This
special contains four reports on urban issues:
Shacking Up - South Africa, Timber Not Termites - Sri
Lanka, A Piping Solution - Ecuador, and Back to the
Future - India
Shacking
Up
One of South Africa's most pressing problems is the
provision of suitable shelter for the huge numbers of
people living in shacks in the sprawling settlements.
These shacks are constructed from anything which can
be acquired, such as scrap timber, old roofing sheets
etc. and, while they may give some protection from rain
and the heat of the sun, they do not provide adequate
housing. The poor materials and the makeshift way in
which they are constructed also lead to a risk of fire.
The construction of low cost houses in the township
of Khayelitsha is based on locally-made building components
and has been made possible by the development of equipment
which is itself low in cost.
Timber
Not Termites
With the increasing population pressures in developing
countries, the amount of natural forest is reducing
while the demand for wood and wood products rises.
In less affluent societies, timber is by far the most
important source of structural members for building,
purely on account of cost and local availability.
It is also a renewable resource and attempts have
been made, albeit often on a small-scale, to establish
plantations of commercial species in developing countries.
Piping
Success
Ecuador's economic landscape has mainly been dominated
by the decision taken at the beginning of January
of the current year to swap the national currency,
the Sucre, for dollars. This decision derives from
a bad economic performance in the previous years.
In 1999, GDP fell by seven percent and inflation reached
61 percent. Approximately one-third of the country's
territory is used for agriculture, which is recovering
very slowly from the El Nino floods. Ecuador is the
world's largest banana producer but cocoa and coffee
are also important for the country's exports. The
increase in oil prices since the beginning of the
year has helped the national economy to improve its
fiscal accounts.
Back
To The Future
Since the early 1980s, the Indian State of Orissa
has been collaborating with the British Government's
Department for International Development (DFID) to
improve the general health of the population. One
area in which this collaboration has been extremely
active is the supply and maintenance of new health-care
facilities.
The Andhra Pradesh Primary Education Programme -
a joint initiative between the local government and
DFID - has recently completed building a series of
primary school classrooms utilising a wide variety
of cost-effective construction technologies and innovative
designs. Following the success of this initiative,
the Government of Orissa entered into a partnership
with DFID to develop and build a series of prototype
Primary Health Centres, using locally available materials
and labour, in three rural areas, Panasapada, Barikpur
and Itamati, which required new or improved health-care
facilities. The Government of Orissa supplied the
funds and DFID provided the technical assistance.
Further
Reading
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