Asian Coalition for Housing Rights

Countries

Bangladesh

Introduction

New Video on Community Upgrading in Bangladesh June 2016

Greetings from Bangladesh! Here is the link of the story of community upgrading at Jhenaidah: https://vimeo.com/168220287

ACCA in Bangladesh

First Project in Dhaka, 2nd in Gopalganj

Dhaka is Bangladesh’s capital and it’s largest city, with a population of about 13 million. Nearly a third of those people live in the city’s 4,966 slums. Almost all of these slums are on land that is not secure, and many will eventually face the threat - or the reality - of eviction. Most also have serious problems of housing and access to basic services, despite a bewildering array of develop- ment interventions by NGOs and development agencies. An- other problem is that the city’s poor have developed very few community organizations of their own, and the ones that do exist are small, scattered and isolated.
The ACCA project in Dhaka has been specifically designed to help build a new and citywide alliance of the key community-based organizations and NGO support groups operating in differ-
ent parts of the city. The Housing and Land Rights Forum Bangladesh (HLRF-B) is using the modest support from ACCA to implement small infrastructure upgrading projects and set up savings groups to strengthen these community organizations internally, and then to organize frequent exchange visits and meetings to build links of mutual support and learning between them.

A big housing breakthrough for the poor in GOPALGANJ

The story starts with an eviction : In October 2009, one of the big slums in Gopalganj, which had been organized and upgraded with UPPR support, was quite suddenly and brutally demolished, to make way for a sports complex - a pet project of the Prime Minister, who comes from Gopalganj. But there was a lot of sympathy for the 346 evicted families, who were now scattered all over the city and living in extreme difficulty. The eviction made everyone realize that even a high-level UN project intervention was no safeguard against eviction, and that the city needed a new alternative vision for how to deal with slums.
Study tour to Bangkok leads to land breakthrough : Soon afterwards, UPPR worked with ACHR and CODI to organize a study tour to Thailand, to visit community-managed housing projects that showed how urban slums could be turned into beautiful neighborhoods when communities were in charge and the government supported them.

Bangladesh has many evictions but is perennially short of projects which show a new way of doing things. So this project in Gopalganj is an important milestone. After one of the city’s largest slums was evicted for a sports complex, the community worked with the mayor, the UPPR project and with ACHR to develop a collaborative resettlement process in which the government provided the land free, UPPR provided the infrastructure, the community architects helped the people to develop a layout plan and inexpensive house designs, and the community managed and implemented the whole project, which is now underway.

CITYWIDE SLUM UPGRADING TAKES OFF in COMILLA

May 2014

Another interesting citywide and community-driven slum upgrading initiative is taking shape in Bangladesh, in the city of Comilla - one of five provincial cities chosen to be part of the Pro-poor slum integration Project, which is being implemented by the National Housing Authority (NHA), with financing from the World Bank ($80 million dollars, as a loan to the government) and technical support from BRAC University.

Read more on Comilla and other projects in Bangladesh in the LIBRARY below

Bangladesh Update December 2014

All the latest ACCA stat.s from Bangladesh
Using ACCA to being the poor into the centre, in different ways
A new community architects group in Bangladesh: POCAA
Exploring new housing solutions for a”minority within a minority” in DHAKA
Using ACCA to bring the crucial issues of housing and land into an important poverty alleviation program
A big housing breakthrough in GOPALGANJ
Another ACCA-supported citywide upgrading initiative is being piloted in COMILLA
Community Development Funds are now up and running in five cities

4 page extracton the above topics from ACCA 5 Year Report

As we construct the NEW ACHR website we will add more information on each country. For now please consider the Country Library section below where PDF downloads with copious information is available.

Country Downloads Library - BANGLADESH

CITYWIDE UPGRADING IN CAMILLA BANGLADESH - MAY 2014

An interesting citywide and community-driven slum upgrading initiative is taking shape in Bangladesh, in the city of Comilla - one of five provincial cities chosen to be part of the Pro-poor slum integration Project, which is being implemented by the National Housing Authority (NHA), with financing from the World Bank ($80 million dollars, as a loan to the government) and technical support from BRAC University. Everyone is hoping this project will show a new direction in a country with some of the most serious evictions and housing problems in Asia. .......

1 page extract on ACHR E-news May 2014

2012 ACHR TEAM VISITS BANGLADESH
Five people in the visiting team: Ruby Papeleras (community leader from HPFP in the Philippines + Coordinator of Urban Poor Coalition Asia - UPCA), May Domingo-Price (community architect from the Philippines), Chawanad Luansang and Supawut Boonmahathanakorn (community architects from Thailand) and Thomas Kerr (ACHR secretariat in Bangkok. They visit ACCA projects with some amazing results.

15 pages photos and text 1.5 mgbts

2012 December: Using ACCA to bring the poor into the centre in different ways - to build a coalition of poor community organisations in DHAKA to collectively tackle the issue of land. ACCA projects stat.s in Bangladesh. A big housing breakthrough in GOPALGANJ.

EXTRACT from ACCA 3rd Year Report 2 pages text and photos 400Kbs

INTRODUCTION OF POCAA AND NHA-WORLD BANK-BRAC UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY-LED HOUSING ACTIVITIES IN BANGLADESH.
02.12.2013

Platform of Community Artisans and Architects (POCAA) is a group of people in Bangladesh that aims to create a platform for community-led architecture. POCAA is active with different communities through community mapping as a tool. It is linked with Community Architects Network (CAN) since its inception.
Currently few Community Architects of POCAA are working in Pro-poor Slum Integration Project (PPSIP), a joint effort mainly by World Bank, National Housing Authority (NHA) and BRAC University. The objective of this project is to develop city-wide housing process with/by/for the low-income communitie.

From a link on the CAN website
PDF 1.4 Mgbs

2007 URBAN POOR HOUSING IN BANGLADESH AND POTENTIAL ROLE OF ACHR

An exploratory visit with recommendations for ACHR by K. Iftekhar Ahmed. PhD

29 pages text and photos 576 KBs