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Citation: 34 Howard L.J. 65 1991

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III. PROBLEMS OF SHELTER

Shelter in Developing Countries
ALFRED P. VAN HUYCK,
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF URBAN STUDIES,
VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND STATE UNIVERSITY

Historians may well look back on the twentieth century and

conclude that the most fundamental event of these turbulent 100
years was the breakdown of the colonial empires following World
War II and the creation of over 100 new nations, commonly called
the developing countries.
These nations were created through struggle and sacrifice out of
the deep-felt desire of all their people for freedom and self-determination. They were born with the immense optimism of their leaders,
but with little else the modern nation state requires. Plagued from
the start with massive growth of under-educated populations, weak
economies largely based on commodity exports, poor national infrastructures and underdeveloped cities, these nations have struggled to
progress.
After slow progress in the 1960's and early 1970's, the developing countries suffered enormous economic damage from the oil
shocks of 1973 and particularly 1979, which created the global recession and the collapse of their commodity prices. During this period many of these countries actually had substantial negative
growth in per capita incomes.
At the same time, in a desperate response to declining economic
conditions, many of the developing countries borrowed massively to
support consumption, a practice which led to the huge international
debt problems they face today.
Further compounding these negative trends were the rise of militarism and the decline of democracy throughout the developing

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[Vol. 34

countries. Along with the military governments came massive spending for military equipment and services which further compounded
the problems of the common people throughout the world.
It is not surprising, though nonetheless depressing, that against
of adversity and strife there would be an increase in
background
this
corruption as well. In the context of centralization of government,
lack of capital and shortages of all kinds, the tendency is to "take
care of yourself and family first," and this attitude is the incubator
of corruption. Against this gloomy backdrop, it is fair to ask where
the international donors and our own Agency for International Development were situated.
The donors surveyed the situation and concluded that their emphasis should be placed on what was then called "basic needs." The
"basic needs" era established the premise that international donor
assistance should be focused on the "poor majority," which was later
expanded to mean the "poorest of the poor." While it seems hard to
argue with this concern for the poorest people of the world, this priority contributed to the economic malaise of many of the developing
countries.
"Basic needs" was primarily concerned with equity, not with economic growth. Projects were selected, particularly in rural areas,
where the poorest farmers lived. But these were usually the areas
with poor soils, lack of rainfall and poor transportation, so few economic benefits were achieved. The fundamental lesson of this failure
is that you can have "economic growth" with "equity," but you cannot have "equity" without "economic growth." Tanzania is the perfect example.
THE ROLE OF THE SHELTER SECTOR

Let us now examine the shelter sector within this global context
of development. I use the word "shelter" instead of "housing" because it is the conventional term. Somewhere along the line, the professionals in the field decided that "housing" denoted a structure of
a certain minimum standard and was too narrow to cover the issues
involved in the residential settlement of largely low-income people in
the developing countries.
The high-water mark of "shelter" in the development debate
was the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements which

1991]

HUMAN RIGHTS SYMPOSIUM

convened in Vancouver, Canada in June, 1976. A total of 134 official

governmental delegations were signatories to the final documents,
entitled The Vancouver Declarationon Human Settlements and The
Vancouver Action Plan.
The rhetoric of the Vancouver Declaration reflected the tone of
the development debate of that period. There were references to "the
establishment of a just and equitable world order," and to the fact
that "adequate shelter and services are basic human rights." The
document saw "the improvement of the quality of life of human beings" as the first and most important objective of development.
In short, the Vancouver Declarationwas a call for governmental
action and international donor support to improve- the shelter conditions of the world's poorest citizens. It called for:
* Massive governmental action to build housing for the poor.
The use of subsidies in housing the poor.
* The limitation of private property rights.
The Vancouver Declarationhad no impact on any of the 134 signatory countries. What went wrong?
Clearly the negative global macro-economic conditions limited
the possibilities for implementation, but there were other structural
deficiencies as well:
" The reliance on the public sector and the underlying view that
the private sector role was non-existent in low income shelter.
" The failure to recognize the limited capacity of the public sector
in terms of management and the mobilization of resources.
" The emphasis on equity instead of economic growth, such that
adequate shelter is largely a household income problem.
Now, thirteen years later, the United Nations has just endorsed
an entirely new shelter policy statement entitled, "The Global Strategy to the Year 2000." This statement shifts the debate completely
towards increasing the role of the private sector, working to establish
efficient markets in housing and land and using the public sector
largely to facilitate the process.
SHELTER AS A HUMAN RIGHT

