Enabling access to housing in Jos, Nigeria : implementation and the new bureaucrats

This thesis examines the notion of the enabling approach within the context of housing provision in Jos, Nigeria. The research analyses how the notion of enabling has been deployed and why it has failed to provide solutions to formal housing problems in Nigeria and other developing economies. This study takes the form of a three-step analysis; it follows the sequence of the policyimplementations. Firstly, it examined the notion of enabling in respect to the debt crisis that occurred during the 1980s and the measures taken (SAPs) by the IMF to aid Nigeria's recovery. This aspect was scrutinised and findings agreed with previous research in showing that the conditionality imposed by the IMF further crippled the economy of Nigeria thereby interfering with social services systems. This study also concurs with previous studies in confirming that the implementation of SAPs in countries affected by debt crisis, rather than bringing about recovery, was instead the beginning of a transition to neoliberalism, which obstructed attempts to provide formal housing.Secondly, the notion of enabling was scrutinised in respect to the rise of neoliberalism and the reforms implemented in Nigeria as a consequence. Primary and secondary source material was employed to examine theunderlying premises of neoliberalism. The findings show that the neoliberal policy reforms prescribed by the IMF and the World Bank for Nigeria did not deliver their promise - economic growth and national development. For the Nigerian housing sub-sector, the neoliberal reform programme left fewer results than it had promised for the subsidised mortgage system.Thirdly, the notion of enabling was examined in relation to the transfer of administrative techniques from the World Bank, the UNDP and the UNHABITAT, to Nigeria. The assumptions of this policy transfer were empirically examined in respect to the provision of new housing and the improvement of slum conditions in Jos. The study reveals that the strategy emanating was unsuitable for addressing the issues affecting the provision of new housing. It was, however, suitable for the administration of slum improvement projects. But this had the consequence of side-lining the existing bureaucratic system in Jos and of limiting the participation of domestic financial institutions in Nigeria. For Nigeria, the novelty of this research lies in the approach adopted to investigate the overall effect of the socioeconomic and political development process on housing policy outcomes in Jos. Through this, the complexities surrounding housing provision were uncovered and the variables influencing housing provision in Jos were identified. A distinction was drawn between the variables: those that result from enduring legacies of national development process and those that originate from the local setting in Jos. Overall therefore, this study demonstrates that the implementation of public policy founded on foreign ideas that are coercively imposed leads to unsustainable policy strategies. This was confirmed in respect to housing policy and practice in Jos: ambiguities in the city's housing provision strategy created difficulty for implementers, uncertainties and risk for local private investors and mistrust on the part of beneficiaries.