Photo 1 - A. The Baan Mankong Program makes the urban poor the owners of a na- 1 tional housing upgrading process

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1 Introduing : Baan Mankong A new housing program whih puts poor ommunities in the driver s seat in a national proess of forging omprehensive solutions to problems of housing, land tenure and basi servies in Thai ities... In January 003, the Thai government announed an important poliy to address the housing problems of the ountry s urban poor itizens whih aims to provide seure housing to one million poor households within five years. This ambitious target will be met through two distint programs. In the first, the Baan Ua Arthorn Program ( We are in Thai), the National Housing Authority will design, onstrut and sell ready-to-oupy flats and houses at subsidized rates to lower-inome appliants who an afford the monthly rent-to-own payments of 1,000-1,500 Baht (US$ 5-37). The seond Baan Mankong Program hannels government funds, in the form of infrastruture subsidies and soft housing loans, diretly to poor ommunities, whih plan and arry out improvements to their housing, environment and basi servies and manage the budget themselves. Instead of delivering housing units to individual poor families, the Baan Mankong Program ( Seure housing in Thai) puts Thailand s existing slum ommunities - and their networks - at the enter of a proess of developing long-term, omprehensive solutions to problems of land and housing in Thai ities. As part of this unonventional program, whih is being implemented by the Community Organizations Development Institute, those poor ommunities are working in lose ollaboration with their loal governments, professionals, universities and NGOs to survey all the ommunities in their ites and then plan an upgrading proess whih attempts to improve all the ommunities in that ity, over the next four years. One these ity-wide plans are finalized, CODI hannels the budget (both infrastruture subsidies and housing loans) from the entral government diretly to ommunities. Why now? Why Thailand? Sine the first Habitat meeting in Vanouver in 1976, groups around the world have looked for new ways to deal with the serious problems of housing in ities. Over the years, the experienes of this ommunal searh have sharpened our understanding and produed many different kinds of solutions - by government, by people, by NGOs. But twenty years later, the problems of housing and living onditions for the urban poor are bigger than ever. The big question remains how an we make the housing needs and the involvement of the poor an integral part of the larger urban development proess? This housing experiment in Thailand is the result of a proess whih has been developing over the past ten years, starting with the building of large-sale ommunity savings and redit ativities, then moving to the formation and strengthening of largesale networks of poor ommunities, and finally to using the managerial skills from the savings and the linkages from the networks to deal with housing problems at a muh larger sale. But Baan Mankong is only possible with the additional fators of inreasing demorati spae, a drive towards deentralization, in whih loal governments and loal groups have beome stronger than in the past, and a ommitment on the part of the entral government to allow people to be the ore ators and to deentralize the solution-finding proess to ities. 1 - A CODI update A publiation of the Community Organizations Development Institute in Thailand Issue No. 4, June 004 The Baan Mankong Program makes the urban poor the owners of a na- 1 tional housing upgrading proess Instead of obliging them to be passive reipients of welfare-style giveaways or someone else s idea of what they need, the Baan Mankong program allows poor ommunities to study the physial problems in their settlements, develop their own plans for resolving those problems and then implement those plans themselves, olletively, using infrastruture subsidies and low-interest housing loans whih they manage themselves. This strategy of making ommunities - and ommunity networks - the key ators in resolving the serious problems of housing in Thai ities represents an important milestone for the proess of deentralization in Thailand. The program makes physial upgrading a first step in a larger and more holisti ommunity building proess People-driven upgrading an be a powerful means of bringing strutural hange to poor ommunities - hange that goes beyond a few physial improvements or seure tenure. The Baan Mankong Program uses the upgrading ativities to kik off a broader, more holisti and more integrated proess of building people s ability to olletively manage their own needs suh as housing, ommunal finane, redit, environment, inome generation and welfare. Upgrading an mobilize people to look at all these things, beause it touhes the lives of every single person in a ommunity, not only the leaders or the savers, and gets everyone involved. The program puts ity-wide housing on the list of strutural issues whih 3 an be resolved through partnership By reating spae for poor ommunities, muniipalities, professionals and NGOs to look together at all the housing problems in their ity, Baan Mankong is bringing about an important hange in how the issue of low-inome housing is dealt with: no longer as a pieemeal welfare proess or a ivi embarrassment to be swept under the arpet, but as an important strutural issue whih relates to the whole ity and whih an be resolved. The ommunity upgrading program is helping to reate loal partnerships whih an integrate poor ommunity housing needs into the larger ity s development and resolve future housing problems as a matter of ourse. The program makes room for poor ommunities to reawaken the lost art 4 of itizen involvement in Thai ities When ommunity people do the upgrading themselves and their work is aepted by all the ity stakeholders, upgrading beomes a proess whih legitimizes their status in the ity and showases their apabilities as a partner in helping to manage serious problems whih affet the whole ity: not only housing, but environment, water management, solid waste disposal and soial welfare. In Thai ities, where top-down systems of governane and globalization have left most urban itizens feeling they have little say in their own environment, this is a vital way of reativating itizen involvement in ity development, and it omes from the bottom-up. SPECIAL ISSUE ON COMMUNITY UPGRADING IN THAILAND 1 - B 1 - C 1 - D 1 - E CODI update / June 004 1

