Living up to the normative ideal of the human right to adequate housing in urban Ghana

Abstract

This article constructs a holistic narrative on the right to adequate housing in Ghana by piecing together the fragmented literature on the various dimensions of the right using the traditional “qualitative” approach to literature review. Results of the thematically synthesized literature reveal that housing rights in urban Ghana pale empirically in comparison to its normative tenets. The right is violated in all its dimensions, ranging from high insecurity of tenure to the cultural unsuitability of many high-rise dwellings. Major causes identified include the normative framing of slums as illegitimate, defunct and unenforced rental legislation, poor integration of modern and vernacular housing designs, and poor justiciability of the right within the domestic legal system. The situation in Ghana mirrors those in other countries across the globe—however, with local peculiarities—and points to why empirical work on the right within diverse sociopolitical contexts is necessary.