Towards Habitat III – Habitat International

The ‘challenge of slums’ is a global challenge, but particularly acute in Sub-Saharan Africa where in 2001
71.9% of the urban population lived in slums. This article reviews the housing programmes of a selected
number of African countries (Angola, Namibia, Ethiopia and South Africa) to argue that while until
recently African shelter policies at least in name continued to be mostly in line with international
enabling and participatory approaches to dealing with the challenge of slums, in practice mass scaled
supply-driven approaches to housing provision are on the rise. The article situates this practice historically
and seeks to provide insight into some of the perceptions and factors that have underpinned and
enabled its emergence. While noting a number of shortcomings of this supply-driven approach, it
concludes that with Habitat III on the horizon it is important to confront the disjuncture between global
policy and local practice in African cities.