Banks, Sweat and Shelter in Addis Ababa: Sites and Services in Performance

In the 1970s and 1980s the politics of international development aid keenly promoted planned progressive development strategies as the primal method to produce affordable housing for the urban poor. Through this period, the World Bank used the so-called “sites and services” program to encourage staged development, flexibility, and the use of...

Housing Innovation and the Global Foreign Aid Agenda in Addis Ababa (1964-1993)

Since the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, housing has often been part of the foreign aid agenda of international agencies and non-governmental organisations. Housing concepts included in the development aid “packages” were often used to introduce new political ideas and economic paradigms that would affect dramatically the livelihoods of the...