This major shift in international thinking about shelter implies a

HOWARD LAW JOURNAL

[Vol. 34

conceptual shift in the meaning of shelter as a human right. In the

1970's, when governments and specialists boldly stated that shelter is
a human right, they meant that governments had the responsibility
to provide adequate shelter to the poor and the homeless. This approach suggested that the human right was to a specific quantifiable
product: "a safe, decent, and sanitary house." Since by definition
poor people could not afford such a physical product, the burden was
on the government to finance it through subsidies.
No government has been able to meet this definition of shelter
as a human right. Even the two countries that are most often cited
as the "model", Singapore and Hong Kong, have not achieved this
goal in spite of massive spending made possible only by their unique
situations as city states. What was even worse was the fact that
while governments built highly subsidized housing projects-which
rarely got to the truly poor in any case-they used their laws and
policy powers to actually restrict the efforts of the poorest people to
house themselves.
. For example in Nairobi, Kenya in the early 1970's, 5,000 housing units were bulldozed in the name of "public health." In
Tanzania in the early 1970's, it was decreed that private rental housing was "exploitation of the people," and the houses were nationalized overnight. In many countries, informal illegal settlements were
denied access to water and other public services. Fortunately, most
of these kinds of abuses have been stopped in the 1980's in recognition that the problem of shelter cannot be met by government action
alone. This has given rise to a new definition of shelter as a human
right. The emphasis is now on "access" to shelter as a human right.
It is no longer concerned with the quanitifiable standard of what is a
"safe, decent, and sanitary dwelling," but rather with the provision
of inputs necessary for the people themselves to improve their own
shelter condition:
" access to land and secure tenure,
" access to housing finance at market rates,
provision of essential minimum infrastructure, and
" efficient construction and building materials industries.
The underlying premise is that if the supply of these essential
inputs to shelter is available, then the people themselves can slowly

1991]

HUMAN RIGHTS SYMPOSIUM

through time improve their dwelling units and therefore their standard of living.
THE ROLE OF LAW IN ACHIEVING THE NEW DEFINITION OF
SHELTER AS A HUMAN RIGHT

A major constraint in achieving the concept of "access to shelter

as a human right" is the body of laws in the developing countries
that shape and define what is the minimum acceptable dwelling unit.
It is amazing to me that while the developing countries have rightfully rejected the values of the previous colonial powers and have
sought their own development path, they have nonetheless failed to
reform the legal basis of development which they inherited from the
previous colonial administrations.
The laws, forms and procedures of government have changed
little since independence. In the colonial period, the European elite
were located in the cities. The cities were used to control the rural
hinterlands and to exploit the natural resources. The emphasis was
on keeping the local population out of cities, except as required of
clerks and servants. Therefore, the body of laws set high physical
standards for construction and zoning, and implemented complicated
procedures for subdivision or occupancy of land. In my mind, they
were used deliberately to regulate local populations. The tradition of
the colonial elite was to enjoy huge subsidies in urban services as
part of their "perks" for living in their hardship posts.
All of these traditions continue, in spite of the fact that national
development now requires the role of cities to shift from points of
control to engines of development in their own right. This is a largely
ignored constraint on development in general and access to shelter in
particular. The need is for major legal reform of the development
legislation of the developing countries. Yet, donors and countries
alike prefer showy projects rather than reform of the basic processes
whereby development can be facilitated.
In shelter, you can demonstrate this clearly. If you take the present land value gradient of the city and superimpose the minimum
land standard legislated through zoning and subdivision ordinances,
you can establish the cost of owning a minimum lot. Then you can
take the building codes and cost out of the regulations to establish
the total cost of a minimum legal house. When you complete this

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exercise you can compare the minimum cost of land and housing
against the income distribution curve of the population. Where this
has been done in the developing countries, results usually demonstrate that between seventy-five to eighty-five percent of the urban
population cannot house themselves legally. I might add that for
those of you concerned about the poor and homeless in Washington,
a similar exercise would be very instructive on the nature of the
housing problem here.
In conclusion, let me invite those of you, who are so inclined, to
pursue a legal career in international development assistance. The
task is massive, since the vested interests in the developing countries
who benefit by obsolete laws are strong, but there is no greater challenge to those who are concerned about the poor and disadvantaged.
There are many international lawyers ready to cut deals for the multinational corporations, but few indeed willing to lend their talents to
the cause of legal reform in the developing countries in support of
the poor. Thank you for inviting me. I look forward to the discussion.