Changing urban environmental ills in slum communities

The provisional results of the 2000 population and housing census estimates that about half of Ghana's population lives in substandard structures. According to the census reports, 50 per cent of the total housing structures have mud/earth/mud brick as their outer wall construction material and only 38 per cent have cement/concrete walls. This means that under half of the housing units in Ghana are decent, durable and of acceptable standards. The average habitable life of these structures is under five years. Legislative review and stricter enforcement have, on their own, always had poor results in the area of environmental health management in Ghana, as in many areas. We have learned that the deployment of law, in its 'soft' form, to help innovative community-based methods of developing a governance structure for the management of environmental health (as also shown in other areas) is the best way of plugging the legislative and policy loopholes using the resources that flow from social capital mobilisation. We conclude, therefore, that the law has never been, and will never be, enough, and we believe that well planned and carefully thought-out social plans will have to be added to existing laws in order to make them more context-relevant and workable.