2 Thailand s urban poor Total poor ommunities in Thai ities (as of 000) 5,500 ommunities (7.75 million people, 1.5 million households) Poor ommunities with no serious tenure problems 1,750 ommunities (1.6 million people, 0.36 million households) Low-inome ommunities with tenure problems: 3,750 ommunities (5.13 million people, 1.14 million households) 1,360 ommunities on publi land (36%) 1,400 ommunities on private land (37%) 990 ommunities on mixed land (6%) Poor people living outside established ommunities (laborers, room-renters, homeless, temple-dwellers) 1.5 million people, 0.37 million households Total Urban Poor : 8.5 million people in 1.87 million households (that s about 37% of Thailand s total urban population of.3 million people) Housing problems Communities faing some kind of evition threat 445 ommunities (0. million people) Squatter ommunities with no legal tenure 69 ommunities (0.18 million people) Communities under land rental ontrats 1,041 ommunities (0.34 million people) Communities mixing land rental and squatters,019 ommunities (0.67 million people) Poor people living sattered outside ommunities 0.37 million people Housing expenses Before the Asian eonomi risis in 1997, about 56% of the working members in Thailand s urban poor ommunities earned less than 10,000 Baht/mo. After the risis, this figure went up to about 6%. 6% of people living in urban poor ommunities pay nothing at all for their housing, and those who do pay for their housing pay an average of 1% of their monthly inome. Ability of the urban poor to pay for housing : 30% an afford to pay,000 Baht/mo. or more 36% an afford to pay 1,500 Baht/mo. or more 54% an afford to pay 1,000 Baht/mo. or more (Aessing the lowest level of private-setor housing options osts at least,000 Baht/mo.) 1Big housing problems give the upgrading option a seond life O ver the past few deades, Thailand has been transformed with astonishing speed into a modern, industrial ountry. This transformation is most visible in Thai ities, where formal planning and poliy making have been unable to keep up with the exploding urban growth. This has led to serious problems of environmental degradation, over-rowding and the propagation of slums in most of Thailand s ities. Today, over a third of Thailand s urban population lives in informal ommunities, some as land-renters, but inreasing numbers as squatters with no seurity at all. Of the 5,500 informal settlements in Thai ities and towns, over two-thirds are under inseure tenure situations. But though their physial onditions may be grubby and their tenure seurity tenuous, these ommunities represent an enormous soial asset. They provide a large, vital and flexible stok of affordable, entrally-loated and soially-supportive housing to the people whose hard work and entrepreneurial spirit has been suh an important ingredient in the ountry s growing prosperity, but whose human needs are too often overlooked. This is a housing stok whih neither the government nor the private setor nor the poor themselves an afford to replae easily. For many, the idea of upgrading these settlements and turning them into lean, healthy, green and seure neighborhoods - instead of eviting or reloating them - is a radial new idea. But inreasing numbers of ities and government agenies are realizing that when it omes to housing for the poor, improving on what s already there makes a lot of sense - eonomially, soially, politially and morally. - A - B What is CODI? In Otober 000, the Urban Community Development Offie (UCDO) was offiially merged with the Rural Development Fund to beome the Community Organizations Development Institute. The royal deree whih brought CODI into existene allowed UCDO s development ativities to ontinue, but greatly expanded the organization s sope, and paved the way for big hanges in how it works and how it relates to the poor ommunity organizations it supports. By making CODI an autonomous legal entity, with the status of a publi organization (under the Ministry of Soial Development and Human Seurity) the deree provides greater possibilities and greater freedom than a onventional government institution. Here are a few brief words on how CODI works and the diretions it s moving, drawn from a onversation with its diretor, Somsook Boonyabanha: I think it s important that CODI ame into being at the start of the new millennium, beause this is an institution that is trying to offer a new way of doing things and to promote large sale hange - by people. CODI s fous is not only on poverty, but ways in whih ommunities an be the key ators - in whatever development they want. We have a system of working in CODI in whih we try not to make too many deisions by ourselves. Instead, we try to reate spae for ommunities (in a very large sale) to make the deisions, so that CODI an truly be a publi institution that is owned and jointly-managed by people, as muh as possible. In CODI s first two years, we onentrated on building linkages between ommunities and ommunity networks (rural and urban) and promoting provinial and issue-based mehanisms for resolving problems these networks identified. In the third year, we foused on linking this newly-strengthened national people s proess to various government poliies. As a result, several programs have been set up and are demonstrating the great potential of people s involvement in takling problems of poverty and development in Thailand. Baan Mankong is just one of these. Others inlude ommunity planning, ommunity-based welfare, area and provinebased networking, ommunity-based natural resoure management, and poverty alleviation. Sine 000, about half of all urban and rural ommunities in the ountry have beome linked to the CODI proess in some way. These linkages provide an automati learning mehanism that is ountry-wide, and in whih lots of possibilities are on offer to ommunities. An important ingredient in CODI s ability to support all these initiatives and to respond quikly to needs and opportunities whih arise from these networks is the CODI fund. If we were just another development ageny, without our own fund, we would have a lot of serious problems. The CODI fund now has about.8 Billion Baht (US$ 70 million), whih is ready to make four kinds of loans to ommunity organizations : loans for housing and land loans for ommunity enterprises loans to networks for holisti development flexible revolving fund loans to savings groups or networks. As of May 004, about 1.9 Billion Baht (US$ 47.5 million) has been given in loans, diretly in people s hands. CODI support for housing : Sine 199, CODI has supported ommunity organizations with housing loans to 47 housing onstrution projets (on the same or alternative land) benefiting 6,400 households around Thailand. CODI (with the Chumhon Thai Foundation) has also hanneled grants to ommunities for improvements in infrastruture and living onditions in 301 environmental improvement projets, benefiting 68,08 families in 796 ommunities. Housing delivery options in Thailand : 1 Publi Housing : In this more soialist style housing system, ready-built housing units (mostly in the form of bloks of flats or small row-houses) have been developed by the state and rented out to people, usually on a subsidized basis, making the government a supplier of housing. In Asia we find this housing delivery system mainly in Singapore (where 95% of the housing stok is state-built!) and Hong Kong (where the proportion of publi housing stok is fast diminishing). Thailand s stok of publi rental housing, developed by the National Housing Authority, between the 1950s and 1980s, amounts to only between 4% and 7% of the total number of