THEORITICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 3.1Global Nature of HDS
3.5 Public-Private Partnership in relation to the enablement paradigm
3.5.5 Institutional/Organizational arrangements and Housing Delivery Systems
Housing delivery systems as earlier defined requires the input of resources and they are made available through what Prins (1994) calls the ‘process function’, namely; initiation of a project, planning and design, acquisition of land, financing, authorization, construction of
building, provision of infrastructure, transfer of units, access to occupancy, maintenance and management. To fulfill these functions, roles are defined within the social structure of the housing environment and development process (Rapoport, 2001). How then do these functions and roles determine the arrangement among partners in the housing delivery system?
Firstly, development of functions and roles is by coalitions among stakeholders. The need for control informs stakeholders’ decisions into formulating relevant partnerships. Whereby, for actors/partners to act perceived limits must exist to which they can act within the context or settings that they find themselves. The setting in terms of housing environments is the cocoon that bears or succors the linkages to limited resources. Since resources are scarce, there is the tendency that partners would form coalitions among themselves to acquire resources and maintain levels of control and power to achieve their goals. Through these formations, the social focus groups become instrumental in shaping the type and nature of partnerships that emanate from any given setting. Therefore, an individual or group that perceives their
‘function/role’ as highly influential in a setting and can negotiate through the existing obstacles and conflicting interests is likely to sway the social arrangements that would emanate from that setting (Ying, 1997; Prins, 1994).
Secondly, the challenge for stakeholders’ functions and roles is that they cannot occur in a vacuum. Prins (1994) identified three distinguishing domains namely:
- The subsistence domain, whereby housing delivery functions is achieved for individual or collective benefit.
-The commercial domain is where housing delivery functions towards housing provision is for profit reasons.
-The public domain which is geared towards moderate cost housing provision with political undertone/legitimacy goals and its achieved through institutionalized groups, such as local, state, and national governments as well as the international organizations (Ying,1997).
Within the dynamic phases of the housing process (of initiation, production and distribution;
succinct to production, distribution and consumption), stakeholders-needs’ requires clarity of process and purpose in relation to the domain and implicit to the HDS thrust (or overriding goal/objectives of the specific housing programme).
From the above literature, the institutional concept of housing in relation to the social structure settings begins to emerge. The institution that comprises local, regional, and national arrangements establishes a framework for control that caters for legislation, financing, and the
overall guiding concept, which encapsulates its ‘public’ based approach as a caretaker of the housing delivery systems for stability, equity, and resource optimization. While, the implication of the market economy, which is liberal, democratic and capitalist, is the ‘private’
based approach and this is about profit making. In an attempt not to create a housing thrust which will enable strong coalitions in form of partnerships to accumulate surplus value (profit) to the detriment of the ‘good of all’ in managing scarce resources, it becomes necessary that organizations become responsive to the institutions. This would not happen on its own accord it would require government based initiatives in form of actually structures that are supportive to this course.
The conceptual development of this study is in relation to stakeholders’ delineation, institutional, organizational arrangements, and the existing power relations, which correlate with socio-cultural coalitions among actors/partners for initiation of PPP. However, the overall frame work of the social arrangements and their constraints are derived from firstly, the economics of coalitions defined by the institutions’. This in itself is the basis of governance.
Therefore, social arrangements take their origins from the nature of governance; politics, religion and socio-cultural and economic factors. Such interrelatedness redefines the limitations to HDS imposed by institutional and organizational arrangements among actors/partners.
In Nigeria, the institutional arrangements revolve around the federal government whose National Housing policy have undergone various reforms; the latest been the National Housing and Urban Policy, 2002. There are three key features of this policy namely:
- The first feature is the institutional reforms in relation to financing and restructuring of the apex mortgage bank (FMBN). This is to improve financing in three phases of the housing process (production, distribution, and consumption). The strategy is to open two concessionary windows. One of which is the transformation of NHF into a Trust Fund with board of directors and inclusion of workers representatives to improve accountability and good corporate governance. The second window is the introduction of securitized mortgages into mortgage- backed securities for sale to institutional investors (such as insurance companies, pension fund managers, banks, securities companies) to improve mortgage financing for housing delivery.
