Exploring the political-economic mechanisms underlying the production of affordable housing has been a recurring research theme at the chair of Prof. Marc Ang\u00e9lil. While also addressing the more familiar settings of the United States and central Europe, the main focus has been on rapidly growing urban territories of the southern hemisphere, investigating contexts such as Brazil, Egypt, India, or Ethiopia.\u00a0Focusing on Ethiopia,\u00a0this article briefly depicts the ambitious \u2018Integrated Housing Development Program\u2019, which has triggered a variety of unforeseen challenges within the spatial, social and economic structures of Addis Ababa.<\/p>\n
The recently finished dissertation Development Cooperation at all Costs \u2013 How Global Actors and Concepts Influence Rural and Urban Transformation: Case Studies from Ethiopia<\/a><\/i> addresses the spatial outcomes of three different international cooperation schemes within and around Ethiopia\u2019s capital Addis Ababa, home to approximately 4 million inhabitants. One of the case studies investigates the largest social housing program launched in Ethiopia to date, which was developed in collaboration with the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) \u2013 now German International Cooperation (GIZ). Relying on two key conceptual pillars, namely individual home-ownership through mortgages and standardized housing blocks, the \u2018Integrated Housing Development Program\u2019 aspired to alleviate an accumulated housing backlog of 233\u2019000 units and provide adequate housing possibilities for low-income citizens.<\/p>\n Although falling short of initial targets \u2013 from the planned 150\u2019000 to 200\u2019000 units only approximately 80\u2019000 were constructed in Addis Ababa between 2004 and 2010 \u2013 the program has built housing quantities unseen in the country\u2019s history. However, the program has also revealed substantial challenges on spatial and socio-economic levels: strongly linked to both the installed mortgage scheme and the applied design approach, the program has failed to provide wide-spread affordable housing to the targeted low-income groups; has generated spatial and social segregation; has fostered dependency on imported materials; lacks design features and spaces that reflect local lifestyles and daily needs; and has accelerated the peripheral expansion of the city.<\/p>\n Therefore, when searching for viable and adequate alternatives for affordable housing in Ethiopia and Addis Ababa \u2013 and for other contexts with similar issues for that matter \u2013 a key task is to develop more flexible, versatile, and inclusive concepts for design processes and funding schemes, as well as for the directly related technological applications and organizational approaches. Within the context of international cooperation this additionally means to depart from usual off-the-shelf solutions, and to propose contextually based frames of references for affordable housing. Within the recently started research project Cooperative Production of Low-Cost Housing \u2013 Socio-Technological Innovation for the Provision of Housing for Low-Income Populations<\/a>, both the chair\u2019s and the author\u2019s current research efforts are directly linked to the above-stated aspirations.<\/p>\n For further information on the different research contexts see: United States<\/a>, Brazil<\/a>, Egypt<\/a>, India<\/a>, Ethiopia<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\nFlexible, Versatile, and Inclusive Concepts for Design Processes and Funding Schemes<\/b><\/h3>\n