| Providing
            an affordable two-roomed house with a courtyard for US $ 600 per
            unit is quite a challenge, but one that has been mastered in
            Mauritania, West Africa, thanks to an innovative shelter program
            named "Twize" (meaning solidarity in the local language).
 Mauritania
            is a large West African country bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and
            made up of low-lying desert that forms the westernmost part of the
            Sahara desert. The climate throughout Mauritania is hot and there is
            only one rainy season from July to October, but it delivers only
            about 63 cm of precipitation a year. Nouakchott is the nation’s
            capital with around 700.000 inhabitants, which is rather small by
            Indian standards, but today houses about a third of the country’s
            population. The city has grown exponentially in the last three
            decades and the population has increased fivefold, due to the
            successive droughts in the rural areas and rapid urbanization
            accordingly. The
            massive rural exodus from the interior of the country has led to a
            haphazard and spontaneous urbanization with insufficient planning or
            control. Logically, population growth was not carried out with a
            parallel increase in the urban housing capacity or the financial and
            administrative capacities of the State in urban management and
            development. Although the Government has been trying to restructure
            slums in Nouakchott for the past 15 years, these attempts have
            remained largely unsuccessful. The Twize
            program which was launched in 1999 with a total cost of $640,000
            took a fresh look at urban poverty in Nouakchott and led to the
            collaboration between the Commissariat for Poverty Alleviation (CDHLCPI)
            and the French-based NGO GRET (Groupe de Recherches et d’Echanges
            Technologiques). The program was launched in three of the poorest
            neighbourhoods where family incomes are a meagre US$ 80 – 90 per
            month. One of the areas was chosen as a resettlement site for
            resettling several hundred inhabitants because of recent floods that
            left parts of town uninhabitable (large parts of the city lie below
            the ocean level). The
            program is part of a large-scale city-wide upgrading program
            financed by the World Bank as well as other international donors in
            an effort to create a city without slums. The Twize program is a
            home-grown and self-financed pilot program which, after an initial
            pilot phase, is now ready for up-scaling at a city-wide level. 
              
                | The
                  program includes four participatory levels of intervention:
                  Shelter, Micro-finance, Education and Improvement of the basic
                  infrastructure (sanitation, water supply, electricity and
                  household refuse). To date, 103 jobs were created in the three
                  neighbourhoods, 196 latrines were constructed, while credit
                  repayment rates are between 96% - 100%, depending on the
                  individual neighbourhood. The communities have established two
                  committees to represent their interests as well as several
                  cultural and sport groups to carry out community activities in
                  each neighbourhood. The program was designed to eradicate
                  urban poverty and provide basic needs to the most
                  disenfranchised and includes access to land, fulfilment of
                  everyone’s right to reasonable education and health care. | 
 |  
                | The
                  Shanty (Kebbe) Settlements in Nouakchott, Mauritania |  The
            overall objective of Twize is to improve the living conditions of
            the inhabitants of the capital’s under-serviced informal
            neighbourhood. The shelter component deserves special mention here:
            it combines Grameen-related elements and caters to the specificities
            of urban poverty in a ‘Sahelian’ context. The issue of housing
            responds to the basic needs of the population as stated by an
            unemployed resident: "Without housing, the individual has no
            hope. The participants insist on legalized plots, but also on
            support to house construction" The
            program philosophy is based on participatory community development
            and each area chose a different way of representing its interests.
            To qualify for membership in the Twize program the beneficiaries
            must fulfil the following conditions: 
              
                | i. | Have
                  lived in the neighbourhood before (no recent squatters trying
                  to benefit are allowed) |  
                | ii. | Own
                  a piece of land (plots on the outskirts of the city are still
                  a relatively cheap commodity) |  
                | iii. | Have
                  a regular income of some kind to ensure regular repayment of
                  the housing credit. |  The
            participating Twize members must organize themselves in groups of
            five families and agree to contribute an initial $ 80 per family.
            This initial contribution is backed up by a housing credit of $ 288
            with a credit repayment rate of $ 12 within 24 months. The remaining
            $ 230 are given to the beneficiaries in form of government
            subsidies, realizing that otherwise the shelter would be out reach
            for most people. This adapted financial scheme ensures that improved
            housing is accessible for lower income people without resorting to
            informal ways of settlement and urbanization. So far, around 350
            houses have been built in the three target areas and a further 2000
            a year are planned. Given the lack of state or private sector
            sponsored social housing projects in Mauritania, the Twize program
            is effectively the only organized way of ensuring low-cost housing
            for the disenfranchised. The individual house
            is built of concrete blocks produced on site and providing
            employment for various micro-enterprises. The house consists of a
            two-roomed house with 34 m2 plus external toilet and shower. The
            plot is 10 by 15 meters (150 m2) and the plot boundary is walled and
            includes a 110 m2 courtyard. The square meter construction price for
            the whole building is around US$ 14, which is very low, even in a
            West African context. q Chris
            Luthi - architect and urban development planner with SKAT. He is an expert advisor to the
 Nouakchott Urban Development Program
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