What has been learnt?

Effectiveness/success

How does the initiative define success?

Definitions draw on different stakeholder perspectives. The evicted households forming the Cooperative sought land to resettle securely and live a dignified life. The Federation and CCI’s immediate aims were to support financing and construction of housing on land purchased by the Federation community, as well as to plan and develop a viable neighbourhood with a housing mix, community facilities and commercial activities that provided for residents’ needs (UN-Habitat, nd). Their wider goal was to demonstrate the strengths of community-led resettlement and development approaches, and the importance of effective collaboration and partnership between communities, private sector, NGOs and national and local authorities in planning, designing and implementing affordable housing schemes (Ndezi, 2022).

These understandings of success overlap with three of the preconditions that ACRC has identified as catalysts for urban reform in its theory of change: the themes of mobilised and organised citizens; formal and informal reform coalitions; and agencies able to build short- and long-term state capacity.

Mobilised and organised citizens

For Ndezi (2022), community mobilisation became more effective in the presence of a community association which managed the housing scheme’s implementation. Collective landownership, established by registering one block title, gave each member household an equal stake in the plot and development, creating a high level of commitment and greater sense of ownership (Ndezi, 2022). A cooperative approach also provided opportunity to collectively pool resources, helping to make planning and construction processes more affordable.

Well before the eviction, Kurasini community groups had instituted small household savings as a daily practice, underpinned by the Federation’s women-led saving systems. Across the SDI network, these processes, which involve daily interactions and weekly meetings, strengthen social cohesion, form a basis for communication and information-sharing, and provide a community with a “democratic arena for making strategic decisions towards its future” (Wamuchiru, 2017). Individual saving enables access to Federation livelihood and housing loans. And (among other benefits) collective saving reduces communities’ dependence on government or external actors, becomes leverage for accessing additional financial support, and serves as an indicator of commitment during negotiations with authorities. Mobilising community members around savings and loaning was the main tool used by CCI and TUPF to facilitate the Chamazi housing project’s implementation, by bringing a community together towards the same goal (Ndezi, 2022).

Formal and informal reform coalitions

For CCI, the project demonstrates that successful implementation of community-driven resettlement programmes requires the involvement and collaboration of multiple stakeholders – in this case, communities (the Cooperative, the Federation), government agencies (Temeke municipality and MLHHSD), private sector technical professionals (surveyors and architects), civil society (CCI, SDI, Habitat international) and donors (Transformative Cities, 2018). Allying with the Federation and CCI created a “useful bridge” between the Chamazi community and external agencies who could help them to access the technical and financial resources to meet their shelter and service needs, including peer knowledge through learning exchanges (Wamuchiru, 2017). Technical support from local and central government agencies was also instrumental, particularly during the early stages of surveying, master planning and house design (Transformative Cities, 2018). Identifying and then securing the participation of all key actors was one of the lead agencies’ main strategies to overcome obstacles, reduce conflicts of interest and minimise political opposition (Transformative Cities, 2018).

Agencies able to build short- and long-term state capacity.

National and municipal agencies were involved in various collaborative activities in Chamazi. These engagements helped build officials’ understanding of low-income communities’ specific needs as well as appreciation for their capabilities.

For Wamuchiru (2017), direct community engagement with authorities in local problem-solving – such as seeking technical support and approvals to validate the development in accordance with municipal planning provisions – improved “communication and understanding between the parties, strengthening relations, enhancing democracy, creating new forms of citizenship, and improving the effectiveness and equity of public policy” (p 561). Oates et al. (2020) add that the changes permitted by MHSSD to minimum plot sizes helped improve local authority capacity and flexibility to tailor building designs to local needs.

How successful has the initiative been?

Resettlement and land tenure security

In seeking a place to resettle with assurance of tenure security and protection from future eviction, the community registered its land under a block title, whereby all Cooperative members held the land collectively and equitably, regardless of previous status as tenant or structure owner. This allowed for pooling of resources to improve project affordability and facilitate effective decisionmaking. A negotiated communal land ownership approach like this had not been used before in Dar es Salaam, arousing “institutional interest in [a] new model of land tenure for low-income communities and provid[ing] a learning process for the [MLHHS]” (Wamuchiru, 2017: 561). It has since been replicated by the Federation in several areas (see Scaling and replicating, below).

