Nashetu-E-Maa
Practical Action
How costly is ‘affordable’?
Practical Action aims to increase access to affordable shelter but what is affordable to one is
expensive to another. The estimated cost of some of the technology options outlined above
are given below at 1999 prices, when the exchange rate was about 100 Kenyan shillings to 1
pound sterling.
Ferro-cement panel wall under G.C.I sheet roof: 3 roomed house.
Description of materials
Quantity
Unit Cost
(Ksh)
Total Cost
(Ksh)
GCI sheets
Building posts
Roof ridges
Chicken wire 6' x 1"
Ordinary Portland Cement
Roofing nails
Ordinary nails
Timber cypress 3" x 2"
Timber cypress 2" x 2"
Timber cypress 6" x 1"
Wood preservative
Door frame (external) T-door
Internal doors and frames (Batten)
Timber windows and frames 21/2" x 21/2"
Binding wire
Gloss paint
Undercoat paint
Sand
Hard core
Hinges 4"
Pad and tower bolts
20
35
5
2 rolls
35 bags
5 kgs
15 kgs
200ft
200ft
100ft
5 litres
1
2
4
3kgs
4 litres
4 litres
2 lorry loads
1 lorry load
9
6
310
120
150
3000
430
160
55
9
7
9
150
1600
1100
650
70
550
350
5,000
2,000
40
40
Costs
Labour
Total
6200
4200
750
6000
15050
800
825
1800
1400
900
750
1600
2200
2600
210
2200
1400
10,000
2,000
360
240
_______
61,485
15,000
76,485
Calculated in a similar manner a 3 roomed rammed earth house under GCI sheet roof costs
44,840 KES; a Stabilised Soil Block walled house under a GCI sheets roof costs 48,050; a
ferro-cement skin roof and walled house costs 47,675 KES. The addition of a ferro-cement
skin roof costs 15,210 KES whilst a water storage jar is estimated to cost 7,680 KES. These
costings will vary quite considerably, apart from variations in house size, costs incurred in
transporting materials to site can be a significant portion of overall costs.
So what? Project impact and sustainability
Having intervened in housing development and worked in partnership to develop new
technological options the Practical Action team has been considering the effect of its work and
has been asking what happens next, when the project ends. There are encouraging signs of
people’s increased ability to fund their own housing improvements and to take the initiative in
improving their built environment. During an impact study 9 out of the 28 project beneficiaries
questioned had built separate new kitchens and 8 had improvised guttering to improve their
rainwater catchment.
The capacity of women as individuals and collectives has developed considerably as the project
activities have progressed. The following are some of the benefits, which are now evident:
• the increased ability of women to fund their own housing improvements. The Naning’o
Women’s Group improved their houses in 1992/93. They were subsequently given a
blockmaking machine and have been producing blocks in order to build rental housing
on a collectively owned roadside plot;
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