Aspects of urban housing and human settlements policies and strategies in Africa

Abstract

The foregoing discussion has attempted to review the housing policies and strategies of African countries in the past 25 years and to spotlight some aspects of such policies and strategies that need rethinking or review. While many governments are recognising the limitations of direct government action and the potentials of the popular housing sector and adjusting accordingly, certain aspects of policy in the sector which tend to inhibit the fuller realisation of the goals and objectives of the policies and programmes have not been fully recognised and addressed by public policy. These other aspects have to do with policies on housing-tenure, rent control, land and administrative centralisation/ decentralisation. These policy aspects require review to remove the counterproductive attributes inherent in their applications. As aptly observed by Linn (1979), 63 the constraint on urban housing lies not in the limits on the demand side but rather in the indequate response on the supply side, an inadequacy which is largely induced by mistaken policies and is therefore subject to remedies through correct policy actions.