Housing for all: A better Urban Future

The first Urban October event 2020 commenced with a Webinar on “Housing For All: A Better Urban Future” to celebrate the World Habitat Day on 5th October 2020 in Islamabad, Pakistan. The webinar was organized by the Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC), Government of Pakistan, in collaboration with the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN Habitat) and the Generating Global Environmental Benefits (GGEB), UNDP’s initiative.

The Chief Guest of the webinar was the Advisor to the Prime Minister for Climate Change, Mr. Malik Amin Aslam and the panelists included Ms. Yasmin Lari, Former Chairperson of Pakistan Council for Architects and Town Planners; Mr. Pekka Houvila, Coordinator, One Planet Sustainable Buildings and Construction Programme; Prof. Zain Ul Abedin, Former Dean of Department of Architecture and Design, COMSATS University; Dr. Saleem Janjua, National Project Coordinator, GGEB-UNDP; Dr. Nasir Javed, Urban Development Specialist and Mr. Jawed Ali Khan, Programme Manager, UN Habitat, Pakistan.

The Webinar was opened by Mr. Malik Amin Aslam who highlighted that the Government of Pakistan is committed to make housing accessible to all through Prime Ministers’ Five Million Naya Pakistan Programme. This programme particularly focuses on providing low cost housing for people who cannot afford to buy or built a house in open market. The panelists emphasized that housing is a fundamental human right but, access to affordable housing is a great challenge; yet it offers, unique opportunities too.

Ms.Yasmin Lari emphasized on how housing can be made affordable by using indigenous building materials such as bamboo, lime and mud to make housing accessible to urban poor and thus reduce the carbon footprint. She also highlighted the importunate of relationship between eco-urban environment through her model of Barefoot Social Architecture.

Mr. Pekka Houvila drew attention on the approach of the One Planet Sustainable Building and Construction Programme (SBC). The programme works towards circular built environment aiming at reducing waste and a global 30 percent recovery rate of construction and demolition waste. It focuses towards affordable and resilient built environment supporting 10 countries with social housing/reconstruction programme. He highlighted that SBC also aims at capacity building of communities on sustainable construction to adopt to the impacts of rapid urbanization and climate change.

Professor Zain ul Abedin highlighted the role of academia in facilitating access to housing as one of the basic human needs. Universities are like a cauldron where students come from far and wide and thus academics have access to grass root society and its problems. Academia can create a hub for linkages of all stakeholders to suggest realistic options and priorities to the government and guide the industry on availability of new technologies.

The challenges include mindset; lack of mutual trust; non-availability of scholarship/research funds; transdisciplinary and cross discipline work. The benefits of engagement of academia in resolving housing crisis involves integrating flexibility in consumption, production, adjustable and responding to closer to reality and needs.

Dr. Saleem Janjua, NPC, GGEB-UNDP explained how housing can play its role in promoting global environmental benefits. Traditionally in the past, the expansion of housing sector had generally adverse impacts on environment. Housing sector accounts for 40 percent of the energy use, 30 percent of landfill waste,30-40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions and 12-15 percent of the water consumption. But with the use of green building concepts and triple bottom line approach of sustainability can reduce the impact on the negative environment. Implementation of new concepts requires site planning, community engagement as well as sustainable transportation and infrastructure to address housing affordability issues.

Dr. Nasir Javed explained that 90 percent of housing is provided by private sector. Supply and demand balance out a certain price which is a market phenomenon and in Pakistan this market phenomenon is set at a very high level which is affordable only by the upper middle and high classes. For housing for all the government needs to provide policy interventions for making housing affordable like promote rental market, revise building regulations and land use policies.

Mr. Irfan Tariq, Director General (Env/CC), Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC), also highlighted Ministry’s initiatives including Clean Green Pakistan Programme and Clean Green Cities Index. He stated that Pakistan Clean Green Index (CGPI) is a composite index of five pillars of Clean Green Pakistan Movement i.e. safe drinking water, total sanitation, liquid waste management & hygiene, solid waste management and plantation.

Mr. Jawed Ali Khan, Habitat Programme Manager, UN Habitat emphasized that UN Habitat has pursued urbanization as the engine of development, a transformative force which can potentially lead to sustainability. Housing at the center aims to shift the focus from simply building houses to a holistic framework for housing development orchestrated with urban planning practices and placing people and human rights at the forefront of urban sustainable development. Cities can build better futures through their housing policies, by identifying broad policy goals and principles to guide housing investment decisions, and laying out specific strategies and programs that can be effective in building the local housing market, and creating neighborhoods of choice. The challenges, and opportunities that the housing development potential areas offer addressing the housing stock shortfall in the country includes Urban Regeneration; Katchi Abadi/ Slum Improvement; Rural Housing.

Mr. Arif Hassan, the renowned architect and planner in his concluding remarks said that the land issue is crucial to the whole housing policy and housing delivery systems. Land use in Pakistan is determined by land value and its location. Hence there is a need to define land use by social and environmental considerations. He also emphasized on the urgent need of urban land reforms and levy of land non utilization fee, to accelerate the pace of housing development leading to reduction housing backlog and urban footprint.  He suggested that there must be a land ceiling act to make housing affordable for all. Since, the huge urban sprawl is depleting the environmental assets and destroyed many cities resulting in urban flooding and much more. All stakeholders unanimously stressed on the fact that provision of adequate housing is a basic human necessity and coordinated efforts are required to resolve the matter for people of Pakistan and thus ensure a better future for all.