Living up to the normative ideal of the human right to adequate housing in urban Ghana

Abstract

This article constructs a holistic narrative on the right to adequate housing in Ghana by piecing together the fragmented literature on the various dimensions of the right using the traditional “qualitative” approach to literature review. Results of the thematically synthesized literature reveal that housing rights in urban Ghana pale empirically in comparison to its normative tenets. The right is violated in all its dimensions, ranging from high insecurity of tenure to the cultural unsuitability of many high-rise dwellings. Major causes identified include the normative framing of slums as illegitimate, defunct and unenforced rental legislation, poor integration of modern and vernacular housing designs, and poor justiciability of the right within the domestic legal system. The situation in Ghana mirrors those in other countries across the globe—however, with local peculiarities—and points to why empirical work on the right within diverse sociopolitical contexts is necessary.

Notes

1 A compound house is a vernacular housing typology that commonly consists of many small rooms opening to a central courtyard with shared facilities such as toilets, bathrooms, and kitchens. This type of dwelling unit is very popular among low-income households due to its affordability and cultural suitability (Ghana Statistical Service 2014).

2 The United States is famed for objecting to the proposition of a right to housing at the 2nd United Nations Human Settlement Conference (Foscarinis, Paul, Porter, and Scherer 2004) and to date has not rectified most of the major treaties protecting economic and social rights (Foscarinis et al. 2004).

3 The term urbanites refers to urban dwellers or people living within urban areas.

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Notes on contributors

Gregory Amoah

Gregory Amoah is an urban planner and a recent graduate of the Master of Science in Urban Planning course at the Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom. His research focus and interests include housing rights, urban regeneration, religion-planning intersections, and global knowledge economies.