In a quest to reduce slum growth, no single city can do it on their own. Collaboration between several stakeholders, such as the private sector, civil society and international agencies, is needed to have attainable solutions. Furthermore, the input of the urban poor, whose lives are being improved is crucial in the decision making process (IMF, 2007). The UN-Habitat (2014), suggests some strategies and tools crucial in improving slum living conditions. These are:
• Upgrading slums – these should include all-inclusive and impartial programmes aimed at bettering the living conditions of slum neighbourhoods.
• Provision of housing – all governments should prioritise programmes designed to deliver affordable and acceptable for all citizenry.
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• National Urban Policies – institutionalised and legalised legislation regarding slums is very important as policies act as guidelines in helping reduce slum growth.
• Urban Planning – planning is a proactive way of preventing the formation of slums. When cities are well planned, space is rationally used and dedicated for specific projects, leaving little room for slum formation (UN-Habitat, 2014).
The above strategies suggested by the UN-Habitat (2014) is to serve as a basis on which countries tailor their slum reduction strategies to suit conditions present. The Government of Ghana, (2015), designed the National urban policy, with eight major objectives. One of these objectives is aimed at upgrading existing slums and to prevent the occurrence of new ones. The strategies to be employed in achieving this goal include:
• Come up with slum infrastructure improvement policies and implement them in order to improve degraded settlements.
• The gradual integration of existing slums into formal settlements, by improving and revitalising the slums.
• Improving the lives of slum dwellers through poverty reduction strategies, like the provision of quality social amenities and assistance in securing land tenure security.
• Help low-income slum inhabitants to become economically sustainable.
• Partner Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDA) in the monitoring and controlling of the proposed community development schemes.
• Prevention of violations of proposed land use by undertaking public awareness and media sensitisation programmes (Government of Ghana, 2015).
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Governments in Ghana over the years have come up with varying programmes to improve or eradicate slums. The above policy guide has shaped several slum intervention programmes of which one was the S&G relocation programme. In 2006, the Ghanaian parliament approved €10.4 million to resettle residents of S&G slum at Adjin Kotoku3. A joint Committee on Finance and Works & Housing overseeing this project asserted that the new location which was situated by an
“exciting railway station” will meet the commercial interests of the settlers. The project sought to provide basic social amenities such as water and electricity as well as security, market and transport terminal (Government of Ghana, 2008). Accra Metropolitan Assembly gave a deadline of February 28, 2014 by which inhabitants of S&G were to be moved to the new site but this did not happen (Naatogmah, 2014). Even though some of the intended projects, such as 95 storage rooms, a high school, clinic, police station and fire station were completed, the newly constructed market could not accommodate all slum dwellers, hence they failed to move (Smith-Asante, 2015).
Another slum intervention government project in Kumasi sought to provide roads as well as resettle the slum dwellers engaged in wood processing to a Wood processing village. This project successfully constructed the roads it aimed at making as well as relocating the operators into the Wood processing village. Accoding to Amoako and Cobbinah, (2011), the majority of the relocated operators were displeased with living conditions.
Undertaking forceful evictions and demolishing exercises constitute another strategy employed by most municipal authorities in Ghana, to deal with the slum situation. This they do by razing down structures that are deemed to be illegally placed. Properties worth millions of Ghana cedis get destroyed by bulldozers razing down stores and other structures. Over the years, there have been numerous demolishing exercises mostly in Accra and Kumasi. The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly undertook a demolishing exercise in 2007 at the AL slum, but the residents returned immediately after (Brew-Hammond et al., 2011). In 2014, about 500 buildings were demolished in Tema, a suburb of Accra and over 300 structures were pulled down under police and military supervision in Kumasi. Victims of these exercises are added to the large pool of homeless people in Ghana (Abdulai, 2014).
3A suburb of Accra
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As stated earlier, slum intervention programmes can only succeed when there is a collaboration and assistance from various stakeholders. In Ghana, some collaborations have yielded results and some have not. One successful project is the HFC bank’s provision of finance to slum dwellers.
The HFC bank, developed as part of World Bank’s Urban II project, formed a unit (Informal Sector Operations) to cater for the daily saving needs of informal operators in Kumasi, Accra and Tema.
The HFC performs its role by collecting on a daily basis, the savings of the informal operators and overtime; these operators could access credit from the bank. The HFC bank however did not have the capacity to provide finance for all as the bank noted that, a daily loan demand of US$ 225,000 from qualified borrowers is turned down (UN-Habitat, 2005). This policy by HFC bank, when taken up by other financial institutions, will be helpful to informal sector operators.
Some collaborative intervention programmes however, did not achieve their intended goal. In Kumasi, a sister-city relationship alliance between Kumasi-Almere (Netherlands) and Kumasi–
Atlanta (United States of America) which focused on the training of children, waste management and strengthening of slum dwellers economic capacity, did not come to fruition according to Amoako and Cobbinah, (2011) as slum dwellers were not satisfied with the adequacy of the intervention.