Providing affordable housing for slum dwellers: Lessons from China

by Admin (Posted on August 29, 2024August 29, 2024)

By Earnest Jovan Talwana

Statistics from the UN Habitat 2023 (a UN agency focused on human settlements and urbanization) show that Uganda is among the fastest urbanizing countries at a rate 4.5% per annum. The report predicts that Uganda’s urban population may nearly double by 2030 from what it was in 2010. It is also remarkable that Uganda is home to the second youngest population in the world, after Niger. Part of the factors driving the country’s rapid urbanization is the youth dividend, which could both be a transformative or disruptive phenomenon. For the increasing youth population to be a force for good, Uganda needs to manage sustainable urbanization, and avoid sinking into the turbulent criminality that comes with slum-dwelling youthful energy. The goal Uganda should set, perhaps pursue through bodies like KCCA, municipality councils, and the Ministry of lands, housing & urban development is to promote livable urban areas that are organized, productive, sustainable and inclusive for both abled and disabled persons.

For purposes of benchmarking, Uganda could look to China, one of the most rapidly urbanizing and industrializing countries. China’s blueprint to solve the challenge of slums involved designing three main types of affordable housing i.e., public rental housing, government-subsidized rental housing and homes with shared ownership.The Chinese government provided public rental housing to low-income families in urban areas, whereas the government-subsidized rental housing was designed to cater for the new urban residents and young people.

 

Combo photo taken on May 16, 2017 shows Liu Xinhong, 58, in front of his old house (up) and new house (bottom) at Fanyang Village of Wuzhishan City, south China’s Hainan Province. New house was constructed by the government. 

To fund the housing projects, both the Local and Central government provided most funding, while private companies such as Vanke, a large residential real estate developer in China also stepped in. Last year in November, China’s Ministry of Finance released 42.5 billion yuan ($5.87 billion) in subsidies for 2024 for urban affordable housing projects. The central bank of China also provides lending facilities for affordable housing. This enables commercial banks to lend to state-owned enterprises to buy unsold apartments at lower prices and convert them into affordable homes.

The government of China is also so effective at service delivery that they planned to provide 8.7 million units of government-subsidised rental housing and by the end of 2023, they had built more than half of the planned units.

For a country with 78% percent of the youth unemployed, Uganda has potential to turn the numbers of youth unemployment into youthful cheap labor to build homes for themselves. It is hard to imagine how transformative such a labor force would be, given that Kampala city alone accounts for 41 percent of Uganda’s urban population and produces 40 percent of Uganda’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). A lot more economic value could be produced from Kampala city if the majority of the youth were not idlers in slums. They form the raw material for transformative labor if the government utilized them creatively on such projects as the construction of affordable homes in slum areas. Uganda currently has over 200 urban areas, making it not only necessary but also urgent for the government to improve urbanization, promote equitable economic growth in these marginalized geographies of society, and secure livelihoods of the youth.

Our neighbor, Kenya, is among some African countries which have benefited from not only the knowledge but also the support of China in developing luxurious low-cost housing projects for slum dwellers. China financed the Samara Housing Project in Kiambu county, and it is expected that close to 2,000 housing units and a mall will be built for the community. Uganda could also partner with Chinese real estate developers to build affordable homes for our people who are living in squalid conditions in the many ghettos especially around Kampala.

We need to integrate slum upgrading plans  into our national policy, and implement them with the urgency they deserve. Slum upgrading should be part of the country’s medium- and long-term planning and development goals.

Since the majority of Uganda’s urban residents dwell in slums, they are predisposed to poor sanitation due to lack of enough social amenities for hygiene such as toilets, rubbish bins, etc. Slums are also high risk areas for contagious diseases and could be breeding areas for  epidemics. It is therefore in our interest to improve living conditions of the urban poor, and doing so would benefit the whole country.

In the end, there are facts we cannot overlook anymore. For instance, it is a fact that Kampala has grown over four times since the 1980s, but its planning and structure have not changed. It was originally meant to host 300,000 people yet is now home to almost 2 million people. This under development in capacity and over development in function of the city has structural and socio-economic constraints for the greater Kampala area. We can change the course of things partly by supplying quality, low-cost housing for slum dwellers and in the process identifying opportunities for job creation and investment.

The author is a research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.

 

---