19 August 2022 / Yesim Baykal and Burcu Kuru

Tweet

Climate change has global impact, does not recognize borders and has devastating consequences for the global community. Globally developing countries, especially the least developed among them, are struggling to adapt to the changes in the climate. Thirteen per cent of the world's population lives in the least developed countries (LDCs) and yet, more than two-thirds (69%) of people killed in climate-related disasters in the past 50 years were living in the 46 LDCs,  the world’s poorest nations ^[1].

The vulnerabilities that LDCs face today are somewhat different from the immediate challenges faced when the LDC category was established by the General Assembly over 50 years ago — COVID-19 and climate change to name but two. In the 21^st century, LDCs must address multiple challenges simultaneously, having to find solutions to improve the life quality of their people in various domains, while also coping with the additional cost and complexity of having to develop sustainably. Science, technology, and innovation have a key role to play in these countries’ development pathways. However, there is a need to ensure that rapidly adopted technologies do not exacerbate the development challenges they are facing. Looking at the current global situation, LDCs need urgent global support to develop and implement climate adaptation and mitigation plans and at the same time acquire the technical and human capacity to implement these actions in line with the sustainability and environmental sensitivity principles.

The need for sustainable housing in LDCs

At the 26^th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow last year, 12 donor governments pledged $413 million in new funding for the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF). LDCF helps recipient countries address their short, medium and long-term resilience needs and reduce climate change vulnerability in priority sectors and ecosystems. As sustainable housing is one of the funding priorities, ‘’LGGE Promoting Energy Efficiency in Buildings in Eastern Africa’’ is one of the projects approved for implementation in Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda to provide resilient buildings in disaster-prone areas.  

Extreme weather, flooding, drought, water scarcity and rising sea levels, caused primarily by climate change, have already created substantial damages and LDCs are extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, even though they contribute the least to global warming. LDCs are more vulnerable to natural disasters because people in these countries live in areas of high risk from natural disasters or unsafe urban areas where the housing is poorly built and can be easily damaged in the event of a disaster and these countries are not equipped with early warning systems. Between 2014 and 2018, the proportion of the urban population living in slums worldwide increased from 23 per cent to 24 per cent, translating to over 1 billion slum dwellers. Slum dwellers are most prevalent in three regions: Eastern and South-Eastern Asia (370 million), sub-Saharan Africa (238 million) and Central and Southern Asia (226 million).^[2] Housing is not only one of the most affected sectors by climate-related hazards, but also one of the most important assets for the population at risk. Hence there is an urgent need for more sustainable and resilient housing development.

The major obstacles for LDCs to provide sustainable housing to the population in need are poverty, high rates of urbanization, demolition of informal settlements without replacing them, limited technical capacity or knowledge on building sustainable houses, limited funding, and insufficient governmental policies and regulations. As a result, without access to enough land, affordable financing options, and building materials, housing cooperatives cannot build enough houses.

Generally accepted definition of sustainable housing is, designing and constructing houses that are efficient and durable, that use less resources, are healthy to live in and are affordable.^[3] Moreover, ’sustainable’’ should have the following elements: less waste, more reuse and recycling, lower life-cycle environmental impacts and costs, better reliability, less maintenance, and greater user satisfaction. Sustainable housing has been practiced by humans for thousands of years and is still practiced by many today. In history, humans first used naturally occurring shelters, like caves, which are resilient to extreme weather. Even after humans developed tools to build houses, most civilizations-built homes would be sustainable by today’s standards. Interestingly, it is low-income people today who have built simple, organic, and sustainable homes, like the rural East African homes.

Adequate and affordable housing leads to benefits in health, education, and economic opportunities. The housing construction process helps habitants gain skills and overcome poverty. The process also helps the larger community gain economic output, create employment (both skilled and unskilled), reduce inequality and build resilience against economic and natural disasters. The improved housing also raises the standard of living of habitants - improved water and sanitation and better health.^[4] Hence, actions towards adequate and affordable housing support the implementation of national, regional, and global development strategies.

International Organizations’ focus on sustainable housing

The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 recognizes the need to make cities and human settlements inclusive and sustainable. Target 11.1 provides that: “By 2030, ensure access for all to adequate, safe, and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums. Integrated housing frameworks support economic, social, and environmental policy planning and infrastructure linkages across the urban-rural ecosystem, building increased resiliency.”

