Abstract
More than half of the world’s population now live in urban areas. The rapid growth of cities in the developing world, coupled with increasing rural to urban migration, has led to a boom in mega-cities, corresponded with urban poverty concentration in urban spaces. In this regard The SDG 11 making cities safe and sustainable means ensuring access to safe and affordable housing, and upgrading slum settlements is a strategic goal that should be tailored to developing countries context. Sudan is a developing country of a huge opportunities and resources as well as challenges, one of the critical challenges is the challenge of slums; 91.6 % of our settlements are considered informal as published by World Bank 2014. Corresponded with 4.3%population growth rate. The capital; Khartoum comprise 1% of Sudan area and has 20% of the total population of Sudan, the population of Khartoum during the last five decades has been doubled up almost every ten years. With about 80% of households in Greater Khartoum classified as being of low income, the cost of housing is unaffordable for the vast majority of households. This results in a wide gap between demand and supply manifested in over-crowding and massive growth of informal settlements. This paper aims to address recommendations with reference to Sudan case in addressing the challenge of housing and informal settlements, the recommendations on affordable housing and informal settlement are based on four main pillars macro level: urban planning policies, and community participation. In the Micro level: Funding and financial instruments, and promoting environmental friendly building materials. The approach is based on comparative study, lesson learned and best practices from three cases, two in Darfur Region and one in khartoum (Nyala in south Darfur, elfasher north Darfur and Khartoum ) in affordable sustainable housing and use of environmental friendly local material. The study recommended to Adopt incremental housing as solution for low-income groups in Khartoum State, Insure Community participatory processes; in the level of empowerment of community rather than just informing.. Planning legislation and planning laws in Sudan have very few contents that is related to community Participation, it should be addressed clear in the law.and Promoting the stabilized soil block technology introduced by UN-Habitat in Khartoum and Darfur. It demonstrated its effectiveness in preventing deforestation, its affordability and the good quality of reconstruction as well as Housing cooperatives, revolving mechanisms and establishing mechanisms for income generation and sustainable livelihood.
