Author: Alfredo Stein
Publication Date: February, 1991
In recent years, a considerable body of literature has appeared assessing and critically analyzing the efforts of a wide range of governments, international funding agencies and nongovernmental organizations in the sponsorship and promotion of selfhelp housing programmes as dominant ways to solve the problem of providing lowcost housing for the urban poor in underdeveloped countries1. An examination of this literature shows however, that despite the agreement existing with respect to the characterization of the housing problem in Third World countries, there is a lack of consensus about the interpretation of the nature of the problem, the solutions required and the role that the different institutions in charge of implementing these programmes should play.
From the different issues at stake in the discussions about sponsored selfhelp housing, the following seem relevant in terms of their theoretical and political connotations: whether and how these programmes can act; as a means for improving the housing conditions of lowincome families in underdeveloped countries; a means of achieving a more equal distribution of resources in a society and a means of social transformation (Fiori & Ramirez, 1987)?
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