Thai Government’s Baan Mankong Secure Housing Programme

Description

"The Thai Government’s Baan Mankong (Secure Housing) programme had its fifteenth anniversary in 2018. Having supported the construction of 103,538 houses in 343 cities and towns across the country, Baan Mankong has become a global reference for community-led housing solutions, flexible housing finance and the viability of collective land tenure as a way of protecting communities from market enclosure.

The programme is based on the idea that the direct allocation of national government resources to communities, organized into cooperatives, can trigger collaboration and leverage resources from the same communities, local authorities, NGOs and development partners to upgrade informal settlements. Resources include infrastructure subsidies and housing and land loans. Collective land tenure by the community cooperative, either freehold or lease hold, is a condition to join the programme and access its resources.

The Community Organizations Development Institute (CODI) is the government institution in charge of the programme. It is a demand-driven agency that supports the process of community groups formalizing themselves into cooperatives, promotes different types and levels of community organization, and facilitates negotiation with other government agencies." (https://radicalhousingjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/RHJ_Issue-1.2_11_Conversation_Perez-Castro_167-177.pdf)

Source

• Radical Housing Journal, September 2019, Vol 1(2) | Conversations, p. 168