Government development plans have showed 1 great attention to developing informal housing areas, particularly after the Duweiqa rockslide in 2008. The state has established the Informal Settlements Development Fund, which divides such areas into unsafe areas 2 and unplanned areas 3.
The mechanisms to deal with unsafe areas of the first and second degree (explained below) are limited to resettlement: either by rehousing citizens in the same location after rehabilitating it or relocating them to housing in a different location. To ensure individuals&rsquo; quality of life, tangible&nbsp; and intangible factors must be considered when designing new urban communities. The standards to be applied in these areas and to evaluate housing projects must also be selected based on a comprehensive understanding of quality of life, inclusive of all aspects of life that are the individual&rsquo;s original right.
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Informal housing and public policies: Historical background</h3>
Informal housing in Egypt is one of the most pressing issues, given its physical, social, economic, and security implications. Informal housing settlements arose in the 1960s as a solution to the high demand for affordable housing and the parallel limited supply. The state began providing affordable housing units, based on the principles of the 1952 revolution, to support&nbsp; communities in need (Halim, 2003).
&nbsp;In the 1970s, the government's focus on affordable housing waned and shifted to housing for the middle class. The government also encouraged the private sector to build, but did not intervene to regulate the price of housing. The price of land increased annually by 200% or 300% in the period from 1974 to 1980 (El-Kurdi, 1980). Due to growing rural migration to cities in search of jobs, the scarcity of affordable housing, the disappearance of rentals, the trend towards ownership, and the absence of state regulation, informal residential areas in Egyptian cities grew markedly.&nbsp;
In the early 1980s, the government sensed the need to take action to resolve the housing problem, adopting the first five-year plan from 1982&ndash;83 to 1986&ndash;1987, which aimed at building 600,000 units.&nbsp;
In the wake of the 1992 earthquake, the state turned its attention to informal housing areas, which had come to threaten the security and stability of society, particularly after the Muqattam rockslide incident in 1993 and then the flooding of Darnaka in Upper Egypt in 1994. The government set up several programs to eliminate informal settlements and provided housing for those with limited income. Efforts to eliminate informal areas ranged from demolition to replacement, rehousing, refurbishing, and developing the infrastructure.&nbsp;
The state launched its program to develop informal areas with an initiative from the Ministry of Local Development from 1993 to 2000, which involved the installation of infrastructure to 350 informal areas and the demolition of 13 other areas (Informal Settlements Development Fund, 2010). This was followed by an updated development plan carried out by the Ministry of Housing, Utilities, and Urban Development from 2004 to 2008. As part of the initiative, the General Organization for Physical Planning (GOPP) implemented a program to &ldquo;contain&rdquo; these areas, aiming at limiting their expansion (Informal Settlements Development Fund, 2010).&nbsp;
After the Duweiqa disaster in 2008, the Informal Settlements Development Fund (ISDF) was established (Presidential Decree 305/2008) to draft a national strategy for dealing with informal housing areas, with an initial budget of LE500 million.&nbsp;
The ISDF divided informal areas into unplanned settlements and unsafe settlements, distinguishing between &ldquo;unplanned settlements, which represent accepted housing stock constructed without complying with official procedures, and unsafe settlements, which constitute a danger to life, livelihood, health, and stability&rdquo; (Informal Settlements Development Fund, 2010). The ISDF prioritized the latter, though it should be noted that its definition of informal settlement applied only to urban areas and such settlements were identified by the fund using its own criteria.&nbsp;
An area is considered unsafe if 50% or more of its residential structures meet the conditions of insecurity. These settlements were divided into four types, each representing some degree of hazard, as illustrated by Figure (1). In making the categorizations, the fund relied on standards from the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat):&nbsp;
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li>Life-threatening settlements (first degree): Areas exposed to conditions that threaten human life, such as areas vulnerable to rockslides, flash floods, or train accidents.&nbsp;</li>
<li>Inadequate housing settlements (second degree): Areas that consist of housing constructed with scrap building materials, cracked or dilapidated structures, or housing established on waste disposal sites.&nbsp;</li>
<li>Unsanitary settlements (third degree): Areas that constitute a threat to public health due to the lack of potable water or sanitation facilities, or that are built in areas of heavy industrial pollution or power grids.&nbsp;</li>
<li>Precarious settlements (fourth degree): areas in which residents lack stable tenure and property owners are free to dispose of their property as they wish.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
Figure 1:&nbsp;Typology of unsafe settlements
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://api-aps.aucegypt.edu/uploads/tinymce/1709463049imagePicture1.png" alt="" width="624" height="356">
Source: Nancy Abdelmoneim, based on ISDF data.
