Sustainable Social Housing Initiative in Bangladesh: Stakeholders' Mapping and Assessment Report

Study Team: M.K.Mujeri and Siban Sahana

Bangladesh is undergoing a rapid urban transformation in recent years and its capital city, Dhaka, has now emerged as one of the fastest growing megacities in the world. It may be mentioned that Bangladesh already belongs to the most densely populated countries in the world having 1,015 people/km. In this context, one of the major policy concerns emerges from rapid urbanization which is mostly concentrated in the country’s two largest cities- Dhaka and Chittagong. The unplanned nature of urbanization, along with the growth of low-income settlements and slums in the urban areas, is raising significant socio-economic and environmental challenges for the country. In this context, social housing programmes (popularly known as low cost housing) are emerging as viable options of meeting the housing demand of the low income households in the country. It is observed that these housing programmes, which are undertaken mostly at government initiative, are often inadequately planned and rapidly constructed with little consideration for durability, sustainability or environmental health.