Urban Infrastructure Services

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• Urban Infrastructure Services
• Experiences in Zimbabwe for
• low income settlements
• Eng.Fungai Matahwa
• Practical Action Southern Africa
• www.practicalaction.org
• No. 4 Ludlow Road, Newlands, P.O. Box 1744,
  Harare, Zimbabwe.
• Telephone [phone]
• Fax [phone]
• Mobile [phone]
• Email fungaim_at_practicalactionzw.org.
• Skype address fungaim2

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PRACTICAL ACTION

• Practical Action - formerly Intermediate
  Technology development Group (ITDG)
• An international technology development
  organization with its head offices in the United
  Kingdom.
• Founded in 1965 and has offices in Southern
  Africa, East Africa, Sudan, Latin America,
  Bangladesh, Nepal and South Asia.
• Practical Action Southern Africa office based in
  Harare covers work in Zimbabwe, Zambia,
  Mozambique and Malawi

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• Our work focus on four key areas normally
  referred to as Programme aims
• Reducing Vulnerability
• Markets and livelihoods
• Access to infrastructure Services
• New technologies
• AIM 1 Reducing vulnerability-help reduce the
  vulnerability of poor people affected by natural
  disasters, conflict and environmental
  degradation. 
• AIM2 Making markets work for the poorWe help
  poor people to make a better living by enabling
  producers to improve their production, processing
  and marketing. 
• AIM3 Improving access to infrastructure
  servicesWe help poor communities gain access to
  basic services water, sanitation, housing and
  electricity. 
• AIM 4 New technologiesWe help poor communities
  respond to the challenges of new technologies,
  helping them to access effective technologies
  that can change lives forever.

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Presentation theme

• AIM 3 Access to infrastructure services - Goal
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• Poor people in slums or low income urban
  settlements enjoy a better living environment and
  income generating opportunities from accessing or
  providing infrastructure services.
• Shelter, water, sanitation, energy and waste
  management services

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Zimbabwe Waste management highlights

• 2.5 million tonnes of both industrial and
  household waste is generated per annum
• Collapse of a local governance system
• urban waste collection rates dropped from at
  least 80 (mid 1990s) to as low as 30 2008 in
  some large cities and small towns despite a
  declining economy.
• low waste collection levels have triggered
  widespread illegal open dumping and backyard
  incineration

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Key lessons to share

• Public health and hygiene training and awareness
  is key in dealing with the waste management
  problem
• Value addition of the waste is vital for
  sustainability of the income generating groups
• Giving up or sub contracting of services in the
  traditional sector occupied by LAs has been a
  challenge taking a cue from past experiences from
  the City of Harare
• Working in an environments were there is no clear
  policy at national level will not bear meaningful
  results

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Housing Experiences in Zimbabwe after OM

• On 19 May 2005, with little or no warning, the
  Government of Zimbabwe embarked on an operation
  to clean-up its cities.
• It was a crash" operation known as Operation
  Murambatsvina, (OM)
• resulted in the destruction of homes, business
  premises and vending sites.
• It was estimated that some 700,000 people in
  cities across the country lost either their
  homes, their source of livelihood or both.

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Factors leading to the clean up campaign

• Economic context
• Political context
• Urbanization

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Economic context

• In 1980 the informal economy - 10 of the labour
  force.
• The informal sector share of employment grew to
  20 by1986/87, 27 by 1991 and an estimated 40
  by 2004.
• The informal economy had effectively become the
  mainstay for the majority of the Zimbabweans.

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The Political Factor

• Zimbabwe had been ruled by one political party
  for 20 years before a real opposition could
  emerge
• Against this backdrop of a deeply weakened
  economy the MDC emerged, against this background,
  as a formidable challenge to the ruling party.
• Although ZANU-PF eventually won the 2000
  parliamentary elections, Towns and cities emerged
  as strongholds of opposition to the ruling party
  and have since been viewed with suspicion by the
  government.

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Legal context Double standards

• The national laws were inconsistent
• Government policy statements leading to the rapid
  formation of backyard extensions from the mid
  1990s now dubbed illegal
• Local authorities recognizes theses form of
  structures and collects rates
• Then the sudden application of the laws
  governing towns and cites under Operation Restore
  Order

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Urbanization

• High population growth rate
• 30 40 people per 200m2 stand
• Over loading of existing infrastructure
• High incidents of disease outbreaks
• High growth rate of illegal settlements

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NGO JI Project

• In 2006 Practical Action intervened in a relief
  housing provision project The NGO joint
  Initiative .
• The NGO Joint initiative (JI) was an intervention
  conceptualised by seven NGOs with a wide spectrum
  of experience in addressing acute needs of the
  vulnerable groups in urban areas of Zimbabwe
  through an integrated programming soon after
  Operation Murambatsvina.( Care, CRS, Africare,
  Oxfam GB, Save the Children UK, Mercy Corps and
  Practical Action.