Finally, in 2014, a presidential decree established the Ministry of Urban and Informal Settlement Development (Presidential Decree 189/2014). A year later, however, it was folded into the Ministry of Housing, Utilities, and Urban Communities, again leaving the ISDF as the agency responsible for informal areas.&nbsp;
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Deficient definition of informal housing areas in Egypt</h3>
Over several decades, various definitions of informal settlements have focused solely on material aspects, such as lack of infrastructure, dilapidated, uninhabitable structures, high population density, and the lack of stable tenure, while the official state definition ignored non-material aspects. Although plans designed by the ISDF do include some socioeconomic prongs, such as improved health services for women, youth employment and professional training, literacy efforts, and reducing child deprivation, the agency has either only partly implemented these plans or not at all.&nbsp;
The turn to new cities outside the capital has become an attempt to resolve the problem of unsafe informal neighborhoods, but policies that move residents of unsafe settlements away from their original homes often have high social and economic costs, most importantly the distance it places between them and jobs.&nbsp;
Experience has shown that many people who are rehoused away from their unsafe areas tend to sell or rent their new housing units, for several reasons:&nbsp;
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li>The immediate relocation of residents from life-threatening settlements to any existing state housing project, regardless of their needs, as was the case in 2011, when some 3,500 families were moved from Duweiqa and Istabl Antar to the first housing project in al-Raaya (the Osman projects) in 6th of October City.</li>
<li>The design of housing units and buildings may not suit their actual needs and everyday customs. As a result, families may expand the units to meet their needs or build encroachments on open public spaces for leisure services, as was the case in the Zeinhom housing project.&nbsp;</li>
<li>The new settlement lacks basic services (hospitals, schools, mail service).&nbsp;</li>
<li>The distance between the new settlement and the workplace, as in the case of the Osman housing project in the 6th of October City.&nbsp;</li>
<li>The failure to rehousing&nbsp; residents of an unsafe area in the same location all at once; instead they are relocated in stages to different housing areas, as was the case in the Zeinhom project in Cairo and the Zarzara area of Port Said.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
These issues could have been avoided if the residents of unsafe settlements had been included in the process of resettlement and their opinions of how to develop the areas in which they would live had been solicited. In any case, the state must engage in post-project evaluation to understand the reasons for failure and the factors for success. When rezoning or expanding new cities, the state must also consider designating areas for potential relocation of residents of unsafe areas or the possible influx of migrants to the new cities in search of work.