formal housing units in urban areas. Market setor housing : In this housing delivery system, private entrepreneurs design and develop housing projets (in many forms, ranging from individual houses to ondos to bloks of flats) and sell or rent those units at rates whih allow them to meet their development osts and turn a profit. This system, whih looks at housing not as an essential human need, but as a ommodity, is the predominant housing delivery today in Thailand, as in most Asian ountries, where the prevailing probusiness systems of finane and governane offer many inentives to develop these kinds of profit-making projets. But despite publiity to the ontrary, this setor has been unable to reah the poorest 30% of Asia s urbanites. - C - D What kind of housing development models are out there to deal with housing problems like these? People setor housing : In this housing delivery system, whih is beoming rarer and rarer these days, individual families onstrut their own housing, on land whih they ve bought themselves or been granted, instead of buying it ready-made from the real estate developers. A few deades ago, between 60% and 70% of the houses in Bangkok were built by the families whih oupied them. Building your own wooden house (or hiring a good arpenter to build it for you) was for enturies the Thai way when it ame to housing, and it produed an astonishing rihness and variety in the ountry s built environment. Community housing : Housing whih is planned, finaned and developed by groups of people is not just for the poor! In ountries like Denmark, you still find highly sophistiated ooperative housing projets being developed by groups of urban families who deide against living in isolated houses or apartments, and hoose instead to join with others to plan a new ommunity and to develop their new housing as a group. This housing delivery system works best in situations where there are finanial arrangements to finane them, legal instruments to give some legal status to the groups whih develop them, and some tradition of ommunal organization to support the proess. Most of the housing projets whih CODI has finaned during the 1990s and early 000s have been developed along these lines, by registered ommunity ooperatives. Community and ity housing : This brand new housing delivery system is having its debut in the Baan Mankong Program. In this system, ommunities within a given onstitueny link together, survey their housing problems as a group, and then enter into a ollaborative proess with their muniipal governments and with other onerned organizations in the ity to jointly develop a plan whih resolves those problems and whih allows all those ommunities to be developed, with government finane and support. The form that development takes in eah individual ommunity is flexible, and ould involve in situ upgrading, shifting to nearby land, land sharing or rebloking. More important than the form is the fat that the housing plan overs all the settlements, and omes out of a proess in whih all the loal stakeholders look at the situation and plan together. - E - F - G CODI update / June 004

3 A short history of ommunity upgrading in Thailand A This kind of expensive, topdown approah to delivering basi servies to the poor, in whih a single government organization does all the work, hasn t yet ome even lose to meeting the sale of need. Yet, despite its failure in one ountry after another, development agenies and national governments ontinue to promote this model, with little or no people s involvement. 3 - B 3 - C Another take on ommunitydriven upgrading... During the 1960s and 1970s, when urban renewal generally meant demolishing all the old wooden houses and building multi-story onrete buildings, evition was just about the only option on the list of solutions to problems of slums in Thai ities. Towards the end of the 1970s, reloation to sites and servies shemes or to bloks of subsidized rental flats was added to the list. It was also in the late 1970s that the onept of upgrading existing slums first appeared in Thailand. Bak then, urbanization was still something very new and very bewildering to everyone in Thailand. And beause ities didn t know how to deal loally with the problems of land and housing this explosive growth was bringing with it, the entral government set up the National Housing Authority (NHA) in 1973 to takle the housing issue on a national sale. In its first years, there was a lot of new thinking about the problems of slums within the NHA, and many good proesses were launhed. The NHA s Community Upgrading Program began in 1977 and was the Thai government s first attempt to bring basi servies and infrastrutural improvements to existing poor settlements, regardless of their tenure status. In the first deade the program operated mostly in Bangkok, where the problems were most aute, and only later in the provinial ities. It was a onsiderable breakthrough, beause it signaled inreasing aeptane of the idea that letting people stay where they were already living was a viable alternative to evition, if improvements ould be made to those settlements. 1 Cost-reovery model : The NHA s first ommunity upgrading projets followed the World Bank s ost-reovery model, whih stipulated that engineers design the improvements, ontrators build them and ommunities pay for them. But when people were told they d have to pay hefty fees for their self-built wooden walkways to be ripped out and replaed with expensive onrete ones, they said no way, and a strong, unified veto of suh projets helped nix the ost-reovery model early on. Subsidy model : The NHA then hanged gears and adopted a subsidy system in whih government paid the bill for infrastrutural improvements, not ommunities. The first subsidies in the late 70s were 5,000 Baht per household, and have sine limbed to about 18,000 Baht. But expensive engineering, standardized proedures and standardized designs for walkways and drains meant that only tendered ontrators ould do the work, and ommunities had very little say in how these projets were arried out. 18,000 households have benefited from NHA s subsidized ommunity improvements (but no tenure seurity) to date. Thailand s first wave of upgrading was short-lived, though. By the late 80s, eonomi boom and private setor real estate investment were reating new land onflits in whih poor ommunities were almost always the losers. 