THEORITICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 3.1Global Nature of HDS
3.4.2 The World Bank Policy and Housing Reforms
Today’s duality in housing delivery (public or private) has evolved over years. The adequacy of both the public and private initiatives remains disparate on several grounds of quality across the world (developed or developing). However, the need to meet the housing demand is common to both efforts. Social arrangements among actors/partners take its origins from the understanding of the housing settings, state and power relations.
Moreover, in Lagos, the need to operate in a typical urban capitalist economy remains the driving force for inhabitants. Since over the years the seemingly accumulated surplus value obtained by allocation of land from the public sector to beneficiaries have become memorable in terms of current value that they stand to benefit. By belonging to a social focus group implies access to benefiting from the enablement granted by the public sector such as the allocation of land or housing. In retrospect, stakeholders’ coalitions tend to respond to future needs by way of ‘speculation’ on all fronts of housing development even where a lack of capacity to deliver such housing in real economic terms is evident. A good example is the Eko Atlantic City, a new area of Lagos, which would be fully sand filled in ten years time. This would entail sand filling the Atlantic Ocean inwards by two kilometers. The entire development is sold-out at an average cost of $250USD per square meter of land and a minimum of 1000sqm to first hand buyers as at 2010.
Currently on the Lekki axis, which is the emerging Lagos Business district it is observed that most of the land within the economic promotion zone (EPZ) is sold out to speculators whose estates are unable to be actualized (field survey, 2010). This further compounds the nucleated nature of housing development in the city with weak circulatory linkages and several commuting bottlenecks, which requires huge capital investments in infrastructure development that is avoidable by proper planning, and partnership arrangements with civil society.
completed or never utilized if completed by local communities and the WB takes no responsibility beyond funding.
In housing, these same principles have tracked the various epochs and regimes of housing theories and policy, which followed the funding of the World Bank (Smith, 1998; Robinson, 2002). It is evident that theoretically in modern parlance the Provider paradigm originated from the European experience and particularly that of Britain. It is imperative to note that the principal notion of the provider paradigm was to form the strategy for public sector involvement in housing delivery. The aim then was that public authorities should control the production of houses in order to reduce housing deficit and improve the quality of housing (Hamdi, 1991). This was with a view that this action would reduce inequalities in housing distribution and access.
However, there was the underlying notion that, the global impact of such direction is achievable at a large scale through the administrative and intellectual capacity of global institutions like the World Bank (Pugh, 1991; Toussaint, 2008). The housing process and resources’ management developed output in terms of quantity and quality yet circumventing the socio-cultural and socio-economic variables succinct to housing settings.
In 1972, the World Bank commenced its participation and leadership in public housing in developing countries (Pugh 1991, 1994). Habitat-1, in 1976 was the first formal world conference on human settlements in Vancouver convened to address housing problems. From here, various insights into global strategies for adequate housing have been in constant debate.
The entry of the World Bank brought alongside elements of neo-liberalist political economy approaches into the housing debate and implementation strategies. This was widely accepted since the key problem of housing (as understood then) was the relationship between housing markets and financing (Pugh, 1991).This was evident in the massive government funded low- cost housing schemes and affordable housing schemes of that era across most third world countries like Nigeria. These housing delivery systems failed to achieve planned objectives.
The 1970’s was another paradigm shift where the enabler/supporter approach became the new direction. This entailed the provision of sites and services, the encouragement and participation of corporate firm developers, small-scale builders and householders by facilitating and enhancing their ability and capacity to deliver houses and services financially (0gu, 2001).
3.4.2.1The Provider Paradigm: Pugh (1991) identified two phases of World Bank’s intervention towards influencing global theories for housing delivery.
Phase-1, 1972-1983. Essentially a large-scale public sector investment into housing production, construction and standardization of the dwelling units for the poor: “affordability- cost recovery-replicability” (Essentially neo-liberalist).This was seen through massive provision of low-cost housing in developing countries. Therefore, this placed the responsibility for meeting housing outlays on government.
3.4.2.2 The Supporter Paradigm:
Phase-2, 1988-1990s. This was an official support for sites and services and general aided self- help. Coordinative reforms in national housing policies (neo-liberalist in approach). This placed the responsibility on private consumers in the form of loan repayment and cautions government against soft below-market rates of interest in housing capital arguing that this leads to arbitrary transfer of purchasing power between lenders and borrowers as well as causing dilemmas for financial intermediaries in drawing upon savings deposits to their full potential.
3.4.2.3The Enablement Paradigm:
Phase-3, post-1990s. This period proposed a reduction of constraints and optimization of resources. Delineating the beneficiary of enablement became a critical issue for this policy approach in terms of the individual or the institutions/organization. The divided debate was on the strategies for implementation and the viability of beneficiaries for enablement, ranging from the popular sector, the markets or local governments or all. Recent ideological interpretations and emphasis of the enabling approach has gradually favoured the understanding of stakeholders in the delivery system, which consequently is birthing the theory of partnerships between two key actors; the public and the private sector actors (Sivan, 2001;
Akomolede, 1990; Pouyet, Martimort, 2006; World Bank, 1993; Sengupta, 2006). In recent times, the strategy for the public sector is to concentrate on reinforcing the enabling approach through the localization of the institutional frameworks within its ambit while the private sector should concentrate on strengthening its organizational structure in a responsive manner towards the public sector (Angel, 2000; Melpezzi, 1990; World Bank, 1993).
3.4.2.4 The Partnership Paradigm: The import of the application of PPP in the infrastructure sector and general delivery of public utilities has seen levels of success in the United States of America and the United Kingdom (Spackman, 2002; Akitoye, 2002). Recent adaptation of partnership paradigm is evident in the housing sector of India with an appreciable success
(Sengupta, 2006). In Nigeria, most state governments are beginning to adapt PPP for housing delivery. It is in this direction, which this research intends to evaluate the contributions towards achieving housing objectives as another paradigm shift in the housing delivery systems by critically utilizing Lagos as the case study. Part of the framework for this study is based on the current power relation in governance and the need to delineate the social arrangements of both institutions and organizations succinct to HDS (Payne, 1999).