from the bottom, upwards.

Working through  the operational single “ Central” co-ordinatory secretariat, the initiative, through the tried and tested  seasoned, volunteer country managers (Men and Women who are already successful in their own careers but simply have a desire to “give something back” to the societies that nurtured them ) will ensure that funding agencies, development banks, building developers, building, professionals and construction contractors, work in partnership with the IFHDA to produce sufficient  accommodation that though technologically appropriate can ensure its occupants access to a basic decent living standard and quality of life and is of a type and quality that can be produced in sufficient numbers all over Africa to meet the identified housing need.

The IFHDA will adopt a ‘systems’ approach involving a “mobile low to medium cost housing factory” as a way forwards towards enabling better (more efficient, better suited for purpose, cheaper and quicker) “deliverability” of acceptable sustainable housing in the African sub region.

If you build a single house for a man and his family, in most parts of West Africa,  It does not necessarily help him. You are in fact doing him a questionable favour. In most parts of this region if you leave the man and his family on his own you have made him a ‘target’ for itinerant armed marauders who will, relieve the subject of his meagre valuables and probably ravish his wife. He will be lucky to escape with his life. [Depending on the mood of his assailants]

For a house to make sense in the tropical third world, [the chosen regional context] it has to be a subset of a group. It has to exist within a community of dwellings for various reasons, ranging from security [as touched upon above] to access to education, medical facilities community facilities and the attainment of a basic reasonable civilised living standard. This is a portion of life that is taken for granted in the developed world. However vast swathes of West Africa are tightly held in the grip of near hunger, poverty and a lack of hope. Government efforts towards the eradication of disease and poverty have not begun to scratch the surface of the problems. They can therefore, in all reality, be ignored. Since sustainability is unlikely to be achieved from the top down, this initiative will enable a timely ''new'' approach of ‘from the bottom, upwards.’