3 NHA / Muniipality upgrading model : In the 1990s, the NHA began devoting more of its energies to developing rental flats or servied reloation sites (some for sale, others on rental ontrats) to aommodate all the people being evited from inner ity settlements. At the same time, there was onsiderable debate within the NHA about whether it made sense for a national ageny based in Bangkok to be making deisions and managing infrastruture onstrution projets in ities hundreds of kilometers away. As a result of these disussions, the NHA began passing on its ommunity upgrading budgets to muniipalities, whih inreasingly took on the role of identifying ommunities for upgrading and managing the projets themselves, using loal ontrators. This deentralizing of the NHA s upgrading program to muniipalities lasted until the Asian eonomi risis hit in Community-driven environment ativities : The new frontier in the post-risis years has been ommunity involvement in delivering infrastruture to the poor. The Urban Community Environment Ativities Projet (UCEA) operated on a limited sale for six years, but gave a big push to the notion that poor ommunities an plan, onstrut and even help pay for their own environmental improvements, whih turn out to be heaper, more varied, more appropriate and better maintained than the government s improvements. The UCEA hanneled small grants of less than 100,000 Baht diretly to urban poor ommunities to improve the infrastruture and ommon amenities in their settlements, aording to plans they developed and implemented themselves. Beause grants from UCEA ame through ity-based networks, after an extensive proess of olletive prioritizing within eah ity, in partnership with other ity stakeholders, the program was an important partnership builder and ommunity-linker. In UCEA s first phase ( ), 196 infrastruture and environmental improvement projets were onstruted, benefiting 40,500 households in 0 ommunities around the ountry. 5 Community savings group based model : At the same time that first wave of upgrading was slowing down in the late 1980s, the urban ommunity savings movement was taking off in Thailand. Through savings groups, people in poor ommunities were oming together, developing managerial apaities and exploring olletive ways of dealing with problems they faed. The UCDO (CODI s maiden name) was set in 199 to support this olletive proess and to provide ommunity savings groups with finane that ould assist their initiatives but allow them full freedom to develop their own ativities. From working initially with sattered ommunity savings groups, CODI gradually moved towards helping these groups ome together and form networks, as a means of learning from eah other and multiplying their ativities themselves. The emergene of ommunity networks - at various levels and sales - in Thailand has been one of the most important developments of these past turbulent years. As a struture whih allows individual poor ommunities to move from isolation and powerlessness into olletive strength, the ommunity network has beome a powerful development mehanism in the ountry - a mehanism whih belongs entirely to people. Besides providing a means of idea-sharing, asset-pooling and mutual support, networks have opened hannels for ommunities to talk to their loal governments and national agenies, and to undertake ollaborative development ativities of many sorts, of whih housing and ommunity upgrading are only two. Through this new olletive proess, ommunities have began delivering housing and ommunity improvement projets by themselves, with loans from CODI. The prevailing eonomi orthodoxy holds that if the market is allowed to do so, it will initiate projets whih resolve whatever needs arise, and that the government s role is not to regulate this mehanism but to support it with finane and a supportive poliy limate. But when it omes to low-inome housing, leaving poor people out of this model has left a big gap between need and supply. In the new approah towards housing being experi- mented with in Baan Mankong, the model is similar: people develop whatever projets they like, to resolve their housing needs, and the government interferes as little as possible, but supports those projets with finane and a supportive poliy limate. The differene is that here, the work has a onsiderable soial aspet, and it s happening olletively, making ample use of this well-established ulture of doing things together. 3 - D 3 - E Capturing that energy Putting all that organizing, saving, preparing and networkbuilding to work in upgrading ALL of Thailand s poor ommunities... Undertaking an upgrading program on the sale of Baan Mankong is something that is only possible beause many Thai ities already have large, ative ommunity networks and people who are ready to make good use of the opportunities the program offers. The upgrading program represents a saling-up and formalizing of the hard work Thailand s poor ommunities have been doing over the past ten years, building their networks, olleting and analyzing information about their lives and settlements, managing resoures and arrying out a broad variety of development ativities in the areas of savings and redit, welfare, inome-generation, ommunity enterprise, housing, land-tenure and environmental improvement. In many of these ities, networks have developed lose working relationships with muniipal governments and other stakeholders and have undertaken joint development projets to resolve ity-wide problems of land, housing and environment. These initiatives have established the poor as viable development partners and undersored the enormous developmental power and expertise whih is ontained in poor ommunities. The Baan Mankong upgrading program offers a hane to apture and harness this energy and to make poor ommunities the agents of hange, not just the passive benefiiaries of development. The program brings together several important and very urrent development trends in partiipation, deentralization, partnership and good governane, and links them with this growing strength in Thailand s national ommunity proess. CODI update / June 004 3

4 4 CODI update / June 004 This upgrading program gets the people to do the doing A A handbook for ities : 16 steps to help ities olletively solve housing problems through the Baan Mankong proess... Baan Mankong has a target to improve the housing, living onditions and tenure seurity of 300,000 households, in,000 poor ommunities, in 00 Thai ities within five years. That s a staggering task, but the program is imposing as few onditions as possible to give ommunities, networks and stakeholders in eah ity the freedom to set the program s ourse and to raft upgrading solutions tailor-made to their ontext. The big hallenge is how to ensure that ommunities lead the proess, that loal ooperation between stakeholders beomes the key strategy for implementing the upgrading, and that housing for the poor beomes an issue whih belongs to the ity as a whole. Here s a brief summary of the steps in this olletive problem-solving proess, drawn from CODI s reent Cities Handbook. Identify the stakeholders and introdue program. Whether initiated by an 1 existing ommunity network, a regional ommunity ommittee or by CODI, the proess begins by oordinating with all the various stakeholders who will be involved in solving the ity s housing problems, partiularly the muniipality, and explaining the opportunities Baan Mankong offers, in order to establish an initial basis for ooperation. Inviting these stakeholders to visit other ities where the proess has already started an give a big boost to the proess at the outset. Organize network meetings. Community networks play a major role in imple- menting the Baan Mankong program in eah ity, so it is important that their ideas and understanding be