CRISIS OF NATURAL BUILDING-MATERIALS AND INSTITUTIONALIZED SELF-HELP HOUSING - THE CASE OF GRAMEEN BANK IN BANGLADESH

Traditional rural housing is largely based on the use of locally avail able natural resources as prime building materials, usually in a proce ss of self-help building undertaken by the community. Such housing is well adapted to a natural environment with widely available resources, and supports people's direct involvement in the construction of their dwellings. However, the advent of a cash economy and current scarcity of natural resources has greatly affected the self-help building proc ess. In rural Bangladesh, affluent households are shifting to manufact ured materials and skilled builders, and the quality of housing of low -income households is declining. For the latter, self-help is the only option, and recognition of this fact and of the increasing decline in the quality of their housing has prompted institutional intervention. This paper discusses the Grameen Bank's rural housing programme in Ba ngladesh which provides loans for manufactured building components for low-income rural households to build houses on a self-help basis. A r eview of this programme indicates some of its strengths and shortcomin gs in the context of scarcity of natural building materials and widesp read poverty. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.