This National Housing Policy is intended to arrest the deteriorating housing conditions countrywide and to bridge the shortfall in housing stock arising from demand that far surpasses supply, particularly in urban areas. This situation has been exacerbated by population explosion, rapid urbanization, widespread poverty, and escalating costs of providing housing. The shortage in housing is manifested in overcrowding, proliferation of slum, 1d informal settlements especially in peri-urban areas. In the rural areas the shortage manifests itself in the poor quality of the housing fabric and lack of basic services such as clean drinking water. The policy aims at: • Enabling the poor to access housing and basic services and infrastructurennecessary for a healthy living environment especially if1' urban areas. • Encouraging integrated, participatory approaches to slum upgrading, including income generating actiyities that effectively combat poverty. • Promoting and funding of resParch on the development of low-cost building materials and construction techniques • Harmonising existing laws governing urban development and electric power to facilitate more cost-effective housing development • Facilitating increased investment by the formal and informal private sector, in the production of housing for low and middle-income urban dwellers. • Creating a Housing Development Fund to be financed through budgetary allocations and financial support from development partners and other sources