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), being responsible for administering human settlements and sustainable urban development, is advocating for a paradigm shift and promotes the view that building sustainable and environmentally sensitive houses will have positive impacts on reducing carbon emissions from the housing and construction sector, as well as rendering the housing stock sustainable and more resilient to climate change. This argument is based on the below facts:

• The world’s cities occupy just 3% of the Earth’s land, but account for 60-80 per cent of energy consumption and 75 per cent of carbon emissions. Rapid urbanization is exerting pressure on fresh water supplies, sewage, the living environment, and public health. 
• Cities account for between 60 and 80 per cent of energy consumption and generate as much as 70per cent of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions
• 90 per cent of urban growth is forecasted to happen in Asia and Africa in the next 30 years.
• By 2050, 70 per cent of the world population is predicted to live in urban settlements.^[5]

UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) also estimates that “buildings account for more than a third of energy used on the planet and are in many countries the largest source of GHG emissions”. ^[6]

Technology Bank’s partnership on the rammed earth technologies for sustainable housing

The UN Technology Bank for Least Developed Countries (UNTB), in collaboration with the Sakarya University, Duzce University, Engineering Laboratory of the Republic of Mozambique, and Ministry of Public Works, Housing, and Water Resources of the Republic of Mozambique, guided by SDG 11 and in consideration of the support needed by the LDCs as identified in the Technology Needs Assessments (TNAs) that the UNTB conducts, has developed a project concept for sustainable housing development using rammed earth. The project will be pilot in Mozambique.

Why rammed earth?

Rammed earth houses have been identified by scientists as a suitable model for sustainable housing. Rammed earth is made of locally available earth, it is highly sustainable as it has a high thermal mass and the lowest carbon footprint among all building materials.^[7] Rammed earth is also completely recyclable and has low transport emissions, as earth naturally exists everywhere hence the main material is already on site. All the resources employed for the earth structures are local, organic, renewable, and biodegradable; when abandoned, the structures return to the earth naturally within a few years, and with no long-term damage. These sustainable homes embody near-zero environmental impact across the three phases of embodied energy from construction, operational energy through the useful life as shelter and finally demolition and disposal.

Taking into consideration the housing challenge in the LDCs, rammed earth as a building material is durable, affordable, easy to use, energy-efficient and environmentally friendly.

Why Mozambique?

Cyclones, drought, floods, earthquakes, and landslides are the most hazardous perils in Mozambique. Cyclones pose the most significant and recurring risk to Mozambique, affecting 2 million people per year in coastal regions. According to the World Bank, droughts and floods also affect many people: 600,000 and 200,000 people on average every year, respectively.^[8] These natural disasters have destroyed many homes. However, more than 80% of houses are self-constructed/managed, without assistance from technicians and specialists, and only 2% of them are built with conventional materials. Sustainable and resilient housing for the population is one of the main concerns of the Mozambican Government.

The Ministry of Public Works, Housing, and Water Resources of the Republic of Mozambique (MOPHRH) is the only public institution that focuses on developing housing projects for low- and average-income population. However, since its foundation in 1995, no more than 5.000 houses have been built by MOPHRH. NGOs are also working in the field but there are still large gaps to fill. On the other hand, private property developers are focused mostly on average- to high-income population.

Housing also features as one of the key sectors in the Technology Needs Assessments (TNAs) for Mozambique that the Technology Bank has conducted in 2022.

The solution

The UNTB project developed in collaboration with the Turkish Academic Institutions and the Housing Authorities of Mozambique will be a pilot project and will address the issues that are of concern for Mozambique’s sustainable development, including, climate change, energy efficiency, involvement of women and youth in decision-making process in housing, housing affordability, environmental sensitivity and sustainability.

The first phase of the project covers building a low-cost, affordable, resilient, eco-friendly and sustainable prototype of a house by utilizing locally available stabilized earthen construction materials in the selected pilot area of Mozambique as well as provision of training, know-how and technology transfer on building rammed earth dwellings. The second phase will replicate prototypes by the construction of 50 rammed earth houses. By leveraging the lesson learnt in the pilot, the project aims to expand this model to other LDCs to further its impact.

Yesim Baykal is Programme Management Officer and Burcu Kuru is Programme Management Assistant of the UN Technology Bank.