worked into the projet s formulation, through ity meetings of ommunity and network leaders. Representatives from ommunity organizations in other towns in the provine an also join these meetings to exhange ideas, extend the proess horizontally and broaden possibilities. Organize ommunity meetings. The 3 networks then organize meetings in eah of the ity s poor ommunities (with muniipality if possible) to explain the upgrading program and help ommunities begin preparing for the improvements they ll plan and implement themselves. Establish a joint ommittee. A joint 4 ommittee to oversee the program s implementation in eah ity will then be set up. The omposition of this ommittee isn t fixed, but should inlude ommunity and network leaders and the muniipality, as well as loal aademis and NGOs and other loal development partners. The idea of these stake-holders working together in a joint ommittee is to build new relationships of ooperation, integrate housing into the ity s overall development and reate an on-going mehanism for resolving future housing problems. Condut a ity meeting. The joint 5 ommittee s first task is to organize a itywide meeting of representatives from all the poor ommunities, to inform everyone about the steps involved in implementing the Baan Mankong program, and to launh the survey and preparation proess in the ommunities Survey the ommunities. The network and joint ommittee will then gather detailed information about all the poor ommunities in the ity (or update existing data). Information about households, housing seurity, land ownership, infrastruture problems, ommunity organizations, savings ativities and existing development initiatives will be olleted. Besides gathering data diretly required for the upgrading program, the survey provides opportunities for ommunity people around the ity to meet, learn about eah other s problems and establish links whih will assist their olletive planning later on. Plan to develop the whole ity. The survey data will help establish priorities in the ity-wide upgrading program and inform the proess of planning housing and infrastruture improvements in individual ommunities. During this proess, ommunity leaders will begin drawing on other loal resoures (land, expertise and budget) to loalize the upgrading proess, to expand the irle of helpers and ollaborators, and to dissolve loal barriers to the program s suess. Promote ommunity savings as an important means of mobilizing internal resoures, strengthening the self-help spirit and building the olletive management skills poor ommunities will need to implement their upgrading plans effetively. Most ities already have savings ativities, but these must be deepened and expanded. Selet pilot projets. A ity s joint ommittee may opt to selet a few pilot ommunities for upgrading in the first year to provide learning by doing for the whole ity. Pilots may be hosen based on their readiness, the urgeny of their housing problems or the learning possibilities they present for other ommunities in the ity. Prepare development plans in the pilot ommunities. The next step is for 10 the pilot ommunities to plan their housing and infrastruture improvements, with ommunity arhitets or helpers from the loal authority or university. This planning should be omprehensive, overing not only physial improvements, housing and detailed projet management, but also soial aspets suh as welfare and the reation of greater eonomi spae for the poor. Approve the pilot projets. The pilot 11 ommunities have to present their upgrading plans to the joint ommittee for disussion and approval, before being sent on to Bangkok for final approval, whih by then is more-less ensured. Start onstrution. One a ommunity s 1 plans are ready, the budget is released and the people an begin onstruting their new housing and infrastruture, using either loal ontrators or ommunity labor, aording to their plans. Use the pilots as learning enters. 13 These pilots an funtion as learning enters for other ommunities and projet stakeholders in this and other ities, so the ity should plan how to maximize the transfer of knowledge, skills, ideas and mutual help in these projets to ommunity leaders and loal development organizations. Extend the improvement proess. Experiene from these pilots should inform 14 the subsequent upgrading of the ity s remaining poor ommunities, to be ompleted in three years. This ity-wide housing planning should also over vulnerable families living outside established ommunities, homeless people and itinerant workers, and should onsider potential future problems from in-migration and swelling populations. Integrate upgrading plans into the 15 ity s urban development. It is important that the ollaborative problem-solving proesses established in the earlier steps be integrated into the larger proess of planning the ity s development. This may involve oordinating with publi and private land-owners to provide seure tenure or alternative land for resettlement, integrating ommunity infrastruture with the larger utility grids, and inorporating the upgrading proess into other ity development programs, suh as the national Livable Cities Program. Build broader ivi networks. Community networks are strongly established 16 in less than half of the 00 target ities. So it is important that ommunities within the new ities link together and form networks around any vital development issue: ommon land-ownership, shared onstrution, ooperative enterprise, ommunity welfare, olletive maintenane of anals, reyling and solid waste disposal. Exhange. A program of onstant exhange visits between projets, ities and 17 regions, involving ommunity people, loal authorities, arhitets, NGOs and various stakeholders involved in the upgrading proess is one of the most important strategies for transferring and saling up the program s onepts and praties. More than just physial upgrading... What budget tools does the program offer? 1 3 As eah ommunity prepares its upgrading plans under the Baan Mankong Program, it is important that people onsider how to develop their settlement and their lives in ways that go well beyond simply improving their housing and physial onditions. Beause the program is working to promote a muh more omprehensive and holisti kind of ommunity development, whih brings about improvements to all aspets of people s lives, eah ommunity is required to take into onsideration - and budget for - all of the following four aspets of omprehensive upgrading in their plans : Infrastruture development plans 1 ommunities prepare might inlude suh things as land filling, paved lanes and roads, water supply and eletriity systems, storm and sewage drains, solid waste disposal, at household and ommunity levels. Environmental development plans might inlude tree-planting and greenery, house painting, anal leaning, ommunity gardening, waste-water and trash reyling, alternative energy systems, playgrounds, rereational areas, et. Soial development plans for the 3 ommunity might inlude establishing a entral welfare enters, youth and dayare enters, linis, hostels for poor or elderly members, ommunity