibrant kitchen gardens were maintained by each household. Additional committee members were recruited to provide specialist skills and knowledge as required from time to time. These included a Field Officer and a specialist from the Department of Agriculture who supported them and provided training on environmentally friendly farming techniques that were sustainable.

In addition to the three sub committees, the project also included:

Support for education, sanitation and health: A primary school was built in the nearby village of Migtana, which serves as the central location for three other villages. Tarayana covered daily meals for the 60 students enrolled there. A community learning centre was set up by the government to initiate Non Formal Education for adults, and the Foundation provided basic stationeries, learning aids and facilitated other sessions for the children. English classes were provided for young people.  Awareness raising activities also took place around:

  • Health, nutrition and sanitation.
  • Local environmental and natural resources management (water management, improved soil productivity, etc.).
  • The value of education.
  • Gender issues.

Access to credit: Community members wanted to access micro-credit to start up small enterprises. They took up Tarayana‘s micro credit programme to access 100.000 BTN (US$1,500) to purchase a power tiller. This served as the main transport service in the absence of any vehicle after the farm road was build.

Irrigation: Installing appropriate water pipes for agricultural irrigation and solving the previously inadequate water distribution. This piped water was also used for aquaculture.

Fishery: Smoked fish called Nga Dosem is a delicacy of the Oleps. Fish production started locally with the introduction of fingerlings from the Government fishery programme and it became a good source of cash income.

Solar electrification: Three local women installed solar home lighting systems for all 18 houses, the community shed and the learning centre. They were trained at the Barefoot College, Tilonia, Rajasthan in India, an institution that teaches community members to become ‘barefoot solar engineers’. A Rural Electronic Workshop was also set up in the village for repairs and maintenance of solar panels and the home lighting system.

What impact has it had?

Within two years, 15 houses were completed in Rukha; 33 men and 24 women were trained in carpentry and masonry skills. Tarayana facilitated the construction of 860 other houses as part of the housing improvement programme based on the Rukha model, in many remote rural villages.
The availability and variety of food increased and improved farming techniques led to surplus production that was sold in the market. With the increase in cash income, they could buy other necessary goods and services. The population saw an improvement in their access to health and education, along with increased employment opportunities through agriculture, handicrafts and selling smoked fish. A few of them also took up house construction work in other remote villages as carpenters and masons. The activities carried out to improve life in the village led to people working together that built social cohesion in the community.

How is it funded?

The United Nations Volunteers/United Nations Development Programme (UNV/UNDP) provided US$50,000 to start the project in 2006 for the duration of two years. The community contributed labour and land, while Tarayana contributed project facilitation, management staff and administration support.

In 2007, the Global Environmental Facility’s Small Grants Programme (GEF-SGP) Support funded the ‘Alternative Livelihood Options for the Indigenous Community of Rukha’ programme with US$31,845. This programme complemented the ongoing work in Rukha. Tarayana applied on behalf of the community and the funds were transferred to the community’s bank account. Tarayana helped use the fund according to the plan developed with the Oleps.

 

Why is it innovative?

  • Tarayana’s role as a grassroots facilitator in bringing together stakeholders to achieve a common goal and the focus on remote ethnic minorities are significant achievements within the Bhutanese context.
  • This project demonstrated the need to dissolve the sectoral silos in addressing the multi-dimensional nature of rural poverty.
  • It demonstrated that involving grassroots in project design, management and implementation improved the relevance of the interventions with better sequencing of activities.
  • Tarayana Foundation was able to bridge the gap between larger national initiatives and local realities.
  • The wide-ranging and people-centred nature of the project aims to address any issue within the community, instead of imposing an existing agenda that might not fit local needs.
  • Working together towards a common goal empowered the community to collaborate in solving housing and other collective issues.

 

What is the environmental impact?

  • The raw materials used in the construction of these houses were chosen based on what was already locally available. This reduced the need to import. For example, rammed earth was used in Rukha where mud was abundant. In the eastern part of Bhutan, the communities used stone as the main building material and bamboo in place of timber, as these were easily found in the area.
  • The GEF-SGP supported project helped introduce environmentally friendly technologies like improved fuel efficient cook stoves to locally designed solar dryers, locally designed basic improved hygienic facility for smoking fish with the help of the Livestock Extension Officer and solar home lighting systems to reduce the consumption of kerosene and resinous wood for lighting.
  • Tarayana facilitated the community to control land degradation, re-instated the irrigation system and trained the community in managing water and land effectively.
  • Local environmental and natural resources management was encouraged through the training of all households.
  • Natural and eco-friendly farming techniques including composting, mulching, crop rotation, companion planting etc. improved soil productivity. Open pollinated local seeds were used, seed selection, storage and exchanges between different villages was encouraged.
  • The use of relevant hand tools and implements were promoted.

 

Is it financially sustainable?

  • The Rukha project is financially sustainable as the community now has the skills to earn cash income. Their confidence has been built; all their children are able to access free education provided by the Government.
  • They are able to look after and build their own homes and have also understood the concept that together they can reach greater achievements.
  • The community has understood that they are primarily responsible for their own well-being and that much good can be done by working together. This in itself is a big step towards sustainability. They no longer wait for support from the outside and have the confidence to tackle one common issue after using local solutions.
  • Residents from Rukha are now working as master carpenters in other districts and villages (some hired by Tarayana). Master carpenters are paid well and are in high demand.
  • The community makes bamboo products on order and is conversant in the processes of pricing and marketing their products after the initial years of hand-holding done by the Tarayana Rural Crafts.
  • Increased agricultural yields have resulted in the Oleps eating better while selling the surplus for cash.