Improved access to sanitation and water

Collective land ownership also acted to leverage further civil society and state investment in service provision. The project improved residents’ access to safe water and sanitation, designing and implementing off-grid, community-managed solutions that generate revenue to cover maintenance and operation costs. This demonstrates the potential of alternative citizen-led models of urban service provision to reduce reliance on the limited options available from resource-constrained municipalities and centralised institutions, given the lack of market-led service provision in many low-income urban areas. Chamazi’s solutions are located by Wamichiru within a wider trend in Dar es Salaam and elsewhere of the “rise of self-help frameworks” to redefine the practice and meaning of urban citizenship around the daily struggle for services (Wamichiru, 2017: 552; see also Kyessi, 2005).

It is important to note that off-grid systems’ cost and quality vary with location and infrastructure. Off-grid water systems, such as community boreholes and independent pipe networks, tend to be more expensive, as the full investment is borne by the community or individuals. In contrast, conventional water systems are often government-subsidised, with households only covering the cost of pipe connections to their homes. Regarding sanitation, conventional sewerage systems require major state investment. However, simplified sewerage, such as in Chamazi – which uses smaller, cheaper pipes – is an innovative alternative that is more affordable and better suited to low-income settings.

Positively influencing policymakers’ flexibility and attitudes towards housing solutions

There is evidence of a lasting influence on the state in the precedent-setting changes to national planning standards secured by the Chamazi project – although this remains ongoing and CCI and the Federation continue to advocate for planning reforms to accommodate low-income settlements. One notable outcome has been a national-level debate now underway to reduce the minimum plot sizes in urban planning standards – a critical step towards greater affordability and inclusion. Reducing individual plot sizes not only makes housebuilding more affordable for low-income households, but also promotes a denser built environment, countering urban sprawl. While formal policy change is still in progress, CCI staff consider that Chamazi has sparked meaningful institutional dialogue.

For CCI staff, a key factor in the Chamazi project’s success and sustainability has been the combination of community empowerment and co-production with government institutions willing to learn.

“[I]n terms of the development of the purchased land, municipal staff said that they were willing to abandon the regulations and let the federation experiment with their own plot sizes, layouts and designs. They were able to take the development as a special case and undertake a study of new ways of addressing the problems of low-income households.” (Ndezi, 2009: 86).

Lower-cost construction and planning processes

Recent studies of project construction costs estimate USD 2,000 per home, in contrast to USD 18,000 for an average Dar es Salaam dwelling (Oates et al., 2024). Earlier sources set the figure lower, at around USD 1,000 (Anande Uliwa, 2018). Construction costs were lowered by reducing plot sizes, adopting strategies of incremental construction and self-build, and using carefully chosen construction materials. Smaller plots sizes are cost-effective for residents, who have to buy less land, and governments, who have to spend less on connective infrastructure (Oates et al. 2020). Incremental building over extended timeframes means households with low incomes can afford to construct at a pace suitable to their personal economic conditions (Ndezi, 2022). Chamazi houses are built using affordable construction materials designed to be manufactured by the community itself (such as soil-cement interlocking bricks, which are 40% cheaper than conventional building blocks [Transformative Cities, 2018]). Technologies chosen were identified by learning from communities’ experiences across the international SDI network, and are often more sustainable. The project therefore challenges assumptions that environmentally sustainable housing is more expensive, by balancing inclusivity and environmental concerns and providing lessons in incentivising safe, dense development (Oates et al., 2020).

Enhancing skills, capacity building and shared learning

Cooperative members gained skills in materials production and housing construction, creating employment opportunities beyond Chamazi. Around 30 people, both women and men, were trained to produce interlocking bricks and sisal roof tiles (Transformative Cities, 2018). Technical skills were delivered by the National Housing Building Research Agency, a well-established institution promoting affordable housing technologies. The project also strengthened the Cooperative’s capacity to manage construction processes and enhance loan repayment performance (Ndezi, 2022).

Officials from the MHSSD and Temeke Municipality were exposed to successful affordable housing initiatives through international exchange visits to Thailand and India. These visits played a key role in shaping government support for the Chamazi project. They involved joint delegations of government officials and Muungano cooperative members, fostering shared learning and stronger collaboration between formal and informal actors.

Housing and infrastructure financing innovation

The many structural barriers overcome also constitute dimensions of success. The Chamazi housing is financed by community savings with a revolving fund capitalised by SDI. The project has in this way designed and implemented effective housing finance solutions for low-income urban households, who are often excluded from access to formal financing institutions, illustrating potential financial arrangements that could improve the design of future affordable housing programmes (Oates et al., 2024). In improving services, water and sanitation infrastructure installation was initially funded by grants, but then became self-supporting through fee charging to residents and neighbouring communities, highlighting the ongoing importance of subsidies for those who might otherwise be constrained by their inability to meet capital costs or strict regulations upfront (Wamuchiru, 2017; Oates et al., 2020).