enters, ooperative offies, multi-purpose pavilions, ommuniation system, fire-fighting failities, et. Eonomi development plans for 4 the ommunity might inlude developing markets or ommunity stores, establishing onservation or tourism areas, enhaning people s earning through ommunity enterprises, loans for small businesses, support for household workshops, or voational training. Infrastruture subsidies : The program provides subsidies whih allow ommunities to upgrade their infrastruture and environment, aording to priorities they set, using budgets they manage themselves and using tehnial assistane they selet themselves. The size of eah ommunity s subsidy is alulated by multiplying the number of households by per-family infrastruture subsidies, for different kinds of upgrading. (A ommunity of 00 houses, for example, whih is upgrading on the same site, will have a total upgrading budget of 5 million Baht (US$ 15,000) to work with.) 5,000 Baht (US$ 65) per family for ommunities upgrading settlements in-situ. 45,000 Baht (US$ 1,15) per family for ommunities rebloking their settlements or rebuilding on part of the land they now oupy under a land-sharing agreement. 65,000 Baht (US$ 1,65) per family for ommunities reloating to different land. Low-interest housing loans : Soft loans will be made available to families wishing to improve their houses or build new ones after upgrading or reloating - some via CODI, some diretly from national banks - with interest rates subsidized by the government so loans go to people %. In this way, the program is also exploring ways of using an interest subsidy to help make finanial institutions more aessible to ommunities, so CODI an play a greater role as a bridge between poor ommunities and the banks. Administrative support grants : A grant equal to 5% of the total infrastruture subsidy will be made available under the program to whatever organization the ommunity - or ommunity network - selets to assist and support their loal upgrading proess under Baan Mankong. This ould be an NGO, another ommunity network, a loal university, a group of arhitets, or a loal government ageny.

5 The Baan Mankong upgrading program is experimenting in a number of ways with partiipation, partnership, the ontrol of money, and how state finane is used as a tool - not only to improve living onditions in a ertain number of slums, but to reate loally-based mehanisms for resolving housing problems in the future, as a matter of ourse. Experiments in Baan Mankong : Ten ways this national upgrading program is tearing up all the old rules about how the government deals with the housing needs of the urban poor Makes ommunities and their networks the ore ators. Most onventional housing programs for the poor run into trouble beause they stimulate a government ageny - and not people themselves - to do all the work. And in most ases, that ageny just an t keep up with the sale of need. The Baan Mankong s strategy of using ommunities - and ity-based partnerships in whih ommunities take the lead - to solve the problem of housing Thailand s urban poor represents an important milestone for the proess of deentralization in Thailand, and a onrete way of developing loal apaities to resolve loal housing problems. By tapping the energy of ommunity involvement and partiipation to upgrade so many settlements, the program is building stronger ommunity organizations and boosting people s apaities to manage their own development. Is demand-driven rather than supply driven. Beause the Baan Mankong program allows ommunities that are ready to implement the improvement projets themselves, aording to needs and priorities they identify through an extensive proess of surveying, disussion and horizontal-sharing, the program reates a demand driven approah to ommunity upgrading. This is something very different from the more onventional supply-driven approah to solving urban housing problems, in whih the state onstruts housing units, resettlement sites or standard infrastrutural failities - all aording plans, seletion riteria and development methods set by the government. Lets people ontrol the money. Perhaps the most radial innovation in the program is that the money (and it s a big hunk of money, with a five-year total budget of about 0 billion Baht - US$ 500 million!) atually goes right down to ommunities to manage, one they ve developed their upgrading plans and negotiated their land tenure status. By plaing the money diretly into people s hands, the program puts ommunities in ontrol of the upgrading proess, instead of a government ageny or an NGO. The people themselves deide how to use the per-household subsidies. A ommunity may deide, for example, to set up a speial fund to buy building materials heaply in bulk, or to ut orners on land-filling in order to have enough money left to build a rehe. The program s flexible finanial management proess allows ommunities to make these deisions themselves, and to manage their onstrution in ways that math the realities of their lives, while its multi-party partiipation provides transpareny and self-assessment at every step of the proess. Makes more effiient use of state resoures for the poor. Beause this upgrading model makes ommunities the implementers and gives them ontrol over the finanes, it gives them the opportunity to make muh more effiient use of preious state resoures. When the money usually spent to onstrut the onventional government improvements is passed diretly to ommunities, instead of to ontrators, they an build those same improvements for a fration of the ost, and then have loads of money left over for other things. When ommunity people sit and plan and deide together how to use the budget, they get very thrifty and very reative: a thousand variations and innovations our naturally, bringing out all the untapped resourefulness, thrift and reativity whih exists in poor ommunities. If a ommunity of 00 families, for example, has a five million Baht subsidy for infrastruture, they ould use it to make improvements whih answer many more of their needs than the old standard upgrading, whih would have swallowed up the whole budget in little more than drains and walkways. Besides improving their roads, drains and water supply systems, they ould build a ommunity enter, or paint all their houses with oordinating olors, plant trees, lay out organi kithen-gardens, anything the whole ommunity identifies as priorities. Allows people to hoose their own helpers. Another important aspet of the program is that ommunities and the loal ators - not the government and not CODI - have the freedom to selet whatever persons, NGOs, arhitets, institutions or universities they would like to assist them in the proess of developing their ommunity improvement plans. The group they selet to assist them will then reeive an administrative support subsidy to over their expenses. The total amount eah ity reeives for administrative support is 5% of the total upgrading budget. In many ities, partnerships between ommunities, loal governments and other organizations have been established and have opted to use