The Proliferation of Gated Communities in Ghana: A New Institutionalism Perspective

From the late 1980s, debates regarding the proliferation of gated communities have progressed from being US-centric to acknowledgement of an international research agenda. Despite their ubiquity globally, there is a dearth of empirical research about how developers of gated communities navigate the processes heralding the commencement of their projects. Previous studies have focused upon the mutually beneficial relationship between developers and fiscally distressed local government authorities. Such studies also reflect exigencies in contexts with privatised land markets, and local planning authorities wield unfettered control over urban planning and residential development. However, in Ghana, where gated communities are rapidly proliferating, the land administration and land-use planning systems are problematic. Hence this research examines how the land administration and landuse planning systems in Ghana have contributed to the proliferation of gated communities following experiences from key actors involved in the development process and residents who move into gated communities. Drawing upon new institutionalism and using a mixed research method, the research presents the case of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area. It finds that the institutional landscape in Ghana's built environment creates both direct and indirect incentives that benefit developers. Also, the challenges in land administration and land-use planning shape how developers understand gated communities, the typology found in Ghana, and the features that characterize them. Additionally, developers’ engagement with other key actors in the development process reinforces 'practical norms' in the land acquisition, land title registration, and building permit acquisition in Ghana. Finally, the research confirms the hypothesis that land administration challenges in Ghana significantly contribute to why people move into gated communities. Also, residents' demographic and locational characteristics emerged as significant predictors of their likelihood to move into gated communities due to land administration challenges. The research also reflects on implications for theory, future research and policy.Cambridge Africa Scholarship (Cambridge Trust

‘Landguardism’ in Ghana: Examining public perceptions about the driving factors

Landguardism has become a bane in Ghana's urban land markets. Previous studies have qualitatively explored the drivers of this phenomenon from the perspectives of both state agencies and landguards themselves. Despite the insights uncovered, understanding of public perceptions about the factors driving landguardism in Ghana is still lacking. This paper fills this critical gap by drawing on data from 172 residents living in both the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area and the Greater Kumasi Area to ascertain their perceptions about the main factors driving landguardism in Ghana. The results from our exploratory factor analysis show that (1) challenges with state-led land rights formalisation, (2) customary land maladministration, (3) government policy failures in housing and land markets, (4) reliable and cost-effective landguard services, and (5) challenges with seeking legal redress, are the five main drivers of landguardism in Ghana. The study concludes that mitigating landguardism must consider multiple factors within which the concept sits. The political and policy implications of the results are elaborated

Covid-19 and school closure: Examining the impact on private mid-range and low-fee private basic schools in Ghana.

The Covid-19 lockdown implemented globally to prevent the spread of the virus has led to the closure of schools. However, insight into the impact of the lockdown on private schools and the responses it has elicited is limited, especially across the African continent. This article examines the impact of the lockdown on private basic schools in Ghana and how they responded to the closure. Following "organizational ambidexterity" and qualitative interviews with nine proprietors of private schools in Ghana, the study found that the schools' closure had a negative impact on private basic schools in five crucial ways: disruption to teaching and learning, difficulty in retrieving unpaid teaching fees, inability to pay staff salaries and statutory payments, underutilization of existing assets, and the cost of storing unused stock. The article offers suggestions to the government to support private schools that are broadening educational access at thin profit margins

Housing and adherence to COVID-19 health and safety protocols in Ghana: Lessons from Kumasi

The declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic in March 2020 compelled national and city governments worldwide to implement a raft of health and safety protocols. This included directives such as working from home, practising regular handwashing, and avoiding poorly ventilated spaces. Adherence to these depended heavily on having access to decent housing that provides basic services. Thus, in this policy brief, we present the findings from collaborative research, which explored how household composition and housing characteristics impacted households’ adherence or otherwise to COVID-19 health and safety protocols. Primary data were gathered using face-to-face interviews with 27 household heads selected across six suburbs in Kumasi and housing professionals. The findings revealed that regular handwashing was the protocol most households predominantly adhered to, mainly because it is a well-known public health practice. The government’s suspension of the payment of water tariffs by households further encouraged more regular handwashing by households, although households whose water supply came from commercial water vendors were more likely to prioritize water for domestic uses such as cooking and bathing over practising regular handwashing. Housing deficiencies such as poor ventilation, sharing of toilet and bathroom facilities in some dwellings and the complete absence of toilets and bathroom facilities in other dwellings compelled some households to resort to public sanitary facilities, which increased their risk of contracting the virus. To improve housing conditions and promote greater adherence to health and safety protocols in future pandemics, we offer the following five recommendations: 1) the extension of an electricity tariff payment freeze to water vendors who supply water to areas lacking water from the public mains, 2) a review of some provisions in Ghana’s building regulations to ensure good housing design, 3) supporting the provision of housing with basic facilities, 4) promoting holistic urban planning and housebuilding and 5) promoting adaptive design of buildings in a post-pandemic world.Cambridge-Africa ALBORADA Fun

Advance rent mobilisation strategies of graduate renters in Ghana: a submarket of the private rental housing market.

The practice of advance rent, where landlords ask renters to pay a lump-sum rent covering 2 or more years, is gaining scholarly and political attention in Africa. Nevertheless, there is limited empirical research investigating how renters mobilize funds to meet this financial commitment. Existing literature suggests that renters, irrespective of their educational level, face difficulties in paying advance rent, hence compelling them to rely mainly on their bonding (family and friends) and bridging (employers and financial institutions) social capital to pay advance rent. Drawing on rational choice and social capital theories coupled with data from a novel (graduate) sub-market of Ghana's rental housing market, this article finds that personal savings remain the most rational current and future source of funding options graduate renters draw upon to pay advance rent, albeit some still drawing on their social capital. The findings demonstrate that graduate renters do not use bonding social capital in their future mobilization strategies after they have drawn on the same in previous years, although they continue to rely on their bridging social capital and other strategies to mobilize funds for advance rent. The study suggests the need to rethink rational choice and social capital theories to incorporate inter-temporal dynamics among different social groups and to traverse the current binary conception of the rental housing market in Ghana to consider different sub-markets and how they respond to existing challenges in the housing sector

Modular Homes as a New Form of Accommodation to Tackle Homelessness: A Case Study From Cambridge, England.

Acknowledgements: We acknowledge all the stakeholders who participated in the study and voluntarily shared valuable insights without which our research would not have been possible.In England, provision of temporary accommodation for people experiencing homelessness has often entailed using traditional construction approaches to deliver housing. However, recent experiments are using modular homes to provide temporary accommodation, accompanied by support services for people experiencing homelessness. Given the early nature of these trials, it is unclear what impacts these modular homes have on their occupants and how these projects in turn impact surrounding residents and businesses. We present a case study of the first modular homes for people experiencing homelessness in Cambridge, England, drawing on longitudinal interviews with the six residents occupying these homes. We found that the physical features of the homes, coupled with wrap-around support services, yielded positive short- and mid-term outcomes for occupants, including improved management of their substance use and money, skills development and readiness for employment, social relations, and a burgeoning sense of community, safety, and security. These positive outcomes have spurred wider interest, including the incorporation of modular homes as alternative temporary accommodation in the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy of Cambridge City Council, alongside a growing research interest in modular homes and other new schemes by the national government. We argue for further empirical studies of the impacts of different modular home projects, including those that admit more diverse resident cohorts and offer different accommodation types to establish a clear methodology for future modular homes projects in England and beyond.No funding was source