Shelter strategy to the year 2000: focus on rural areas
Kuyama, S.
The house that grows Proceedings of the international conference on rural low cost housing, held in Lilongwe, Malawi, 1st 6th August 1988: 6-10
1988
Document Number: 384303
The keynote address was presented to the conference on rural low-cost housing, which was held in Malawi, after the formal conclusion of the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless and before the formal commencement of the implementation of the Global Strategy for Shelter to the Year 2000. The significance of holding the conference in Malawi was that the Government's Rural Housing Programme points towards new directions which governments and the international community will need to consider seriously in their efforts to solve the problems of housing, particularly in rural areas. In general, specific policies and strategies for shelter in rural areas have been few. As a result, the conditions of shelter for the vast majority of the rural poor are of very low quality, barely providing protection from the elements. The sheer size of the rural population, however, and the continued dependence of national economies on the rural sector for the foreseeable future, particularly in Africa, require that policy makers devote more attention to shelter needs in rural areas. The Malawi Rural Housing Project has a number of features which demonstrate the practical application of some of the fundamental concepts of the Global Shelter Strategy to the Year 2000. The Project has succeeded in dispersing benefits throughout the country by creating many small training centres in different parts of the country. An integrated strategy has been implemented in practice by training villagers, providing incentives for private economic activities, thus creating employment in the rural areas and in the small and intermediate cities.