 

What is the social impact?

  • Community cohesion: The project brought together the whole community to achieve a common goal, despite differences in ages and gender.
  • Capacity-building: Training in financial literacy resulting in increased savings, artisan crafts, entrepreneurship, book-keeping, house building skills, carpentry, hygienic preparation of smoked fish, agriculture, etc. has increased the overall knowledge and capacity of Rukha. In addition, three women were trained as barefoot solar engineers at the Barefoot College in Rajasthan for six months and are members of the Barefoot Solar Engineers Association of Bhutan.
  • Learning opportunities: The community learning centre and the improved access to school means more education opportunities for both children and adults. And thanks to the solar panels, children have light and more time to do their homework.
  • Nutrition and health: The consumption of a more varied diet has helped improve the family’s nutritional intake. The community also learned how to make nutritious meals using different vegetables. Initiatives around health and hygiene, water and sanitation, HIV/Aids and other health issues, along with the importance of education and gender equality have helped raise awareness around these important issues. Traditional firewood stoves for cooking emitted a lot of smoke, often causing respiratory problems. These stoves were replaced with the fuel-efficient smokeless stoves.
  • Decreased inequality: Gender equality improved as women were empowered through training and economic opportunities, along with better access to information and knowledge. The elders and many men of the village admired the fact that women gained new skills. They were particularly impressed that it was the women who provided solar power to the village.

Tarayana was able to demonstrate that with opportunity and coordinated facilitation, all community or section of society could become empowered and capacitated to drive their collective developmental agenda.

From a poor and impoverished, highly indebted and food insecure community a decade ago, the Oleps of Rukha are enjoying a better quality of life. They are also better able to articulate their aspirations to their elected leaders. The community also built a common temple in their village of their own accord, mobilising support from others for the statues and altar, but putting in their collective labour to bring the temple to fruition.

While there is still much to be done, they are on a sustainable development trajectory that can only bring them more collective prosperity and well-being.

 

Barriers

  • Geographical isolation and the rugged mountainous terrain remain one of the greatest difficulties in serving these remote communities.
  • This in turn makes the cost of service delivery very expensive particularly the cost of transportation of both good and services.
  • Having lived in isolation for so many decades, the Oleps were hesitant to express their needs and desires. Tarayana had to work hard to gain their trust. Living and working with the Oleps, the Field Officer became a familiar figure in the community.
  • Community mobilisation is challenging, as every small community has their own dynamics. The project focused on dialogue and patience to understand local traditions. This helped overcome some of the barriers that were linked to cultural misunderstandings or a fear of change.
  • Funds for housing are difficult to obtain although having a decent roof over one’s head is one of the basic needs in addressing poverty particularly in rural communities. We have seen the importance of having a home, around which all else like civic awareness, access to education, health and hygiene, food and nutrition security, water and sanitation, better farming and green technologies, can be anchored.

 

Lessons Learned

  • Building up local skills is at the heart of development. In fact, the community can solve many issues when they can get support to develop the skills they need.
  • Proper consultation is key to the success of the project. Taking time to understand the needs of the population and assessing their capacity to carry on activities is crucial.
  • When the organisation’s staff live and work with the community, this provides a clearer understanding of local issues and helps build strong links with the community.
  • It is important to research and understand the funding opportunities at hand. Each donor has to be approached differently and it is essential to make the most of what they could offer.
  • We have learnt to understand the increased administrative burden with each small project implemented hence moving more towards programmes approach while working for budgetary support.
  • Small communities can handle big programmes if they are given the opportunity.

 

Evaluation

The Project Manager carried out monthly visits to the Rukha, involving four hours of drive followed by eight hours on foot, each way. The mid-term monitoring and evaluation visit was jointly carried out by representatives of the donor, member of the Tarayana Executive Committee and the project management. The project end evaluation was carried out by an independent consultant hired by the Poverty Unit, UNDP. The project was viewed as very positive in addressing multi-dimensional poverty as seen in remote, rural corners of the country.

 

Transfer

This model is currently being replicated in 150 villages across Bhutan in 15 of the total 20 districts. Additionally, Tarayana has signed an MOU with the Royal Government’s Gross National Happiness Commission (Planning Commission) in January 2015, as a partner in implementing the ‘Rural Economy Advancement Programme’ Phase 2 (REAP-2). Tarayana had very successfully piloted in three remote villages during the first phase of REAP.

Links

Authors:

World Habitat

Self-Help Housing in the North of England

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Self-Help Housing in the North of England

Policies and regulations Local policies
Urban Design Inclusion Equity

Main objectives of the project

This work is delivered by Canopy and Giroscope, two separate housing charities that train homeless and vulnerable people to renovate abandoned properties and bring them back into use. The completed houses provide low cost homes for local people who are homeless or in housing need.

  • Both organisations started in response to failed housing markets and a desire to match empty homes to people in housing need. The models they developed have become known as Self-Help Housing, and have been replicated and adapted many times.
  • At its heart the model involves organisations acquiring long-term empty properties, renovating them using volunteer labour and letting them out as below market housing.
  • The process of renovating the properties is in many ways just as important as the end result and both organisations focus on wider benefits for individuals and communities, including skills development, capacity building and social integration.

Canopy and Giroscope are pioneers in a movement of UK housing providers called “Self-Help Housing”, which has gained momentum and grown significantly in recent years. Together they provide a model that has inspired many others. Today, over 100 organisations in the UK follow their Self-Help Housing model.

Date

  • 2015:

Stakeholders

  • Promotor: World Habitat

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Hull
Country/Region: Hull, United Kingdom

Description

Links

Authors:

World Habitat