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Toward more inclusive resettlement policies</h3>
&nbsp;Projects to develop unsafe settlements must rely on more inclusive criteria that account for physical elements (residential neighborhoods, advanced infrastructure, open spaces, etc.) and non-physical elements (leisure/entertainment areas, basic services, social customs, etc.), when considering the current situation and setting standards for new areas. Projects that have been completed must also be evaluated to ensure that they achieve quality of life, a comprehensive concept inclusive of all aspects of living standards and individuals&rsquo; rights.&nbsp;
The concept of quality of life for cities and countries, which aims to improve the well being of citizens and guarantee their rights, comprises four principal dimensions, each of which includes various sub-dimensions that are measured with indicators derived from UN organizations (UN-Habitat, 2013; UNDP, 2014; OECD, 2013). These are:&nbsp;
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li>Physical structure: including the three sub-dimensions of infrastructure, urban environment, and natural environment.</li>
<li>Social dimension: including the three sub-dimensions of equality and social justice, leisure and well-being, and safety and security.</li>
<li>Economic dimension: largely poverty, standard of living, wealth, and savings.</li>
<li>Institutional dimension: divided into four sub-dimensions of the right to the city, the right to housing, the right to participate, and effective administration.</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Conclusion</h3>
Policies for the resettlement and development of informal areas should not be limited to the provision of clean water, enhanced sanitation, or a place to live. They should aim to comprehensively uplift the area and its residents by providing humane housing and services appropriate to residents&rsquo; actual needs.&nbsp;
Such policies should seek to prevent the non-material adverse phenomena resulting from a dysfunctional urban environment, such as increased violence and crime, the spread of illiteracy, school attrition, unemployment, declining health services, and low incomes due to unskilled labor. In so doing, these policies could create an environment that ensures a good quality of life for inhabitants of unsafe areas, in all its physical, social, economic, and institutional dimensions, with the goal of providing a dignified life, creating a settlement appropriate to its residents&rsquo; needs, and promoting residents&rsquo; sense of social belonging and assimilation.&nbsp;
All of this requires cooperation and division of labor between development stakeholders: NGOs, the private sector, and local authorities, in order to build integrated resettlement areas that are compatible with the urban and social fabric around them, spur residents&rsquo; participation, and involve them in all phases of the project.&nbsp;
<hr>
[1] The data for this study was collected from 2013 to 2016. [2] This was 404 areas in 2009, which declined to 364 in 2014 and 156 in 2019.&nbsp; [3] These account for 37.5% percent of the built up area in cities across Egypt.&nbsp;
<hr>
References
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Abdel-Moneim, N. (2016). Unsafe Area&rsquo;s Dwellers: An Integrated System for Resettlement and Improving Quality of Life: PhD Thesis, Cairo University.
</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
Costanza, R., Fisher, B., Ali, S., Beer, C., &amp; Bond, L. (2008). An integrative approach to quality of life measurement, research, and policy. Surveys and Perspectives Integrating Environment and Society,1, 11-15.
</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
Diener, E. (2000). Subjective well-being: The science of happiness and a proposal for a national index. American Psychologist.Vol(55)1, 34-43.
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<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
Efklides, A., &amp; Moraitou, D. (2015). Looking at quality of life and Well-Being from a positive psychology perspective. In A. Efklides, &amp; D. Moraitou (Eds.), A positive psychology perspective on quality of life. Springer.
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El-Kurdi, M. (1980). Urban Development: A study of urban polarization in Egypt. Cairo: Dar ElMa&rsquo;arif. [In Arabic].
</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
Gregory, D., Johnston, R., Pratt, G., et. al. (2009). Quality of life. Dictionary of human geography (5th ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.
</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
Halim, N &amp; Makhlouf, H. (2003). Informal Settlements: A Descriptive and Analytic Perspective. Cairo: Demographic Center. [In Arabic].
</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
Informal Settlements Development Fund. (2010). National Plan for Developing Unsafe Areas.
</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
Khalil, H. A. (2012). Enhancing quality of life through strategic urban planning. Sustainable Cities and Society, 5. 77-86.
</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
OECD. (2013). Your Better Life Index.
</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
Seligman, M. E. (2012). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. Free Press.
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<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
Tadamun. (2015, April 20). Masākin &lsquo;Uthmān.
</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
UNDP. (2014). Human development report, sustaining human progress: Reducing vulnerabilities and building resilience. UNDP.
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<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
UN-Habitat. (2013). State of the world&rsquo;s cities 2012/2013: Prosperity of cities. Routledge.
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<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (1948). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article (25.1).
</li>
</ul>

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