Understanding limitations

In Dar es Salaam and elsewhere, informal tenants, often the urban majority, continue to be especially insecure in the face of urban transformation. Experiences in Chamazi underline that relocation should be minimal because eviction and resettlement are traumatic for those involved, destroying assets, compromising livelihoods, fragmenting social networks and obstructing access to services (Oates et al., 2020). There is continued need in Tanzania to extend compensation entitlement after informal settlement eviction to all displaced residents, both structure owners and tenants and for resettlement efforts to involve residents in relocation planning (Ndezi, 2022).

Many of the planned houses have not yet been completed and many families have yet to move to the site. Livelihood considerations affect the sustainability of resettlement and economic development is a crucial aspect of community empowerment within affordable housing projects (Ndezi, 2022). In the project’s early years, the plot’s distance from the city centre, with its concentration of economic opportunities, its poor transport links and the higher cost of nearby market goods, all limited Cooperative member households’ ability to relocate, invest in housing construction and make repayments on loans (Oates et al., 2020). In 2015, it could take three to four hours with traffic to reach the city centre (DPU, 2015). Although Chamazi was initially a disconnected peri-urban area, over time the adjacent lands in the neighbourhood of the resettlement plot have been consolidated and it is now a thriving centre with many job opportunities, new businesses, markets and services. At the same time, under these pressures, the site is now surrounded by growing informal settlements, further complicating connections to trunk infrastructure (Oates et al., 2024).

Construction continues but has slowed since the Covid-19 pandemic and its associated economic effect on households’ ability to repay loans and keep the loan fund revolving.

CCI reflects that building a strong collaboration across agencies was not easy, requiring appropriate institutional frameworks, policies and trust to allow actors to integrate, build capacity and effectively play their roles. Government interest and commitment was high during the period when the project was receiving significant international attention, but has now waned. Ndezi (2022) recommends that processes for building collaboration use tools such as memoranda of understanding “with rules, roles and responsibilities to coordinate all actors”.

Other reflections on Chamazi highlight the continued need for recognition of the slower processes of self-improvement for the low-income urban communities – such as incremental construction or the lengthy participation processes needed to decide with a common voice on service solutions (Ndezi, 2022; Wamuchiru, 2017).

A key limitation in scaling affordable housing solutions in informal settlements is the lack of accessible financing. Formal financial institutions are often reluctant to provide loans or credit to low-income communities, viewing their informal status as unbankable. This significantly hinders residents’ efforts to improve their housing conditions. Meanwhile, opportunities for mortgages and housing loans remain largely limited to the small portion of the population with formal employment and stable incomes. Ndezi (2022) also points to the need for government housing solutions to consider affordable rental housing as an alternative to ownership.

Potential for scaling and replicating

The Chamazi model has inspired similar efforts in other Tanzanian towns and cities, where CCI have observed a growing trend among communities choosing communal land ownership. Examples include:

• Kigamboni, Dar es Salaam, where the Federation has acquired 10 acres.
• Kinondoni: 53 acres purchased in Kibwemenda.
• Morogoro: 20 acres have been secured.
• Arusha: 100 acres were purchased.
• Dodoma: the Federation has acquired 10 acres.

However, Anande Uliwa (2018) points to barriers to replication in Tanzania, including a lack of interest among Dar es Salaam local authorities in scaling up housing cooperative models and lack of interest from formal financial institutions in funding similar initiatives (Anande Uliwa, 2018). At the same time, the Chamazi housing scheme has been well-documented internationally, providing lessons in alternative models of housing provision, incremental self-build, design innovations, and recognition of community-led approaches, as well as learning around challenges and how these were overcome. Despite slow progress and challenges (see Limitations section above) the initiative is widely recognised as a positive example of community-led place-based approaches to building inclusive cities, embedded in wider governance structures (Oates et al., 2024).

Moving forward, it is critical to influence housing policy to place greater emphasis on affordable housing solutions and accessible financing for low-income communities. The Chamazi housing scheme was established as a demonstration of how low-income groups can access land through collective action. It featured co-produced planning and design involving the Ministry of Lands, Temeke Municipality, and members of the Muungano cooperative. The scheme challenges conventional land size standards, which are often unaffordable for low-income households, and promotes incremental, self-help construction approaches. It also underscores the importance of revolving funding mechanisms managed through a cooperative model.