Habitat in Algeria: Unmet Promises and Diminished Obligations

Asprovided in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 11, all States Parties are called upon to provide opportunities for person to realize the rights to food, clothing and shelter. Hence, the right to housing remains a condition upon which the realization of all other social rights depends, such as the rights to education or health, and a real benchmark to measure the standard of living of the citizen.

In Algeria, housing is a real social problem and a central political theme in various election campaigns from the municipality sphere, the parliament and in presidential elections. This problem prevails despite the huge resources dedicated to housing in the past 15 years, with the 2015 Finance Act allocation of 22,600,480,000 Algerian dinars (€ 189,166,000) to the Ministry of the Housing Budget, and the delivery of more than a million housing units in the period 2004–2009, according to official figures. No solution to the ongoing crisis is on the horizon, as housing remains the most important reason for social unrest to hit the country in recent years.

The housing sector in Algeria is distinguishedby three principal several characteristics, pointing to current issues to be evaluated on the discourse leading up to Habitat III:

National Housing Strategy Absent

Despite the emergence of new urban centers in recent years, such as the citiesof East Massinissa,West `Ayn Temouchent,Sidi Abdallah and Bwinnenin the capital region, and the diversity of plans (social housing, self-building, housing manager by youth-managedreal estate, rural construction, AADL/justicerent formula), remain the guiding formulas for the creation of urban plans for land occupation, are subject to constant change. The impacts of the delivery process and follow-up, and even the formulas themselves, are subject to abrupt deletion or modification without prior notice to citizens.

For example, the government established the National Agency to Upgrade Housing (AADL) and improve Justice in 2001,and, althoughthe agency achieved satisfactory results in its infancy, their programs were was quickly abandoned in 2004, only to return to work again in this pattern in 2013,by raising the second installment for the Promotional Public Housing (LPP)by 100%—from500,000 to 1 million Algerian dinars (€4,250–8,514.355), which led to utter discontent and rejection of this program among the beneficiaries,as they were unable to meet the exaggerated payment terms.

Untransparent Distribution System

The public housing practices are almost devoid of any distribution of social housing have led to largecitizen protests due to nepotism and corruption in the process that have deprived rightsholders, whereas the housing sector is fertile ground for illicit money, speculators and an incubator for bribery and corruption.

The distribution system largely excludes locally elected officials and civil society from any active role in this process in favor of high authoritiesof central administration. That practice often closedthe door to dialogue between the citizen and the administration and increasedsocial tensions.

Unmet Promises

Many are the promises that the authority itself has made to the people in the various political stages. In 2009, former Minister of Housing and Urbanism Noureddine Moussaannounced that the housing crisis was on the verge of disappearing, and the truth is otherwise. For example, the AADL Agencyhas reported that tens of thousands of Algerians still have not received housing despite the passage of 15 years.The population of the largest shantytown of the capital (Algiers) is “al-Hay al-Ramli,”whose residents are still waiting to realize local authorities’ numerous promises of resettlement before the end of 2015.

Meanwhile, Algeria is one of the few states of the region—along with Palestine and Turkey—that has submitted its“national” report [Arabic] to the Habitat III process.The reportaddresses little of these obstacles to “the full and progressive realization of the human right to adequate housing.” However, it refers to “combatting the informal economy in the urban milieu” (p. 26), and makes no mention of the problem of corruption that so afflicts the sector. The report reflects also the lack of civil society engagement in the preparation process, leaving a tremendous gap in evaluating the implementing the commitments of that Algeria made in the Habitat II Agenda over the past 20 years.

In the absence of an objective periodical assessment by officials in Algeria of the various practices and programs in the sector, the solutions proposed by the authority remain mere palliatives to the chronic housing crisis that Algerian society has been living for decades and that many governments have failed even to mitigate.