this support subsidy more flexibly as a ommunal budget for all aspets of the program s management. Promotes a broader onept of upgrading. The Baan Mankong Program uses finane to promote a muh broader, more holisti and more integrated proess of ommunity improvement. The program aims well beyond physial improvements and tenure seurity, to improve people s soial, environmental and eonomi well-being as well. Beause physial hange is something immediately tangible, it an be a potent means to bring about other deeper, but less tangible hanges to soial strutures, managerial systems and onfidene within poor ommunities. Promotes variation rather than standard solutions. In the past, when existing ommunities were upgraded, or new reloation sites were developed, the proess followed a rigid set of design standards and engineering norms, all in the name of effiieny. As a result, all their improvements and all their layouts looked exatly the same, regardless of where they were or who lived there. Who said that planned ommunities have to look like a mahinemade grid of streets, without beauty or any sense of ommunity? In fat it is possible to upgrade old ommunities - or to design new ones - in ways whih follow the spatial patterns whih an often bring suh harm and delight to informal settlements: winding lanes, houses built in lusters around quiet uls-de-sa, shady plaes to gather and sit, plaes for markets and temples, playgrounds, et. When ommunities plan their own improvements under the Baan Mankong program, they will work together to identify the soial and spatial features they want to preserve in their settlements and build their new lanes and drainage lines around them. Works to develop ommunities as an integrated part of the ity. In the upgrading proess under Baan Mankong, ommunities do not plan and implement their improvements in isolation, but as part of a omprehensive, ollaborative proess of finding lasting solutions to the ity s problems of housing for the poor. This involves surveying the settlements in the ity, and then preparing upgrading plans whih attempt to resolve the tenure, housing and infrastruture problems of all these ommunities, as muh as possible, within a few years. No one is left out. This is a way to link the housing problems of the ity s poorer itizens with the larger town planning proess. This is very different than the onventional projet-by-projet approah, in whih a few sattered ommunities may be improved, but beause they are neither linked with eah other, nor linked to the other development proesses in the ity, they have no strength. Nie little projets in nie little ommunities may bring benefits to people living in those plaes, but seldom do they transform the lives of the poor or bring hange at any signifiant sale. In the longer term, the upgrading proess an also trigger transformations in the ity s larger development proess, in whih ommunities are inreasingly aepted not only as legitimate itizens, but as valuable partners in solving problems of the whole ity. Changes dramatially government s role. In the most onventional housing programs, the government takes the role of planner, implementer and onstrution manager, leaving ommunities with little room for partiipation, and almost no role but as passive benefiiaries of solutions someone else designs. This housing proess, whih fouses on delivery, leaves no spae for ommunities to grow or learn, no opportunity to hange relationships, no sope for other soial developments to be sparked off by the proess. In the Baan Mankong program, beause it is ommunities - and ommunity networks - that make all the deisions and do all the work, the government is finally able to take the role of failitator and supporter to ommunities, whih now take on the role of delivering housing. And with suh a small oordinating staff to failitate this enormous proess, CODI ouldn t ontrol the program entrally even if it wanted to. 5 - A 5 - B 5 - C 10. Another important aspet of the Baan Mankong program is its broadening the sope of upgrading to over not only physial onditions but seure land tenure as well, whih is seen as the foundation of seure, sustainable ommunities. Beause the program deals with the issue of land, it also deals with the pattern of how people are settled on that land. It is up to the ommunities to negotiate their own tenure arrangements, as a preondition to partiipating in the upgrading program, through suh strategies as ooperative land purhase, long-term lease ontrats, land-swapping or user rights. These negotiation an be made individually by ommunities or olletively by larger networks, but the main emphasis is on obtaining olletive rather than individual land tenure. CODI assists in these negotiations only where neessary, or where they involve high-level negotiations with state land-owning agenies. Seure tenure : CODI update / June 004 5

6 3 Using the first ten pilot projets to nationalize the learning 6 - A Learning by doing... There are plenty of big onepts at work behind the Baan Mankong program and the larger strutural issues of poverty and land the upgrading proess touhes. But as the atual upgrading work takes off and expands in ities around the ountry, the ideologial disussions tend to get drowned out by the hammering of nails and the kershlugging of ement mixers. One big differene between this program and the more typial strategies for empowering ommunities is that this is emphatially a doing movement. The program s fous on doing has begun with these first pilot projets, whih were undertaken very soon after the program was launhed. The idea was to make these projets into learning enters, where people from around the ountry ould ome have a look, pith in if they like, while they gather ideas about upgrading possibilities and proedures that ome not out of any lofty onepts, but out of what they see other people atually doing - with their hands. This is a way of opening up the upgrading proess so everybody an be a part of it, so everyone an see that it s atually possible. The onstrution work on these projet sites is going on under many, many eyes: the volume of visitors to these projets is heavy, but so far nobody is omplaining about the steady stream of ommunity people, NGO workers, government offiials, visiting dignitaries, foreign arhitets and university lasses who are parading through these ten work sites by the busload! D uring the first year of the Baan Mankong program (003), a group of ten arefullyseleted urban poor ommunities in several Thai ities were hosen to be upgraded as pilot projets. The implementation of these first ten pilots is intended to reate a set of tangible models whih showase a variety of strategies for introduing housing seurity and ommunity improvements in poor ommunities. The pilot projets are just the very first step in a proess of assembling a whole range of sustainable solutions to the ountry s housing problems - through pratie. The pilot projets are also intended to provide an opportunity to explore new approahes, generate ideas and disseminate experienes in solving the problem of housing seurity for the poor in ities