-Another feature of the institutional reforms in the establishment of the Federal Ministry Housing and Urban Development; by way of excising it from the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing. The intent was to increase the supervisory role of government on housing and provide a more focused interest (Mabogunje, 2007).
From the foregoing, it is evident that government sees a need for an inclusionary approach between organizations and the institutions that are arms of governments towards improving the housing delivery system. Since previous national approaches have failed to recognize that individuals, groups, and coalitions are essential to an efficient housing delivery system (Awotono, 1990). This led to the mobilization and organization of the private sector operators for the first time in the history of the country. By so, giving credence to the need for private sector recognition and broadening the inclusiveness of actors/partners considered as stakeholders. Three sets of actors/partners consulted in the new housing policy initiative were the Mortgage Bankers Association of Nigeria (MBAN) and Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria (REDAN). The third was a strategic consultation with professionals in the built environment (Mabogunje, 2007). The professional’s of the AEC industry consulted represented housing experts as observed by this research and their role is both vague and subject to the whims of strategic policy drivers (HDE) selected by government. However, it became evident in Nigeria’s’ housing policy reforms, that stakeholders’ delineation succinct to an elaborate inclusionary approach became important as different from policies of previous years.
The delineation of three sets of actors as stakeholders to the reforms by the national policy framework is inaccurate. It is essential to note that, the socio-cultural realities and interplay between religion, culture, and western political governance did not feature in the delineation of stakeholders. By categorizing sets of actors in terms of financiers, developers, and AEC professionals as the core social focus groups the national policy framework eliminated every other interest associated with the realities of the organizational structure of society. This negates the fundamental tenets of the enabling approach. Such interpretation of global theoretical frameworks inhibits the achievement of housing objectives in reality. Invariably, this omission neglected the perceived and erroneous basis for omnibus spatial concepts of housing and the relevant arrangements among stakeholders’ realities, which emanates from HDS.
Therefore, this study uses figure 3.7 to demonstrate the basis for the conceptual development adopted herein. The complexity of architectural research as earlier described is an all-inclusive knowledge base. Where this process is undermined it is often assumed that social context is sociology or economics, politics or otherwise. The outcomes are often misleading since they rely solely on assumed design typologies as a prescription for their solutions. However, this research captures this all-inclusive nature of knowledge base for design determination in HDS;
and that it is relevant to a comprehensive approach for housing delivery systems with the intent of achieving the3-Q factor as outcomes.
By conceptualizing HDS in terms of redefining inputs (of stakeholders, settings, and activities) called the universal objectives of housing, AHD becomes measurable. The measurements of PPP a subset of HDS is the result of optimization of resources and process which is indeed the outcome of AHD, called the 3-Qfactor. Hence, the efficiency of an HDS is succinct to its determinants, defined by AHD.
Figure 3.7 Project lifecycle-HDS Conceptual framework (Author)
Note: based on the Summary of the literature reviewed, PPP is a subset of HDS and AHD conceptualized in three ways, called the 3-Q factor of adequacy in housing. A measurement of the 3Q factor should inform the viability of any HDS or its subset PPP (in this case of study).
HDS
-policy -process -settings=PRODUCTION
=DISTRIBUTION
*(SEVERAL EXISTING HDS WITH VARIOUS THRUST FOR ACHIEVEING PLANNED OBJECTIVES)
*DESIRERABLE CHOICE OF A PARTICULAR SYSTEM IS DEPENDENT ON VARIOUS FACTORS .
OUTCOME-1:
-RESOURCE OPTIMIZATION -PROCESS OPTIMIZATION
PPP
-institutional arrangements -organizational arrangements-SOCIAL CONTEXT
*defines the levels of relevance, roles, coalitions and the focused groups for which the housing thrust is perceived as essential towards.
*Social Context is always target housing specific and it is architectural design research informed.(given the complexity and inclusiveness of architectural research in the establishment of theories)
PROPOSED OUTCOME -2 FROM LITERATURE -increase quantity of housing(Q-1) -improved quality of housing(Q-2) -improved quality of housing environment (Q-3)