Housing as a Strategy for Poverty Reduction in Ghana

This book assesses the role of housing as a poverty reduction strategy in Ghana with references to selected communities. Specifically, the study seeks to establish the contribution of improved housing conditions in the poverty reduction efforts of the Ghana Government.

Data for control and experimental groups are analysed in order to establish the possible contribution of housing to poverty reduction. The control groups constitute households that have not received any improvement in their housing and living environment, while the experimental groups comprise households that have benefited from improved interventions using Habitat for Humanity communities as case studies.

The findings imply a fairly strong correlation between improved housing conditions and poverty reduction, suggesting that housing can be used as an effective poverty reduction strategy. In spite of its tremendous potential for poverty reduction, housing does not appear to have been mainstreamed into most poverty reduction programmes in Ghana or elsewhere, particularly in the developing world. Therefore, the study calls for conscious efforts by governments to mainstream housing into their poverty reduction policies.