SLUMS

Maputo is characterized by a small urbanized ‘cement city’, with informal peripheral neighbourhoods where majority of Maputo’s population lives. ‘Cement city’ consists of conventional permanent buildings supplied with road, water, electricity, telephone, and drainage systems. The conditions in the peripheral neighbourhoods are characterized by disorderly occupation that makes it difficult to provide essential infrastructure and other municipal services. 

The colonial state provided no social housing, except for a few initiatives during the 1950s and 60s in some of the capital’s neighbourhoods. The nationalization of rental housing in 1976 gave the state the responsibility of managing a huge number of buildings, to the detriment of constructing new housing and infrastructure. The state regarded shelter as a minor part in the overall infrastructure needs of drainage, sanitation, water supply.

electricity, transport, and social facilities. Housing construction in itself was not considered a fundamental factor in the improvement of living conditions. Thus, priority was given to improving the physical and social infrastructural arrangements in peri-urban areas as the most sustainable way of achieving general and basic improvements in housing conditions. Social housing was left to individual households and social agents.

 This policy resulted in large-scale infrastructure investments and campaigns such as drainage in Maputo, interventions for urban reorganization to combat erosion, and the national sanitation campaign. The accumulation and worsening of management problems of the state-owned housing stock, and the unsustainable system of subsidized house rentals, led in the 1980s to the start of a policy of selling off the state-owned housing stock.

While the central question of housing policy focused on creating and improving infrastructure and reorganizing peripheral neighbourhoods, current municipal policy stresses the provision of urban land for people to build their own houses, giving priority to recently educated and newly-wed young people. The municipality encourages partnerships with the private sector to gradually solve social housing issues, as a complement to the efforts currently undertaken by the central government. 

Water supply is closely connected to housing development. Prior to independence, Maputo’s water supply system consisted of indoor connections within urban areas and public standpipes in peri-urban areas. After independence, the number of home connections in the peri-urban areas increased, causing supply capacity problems. Currently, work is underway to extend the water supply network to reach more areas with a combination of home connections, outside connections and public standpipes. Apart from the public supply system, new private water supply systems have appeared, including wells, elevated water tanks and simple home connections. 

The essential objective is to provide services in accordance with the wishes and capacity of the beneficiaries, plugging the gaps in the public system and involving the private sector in managing water supply services. With the establishment of the Water Investment and Assets Fund and the introduction of a devolved management system, coverage levels have risen to 32%. With forthcoming funding, this could rise to 40%, and benefit about 1,235,000 inhabitants. The most significant investment, however, will be the establishment of a new distribution centre that will solve the problem of water shortages in four large peripheral neighbourhoods.

The urban requalification process of the Josina Machel district is underway, supported by partners covering the community's deficit areas and resources. The expansion of the public water intake network has also begun. An important part of the funds intended to improve living conditions in informal settlements comes from contributions from NGOs or other institutions. This is the case with the Josina Machel Neighborhood Urban Requalification project supported by GTZ. In 2003, about 800 million meticais (about US$42,000) were allocated to the municipal investment fund. Not only are these funds inadequate, but they need to be divided between different priority areas. 

 Despite the popularity that microcredit programs are beginning to enjoy in Manica, there are no specific home loan initiatives. However, there are small initiatives designed to give the poor access to credit. The NGO CARE provides loans that are mainly intended for small businesses; It also runs the LASCA grant initiative, the local name for a type of revolving fund grant program founded by a women's group.