The production of new affordable housing in the Syrian cities : the possible role of procurement processes in improving construction efficiency
Abstract
Despite the Syrian government’s commitment to provide adequate and affordable
housing, through housing programmes implemented over successive five-year
development plans, there is still a shortage of affordable homes for low-income people.
This shortfall can be attributed to constraints at two basic levels: housing system design
(strategic level) and housing system implementation (operational level). Housing
policies and construction practices systematically lack the proper strategies and
sophisticated approaches for change.
In contrast, the UK government has adopted strategic and operational mechanisms for
enforcing change in publically-funded projects through a reform agenda (policy
package) aimed at creating innovative collaborative relationships between client
organisations, and private sector consortia. In this, the procurement processes were seen
as a key driver to stimulate change for effective provision of affordable housing.
This study aimed to investigate possible efficiency improvements in the affordable
housing supply process in Syria, focusing on the role of more sophisticated approaches
to project delivery, i.e. the procurement process. Data collected through a literature
review and interviews with key informants from both the UK and Syria, forms the basis
for a comparative assessment on how lessons learned from the UK experience can be
applied in the Syrian context.
This study advocates a holistic, top-down process involving the legal, cultural, technical
and financial aspects of affordable housing supply and concludes that addressing the
Syrian housing deficit requires modification of structural policies, principles and
strategies of government intervention to foster collaboration between public and private
sectors.