Lessons from the “Cities Without Slums” Program in Morocco
11 years ago32 views
This webinar will present Morocco’s experience in scaling up slum upgrading and affordable housing from projects to national programs in the new millennium. Morocco’s rapid urbanization since independence in 1956 has met with insufficient employment and housing opportunities resulting in the growth of informal settlements. The population growth has exacerbated the urbanization over the past five decades. The total population has tripled since 1960 reaching to 32.4 million in 2011. The population living in cities rose from 29.2% in 1960 to 58.3% in 2011. The confluence of rapid in-migration and unresponsive government policies produced massive growth of slums, collectively referred to as “habitat insalubre” (unhealthy or substandard housing). About 400,000 new informal housing units were built every year during the 1990s. The slum population grew 5.6% per year between 1992 and 2004. By 2004, 8.2% of all urban households or 1.7 million people were living in 1,000 slums. For much of Morocco’s history, the government has opted with slum clearance and resettlement as the primary method of addressing challenges in slums, with some efforts at in-situ upgrading in the 1970s and market led affordable housing programs in the 1980s.
With gradual democratization in 1998-99 social issues found their way into national policy discourse. The declaration of “decent housing” became a national priority in 2001. PRAHI (Program National d’Action pour la Resorption de l’Habitat Insalubre / National Action Plan for Reabsorption of Slums) was launched to integrate slum districts into the urban fabric. PRAHI benefited 131,620 slum dwellers in 3 years. In 2004, building on the achievements of PRAHI and the commitment to the MDGs, the government launched the Villes Sans Bidonvilles-VSBP (Cities Without Slums Program) as part of a larger government strategy to enhance affordable housing supply. For the first time ever, the VSBP reflected the rising importance of social issues in Moroccan…