Mary MathengeGeneral Manager, National Cooperative Housing Union, Kenya

Barry PinskyExecutive Director, Rooftops Canada - Abri International, Canada

Tabitha SiwaleExecutive Director, WAT Human Settlements, Tanzania

May SommerfeltDirector, International Co-operation, Norwegian Federation of Co-operative Housing Association, Norway

Housing Micro-Finance: Lessons and Future Directions from Eastern & Southern Africa

ica

NBBL

• The Norwegian Federation of Co-operative Housing Associations (NBBL)

• 92 co-operative housing associations • 4600 housing co-operatives affiliated• 250 000 housing units • 20 000 working as volunteers• In Oslo 40% of households live in co-operative

owned dwellings

DUGNAD –”sweat equity”

NBBL: 60 years anniversary

10 years in development co-opration

•South Africa

•Zambia

•Tanzania

•Kenya

•Latin America

•Bosnia

•North-Vest Russia

Eventuell kommentar

NBBL’s mission in development co-operation

•Contribute towards poverty reduction through improvement of housing and settlements•Utilizing experiences of the Norwegian co-op housing movement•Working in partnership with organisations in the South

•A tool for housing development?•A tool for sustainable urban development?

•WAT Tanzania: core house, self built, micro finance•NACHU Kenya: walk-up flats, self built, incremental development, micro finance

Housing micro finance

WAT’s experiences

• Dream house: people have big families, need a big house, the swahili house, several bedrooms, ”min” 75 sqm

• IDLE: houses incomplete for many years/capital invested non productive

• Affordability: the relationship between people’s abilities of monthly repayment, size of house/time it takes to complete

• DEMO-house• Building

Research Institute, Tanzania

• Co-operating with WAT

• Appropriate technology

• Soil-cement blocks, interlocking

• Demo-house• House that grows• Production soil

cement blocks

• Demo house25 sqm, two rooms, latrine teacher, wife, two children borrowed from WATs micro finance

• total: Tshs: 3 mill/ $ 2500 repayment period 4 yearspay 60$ per monthneed income of 200 $

• after 2 years, roll-over, start to build another 25 sqm

Demo-house, finished first phase

Core house - big investment

• Core House with latrine: $2 500• Even core house – big investment for

low income people• Need to pay 60 $ per month to repay in

4 years• People that can only pay 20 $ per

month need 10-12 years to pay for 25 sqm

Lessons learned

• New housing construction using micro-finance works with lower – to medium income people

• Appripriate technology/local building materials a pre-conditon to bring down cost

• House a product• Very low income people- micro finance for:

– Housing upgrading– Income generating activities

continuing urbanisation-new challenges

•Cities transform into higher densities /multi storey structures.

•Offers new challenges!

•The self-help and squatter upgrading approach from the seventies not sufficient

Urban slums becoming vertical

Matara valley in Nairobi• Slum lords build illegal

multi storey “housing” • rooms let out to crowds

of poor people • no proper sanitation

facilities• people being exploited• the structure is unsafe• overloading the water

and sanitation system

NACHU:Itambya Housing Co-operative

• 14 women• Used their savings• Took a loan from

NACHU• Five storey block• Ground floor

commercial• 12 flats upper floors• Built in phases

• First phase:Two storey• Five shops on ground floor• Three flats first floor• Costs: 20 000$• NACHU loan: 9000$• Co-operative raised: 11 000$• Income: shops and flats per

month: Kshs: 458$• Paid back NACHU• Take a new loan for second

phase

• A female headed family renting one of the flats

• Rent per month: 50$

Second phase: Three new storeys with flats

Lessons learned Development of walk-up flats-

• Self built – properly organised through co-oprative, number of members small

• Supervised by NACHU• Built in stages, using micro finance• Income from commercial on ground

floor helps the affordability• Can work! • Scaling up?

(Only) South Africa has answers

• By providing an enabling environment

• comprehensive policy/ multiple approaches

• Subsidies/housing bank• supporting Peoples Housing

Process/self-help housing –squatter upgrading

As well as • developing Social Housing

(non profit )rental and co-operatives

• apartment blocks/walk-ups in inner city areas

• for low income people• where they have their jobs

• LOCOMOTIVE for rest of Africa?

DIFID’s evaluation of Cope’s co-ops

• A study (DFID/Payne, 2001) gives a very positive description of co-operative housing developed by Cope :

• “The co-operative model delivers secure tenure rights over good quality housing stock in areas that are well located, which beneficiaries are proud to call town-houses, a term normally used for middle-income housing stock – a viable alternative to the individually owned one-house-per-plot model that dominates the South African landscape.”

Tabitha Siwale

Executive Director,

WAT Human Settlements,

Tanzania

Housing Micro-Finance: Lessons and Future Directions from Eastern & Southern Africa

Barry Pinsky

Executive Director

Rooftops Canada - Abri International,

Housing Micro-Finance: Lessons and Future Directions from Eastern & Southern Africa

Housing Micro-Finance: Lessons and Future Directions from Eastern & Southern Africa

Mary Mathenge General Manager,National Cooperative Housing Union,Kenya