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INTERGRATION OF NGO ACTIVITIES
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• Shelter having been greatly exacerbated by the
  Operation Murambatsvina was singled out as one of
  the major priority needs in five urban areas of
  Zimbabwe.
• The shelter projects objective was to restore
  dignity to the victims of Operation Murambatsvina
  by increasing descent habitable space.
• The following strategies were employed to achieve
  the target
• Reduce cost of housing construction by adopting
  community based models and promoting the use of
  alternative low cost materials
• Increase household income through shelter
  services
• Foster partnerships with local authorities, and
  civic organisations in addressing victims
  immediate and long term challenges that include
• Advocacy for secure tenure
• Child protection and gender mainstreaming
• Disaster mitigation and,

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Project Model

• Community empowerment ,participation and training
  as an integral part of the approach. The project
  relied on tested approaches to community
  empowerment and these were-
• Training in participatory methodologies
• Enterprise development in shelter related
  services
• Community draughting and space optimisation

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Shelter model in response to ORO
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DEMONSTRATION OF TECHNOLOGIES

• 2000- 4000 SSBs per day
• Training of material production centered among
  women
• RUTASHI and Vimbayi secured orders to supply
  Chitungwiza municipality with building materials
  worth over Z10 million (US 1923.00).

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Demonstrating technologies

• Egg layer cement block
• 8000- 12000 cement block per day
• Manual operated
• On site production

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Training in the construction of housing units

• Communities establish shelter construction groups
  
• Communities are trained in all the elements of
  construction standard houses
• Youth are then sent to vocational training
  centers to complement the practical experience

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Community draughting

• The justification in the demolition of structures
  during the clean-up operation in 2005 was the non
  compliance of the structures with the model
  building bylaws,
• training endeavoured to enhance communitys
  appreciation of the building bylaws requirements
  in housing construction.
• Participation of LAs enabled beneficiaries and
  residents at large to be aware of the regulatory
  framework on illegal developments and on
  development control mechanisms.
• The process culminated in the production and
  adoption of model housing plans approved by the
  Las/ Municipalities and available for adaptation
  and uptake by the community.

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Tenure Security

• Working in these old suburbs beleaguered with
  strong colonial relics unearthed unanticipated
  varying tenure issues which many residents were
  not even aware of. Most residents moved into
  these suburbs under various housing schemes at
  independence in 1980 while some had been there
  earlier.
• The tenure clarification process initially was
  not prioritised but progressively the need became
  more apparent as it emerged that in all the three
  sites majority of the beneficiaries were either
  children or grand children of deceased owners.
• A community driven tenure clarification and
  awareness programme was embarked upon which
  benefited even those that were not direct
  beneficiaries of the housing project.
• A number of tenure workshops were held with the
  beneficiaries resulting in the establishment of a
  section within LAs to deal with tenure
  clarification issues.
• In 12 months 1100 cases tenure cases were
  clarified and 1620 stands were subsequently
  surveyed in retrospect to facilitate for the
  granting of title deeds.
• Resource persons for this process came from local
  authority departments, Master of the High Court
  and Community courts, the Government Rent Board
  and Wills and Inheritance specialists.

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Beneficiary contribution

• Material average of 34 beneficiary
  contribution
• Ranged form 0 61 contribution
• Labour 20 reduction on the overall cost of
  construction
• Costs 10 using community construction as opposed
  to 30 using conventional contractors

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Project outputs to date

• 488 three roomed houses constructed to date
• 6120 people benefiting to date
• 123 houses benefiting form rental income
• 1265 residential stands allocated to the homeless
• 1100 households with clarified and secure tenure
• 38 material production enterprises established
• 7 cement block producers
• 6 SSBs producers
• 4 MCR tiles producers
• 13 stone crushers
• 6 door carpentries
• 2 welding centres

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• Project Experiences
• Households that benefited from additional
  accommodation space were able to ease
  overcrowding while others began to realise income
  from rentals.
• Meeting accommodation needs of poor communities
  alone without enhancing livelihoods options may
  lead to the beneficiaries opting to remain
  overcrowded while they rent out some space to
  raise income.
• The contribution by residents in both materials
  and sweat equity raised the stakes and ensured
  the continued involvement in the initiative. If
  poor communities are provided with shell
  structures and capacity to build , they can
  complete their own units
• The promotion of appropriate low cost
  technologies that utilise locally available
  materials in enterprise development helped to
  reduce the service and maintenance costs.
• Nurturing partnerships with local authorities
  ensured buy- in which enabled smooth accelerated
  progress. Participation of local authorities made
  them appreciate community driven initiatives and
  as such became flexible to changing their
  practices appropriately to meet the communities
• The project initiated the healing and
  restoration of trust by the communities on the
  local authorities following the Operation
  Murambatsvina

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• Thank you