Moroccan authorities have declared 59 cities slum free according to housing minister Nezha Bouchareb. As part of slum elimination efforts, the country has been encouraging developers to invest in low-cost housing by offering them tax cuts in addition to giving poor households loan guarantees to buy the houses.
According to North Africa Post, Morroco has been using satellite technology to monitor and restrain the expansion of some remaining shanty towns. Satellite imagery have been used to identify and map slum areas for more than 15 years in the North African country.
The housing minister told MPs that 278,000 household or more than 1.3 million people have been upgraded from shanty dwellings to proper housing under a programme initiated to remove improper housing in 85 cities.
In 2004, the Morrocan government launched the Villes Sans Bidonvilles-VSBP (Cities Without Slums Program) as part of a larger government strategy to enhance affordable housing supply. The programme has turned out to be one of the most successful social housing improvements on the continent by reducing the presence of slums by more than half.
The milestone achievement in Morocco is evidence of what is possible in the push to solve Africa’s affordable housing problems.
Related; IFC-Chinese consortium in partnership to provide affordable housing for African countries
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