Lessons from the “Cities Without Slums” Program in Morocco

This webinar will present Morocco’s experience in scaling up slum upgrading and affordable housing from projects to national programs in the new millennium. Morocco’s rapid urbanization since independence in 1956 has met with insufficient employment and housing opportunities resulting in the growth of informal settlements. The population growth has exacerbated the urbanization over the past five decades. The total population has tripled since 1960 reaching to 32.4 million in 2011. The population living in cities rose from 29.2% in 1960 to 58.3% in 2011. The confluence of rapid in-migration and unresponsive government policies produced massive growth of slums, collectively referred to as “habitat insalubre” (unhealthy or substandard housing). About 400,000 new informal housing units were built every year during the 1990s. The slum population grew 5.6% per year between 1992 and 2004. By 2004, 8.2% of all urban households or 1.7 million people were living in 1,000 slums. For much of Morocco’s history, the government has opted with slum clearance and resettlement as the primary method of addressing challenges in slums, with some efforts at in-situ upgrading in the 1970s and market led affordable housing programs in the 1980s.

With gradual democratization in 1998-99 social issues found their way into national policy discourse. The declaration of “decent housing” became a national priority in 2001. PRAHI (Program National d’Action pour la Resorption de l’Habitat Insalubre / National Action Plan for Reabsorption of Slums) was launched to integrate slum districts into the urban fabric. PRAHI benefited 131,620 slum dwellers in 3 years. In 2004, building on the achievements of PRAHI and the commitment to the MDGs, the government launched the Villes Sans Bidonvilles-VSBP (Cities Without Slums Program) as part of a larger government strategy to enhance affordable housing supply. For the first time ever, the VSBP reflected the rising importance of social issues in Moroccan policies. It aimed to make cities free of slums and to improve the living conditions of 1.75 million inhabitants in 85 cities by 2012 through resettlement, re-housing and restructuring. “City contracts” were designed as a key policy instrument to fortify mutual cooperation between national government agencies and city governments. The implementation of the program adopted a territorial approach rather than project-based approach and included the Social Assistance of Projects component to enhance cooperation between neighborhood associations and local government agencies. By the summer of 2011, 43 cities were declared slum free and the program’s achievement rate reached 68.6%. It is estimated that with the VSBP the slum population was decreased to 3.9% of total population in 2011.

Mr. Najib Lahlou will discuss the challenges and opportunities in scaling up slum upgrading through the VSBP in Morocco. His presentation will focus on the key implementation features of the VSBP, its outcomes and the long-term policy implications of the VSBP for future programs in the country.