with very different strutures and problems. One of the important ideas of these pilots is to show that ommunity upgrading doesn t mean any one partiular thing, and an take many different forms - some of whih haven t even been invented yet! The Government has approved a budget of 16.6 million Baht to support the implementation of the first ten pilot projets. This amount inludes a per-household subsidy whih will pay for the development of ommunity infrastruture and environmental improvements, a grant to over the management and administration osts and a subsidy on house-building or house-improvement loans (from ommerial banks) so that families who take loans to improve their houses or onstrut new ones will pay only % annual interest. The ten pilot ommunities were seleted through a national proess from a long list of ommunities faing a variety of housing seurity problems. The hosen ommunities have experiened varying housing problems and all are learly home to the program s target group of very poor households with monthly inomes of less than 10,000 Baht. All have organized themselves to some degree through savings and redit or other development ativities over the past several years, with the assistane of various NGOs and government agenies, and all of them have some history of working with other organizations. All but two of the ten projets are loated on state-owned land - a tenure situation whih offers the advantages of being easier to implement, less likely to get stuk in the working out of tenure arrangements and more likely to beome a good examples for other ommunities on state owned land of various sorts. The details of the budget for these first ten pilot projets is outlined in the table below. What kind of upgrading is possible? Instead of promoting a single development model for obtaining seure land tenure and improving housing and living onditions, a range of options are being tried and tested by ommunities. As the work spreads out and sales up, these strategies are being expanded, refined and adapted to suit the partiular needs, aspirations and onditions in eah ity and eah ommunity. The five broad strategies listed below are by no means the final word on what s possible, but they make a good starting list of options for ommunities under the Baan Mankong Program : Upgrading : Slum upgrading is a way of improving the physial environment and basi servies in existing ommunities, while preserving their loation, harater and soial strutures. Besides improving the physial onditions and quality of life in these poor ommunities, the physial improvements made under an upgrading proess an at as a springboard for other kinds of development among their members, like inome generation, welfare, et. Rebloking : Rebloking is a more systemati way of improving the infrastruture and physial onditions in existing ommunities by making adjustments to the layout to install sewers, drains, walkways and roads, but doing so in ways whih ensure the ontinuity of the ommunity. Communities an then develop their housing gradually, at their own pae. When ommunities opt for rebloking, some houses may have to be moved and partially or entirely reonstruted to improve aess, or some lanes may have to be re-aligned to enable drainage lines, water supply systems or sewers to be onstruted. Rebloking is often undertaken in ases where ommunities have negotiated to buy or obtain long-term leases for the land they already oupy. In both ases, the proess of rebloking is an important step in the progress towards land tenure seurity and improved housing. Land sharing : Land-sharing is a housing and settlement improvement strategy whih allows both the land-owner and the ommunity people living on that land to benefit by dividing the land and allowing the ommunity to buy or rent a portion of the land for their housing, in exhange for agreeing to return a portion of the land to the landowner to develop ommerially. In land sharing, the ommunity gets seure tenure via land-ownership or long term leasehold, and the people an then work together to design and onstrut their own new housing on their portion of the site. Reonstrution : In this strategy, existing ommunities are totally rebuilt on the same land, or on land that is nearby, within the same general area, either under longterm lease or outright land purhase. The seurity of land tenure at the new site provides ommunity people with a very strong inentive to invest in their housing, through rebuilding or new onstrution. Although the reonstrution option involves making onsiderable physial hanges within the ommunity and requires some adaptations to a new environment, the strategy allows people to ontinue living in the same area and to remain lose to their plaes of work and this ontinuity is a ruial ompensation for the expense and diffiulty reonstrution involves. Reloation : The greatest advantage of the reloation strategy is that it usually omes with housing seurity, through land use rights, outright ownership or some kind of long-term land lease. But reloation sites are often far from existing ommunities, job opportunities, support strutures and shools. Community members who want to keep their old jobs or attend the same shools must bear the burden of additional traveling time and expense and must adapt themselves to a new environment. In ases of reloation, ommunities fae the ost of reonstruting their houses at the new site, and in some ases the additional burden of land purhase payments. But tenure seurity tends to be a big inentive to invest in housing and environmental development at the new ommunity. 10 Pilots at a glane (All figures given in Thai Baht. Exhange rate as of May 004 : US$ 1 = 40 Thai Baht) Total budget to over all ten pilot projets : Infrastruture subsidy 61.9 million Baht (US$ 1.55 million) Housing loan interest rate subsidy million Baht (US$ 1.54 million) Budget for management and administration 3.1 million Baht (US$ 77,500) Total government subsidy million Baht (US$ 3.17 million) Community City Land owned by (after projet) Number of households Terms of land tenure after the projet Infrastruture osts House osts (average unit ost) Total loans for housing (from CODI) 1. Charoenhai Nimitmai Bangkok Community Co-op 89 Cooperative ownership.45 million 50,000 0 (used savings). Bonkai Bangkok Crown Property Bureau 0 Long-term lease to o-op 8.9 million 00, million 3. Klong Toey Blok 7-1 Bangkok Port Authority 114 Short-term lease 10.5 million 16, million 4. Kao Pattana Bangkok Crown Property Bureau 9 Long-term lease 794, , million 5. Ruam Samakkee Bangkok Crown Property Bureau 14 Long-term lease.7 million 180, million 6. Klong Lumnoon Bangkok Community Co-op 49 Cooperative ownership 3.48 million 17, million 7. Boon Kook Uttaradit Muniipality 14 Long-term lease 0 (from NHA) 99, million 8. Laem Rung Reung Rayong Treasury Department 67 Long-term lease 1.34 million 50,000 91, Kaoseng Songkhla Treasury Department 480 Long-term lease 9.6 million 50, million 10. Kolok Village Narathiwat State Railways 310 Long-term lease 31 million 5, million TOTAL 1,588 units million million 6 CODI update / June 004