The Problem

The case of mRS ekobié, one amongst millions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs Ekobié lives in Lia, a village in Burkina Faso, West Africa.

 

The timber beams and supports of her house are rotten, and, because no bush timber is available, they cannot be replaced, so the roof of her house will collapse. To get a new roof, a vital necessity, she has to draw on her meager cash savings, set aside for schooling, medicine, and food, to buy corrugated iron roofing sheets and sawn timber beams.

 

These expensive imported materials provide poor temperature and sound insulation, and cannot support a traditional flat roof-terrace. They make for unhealthy and potentially dangerous housing (tin roofs can be blown away by strong winds, or even stolen!); they rust and need to be replaced every 7-10 years.

 

Like many families in the Sahel, Mrs Ekobié is trapped in a vicious circle of poverty and squalor, and has no affordable acces to decent and safe housing.

over 70% of Sahelian families lack access to decent housing

In sub-Saharan Africa, timber has always been used for roofing: beams and rafters of rough timber and branches, covered in earth or thatch, supported by adobe / mud walls, with load-bearing timber posts. Such roofs are subject to infestation and fire risks, and require constant maintenance, generally the responsibility of the women in the family.

In recent decades, however, climate change, deforestation, and increasing population growth mean that traditional building techniques are no longer feasible.

Therefore rural families have to dip into their meager food, health, and education budgets to buy imported and expensive corrugated iron sheets and sawn timber for roof-building. Such tin roofs have many disadvantages, especially the poor thermal and sound insulation, making houses too hot in the day, often too cold at night, and extremely noisy during the short but intensive rainy season. They can easily be damaged by wind and rain, last little more than ten years, and their very fragility is a source of danger. They have to be paid for in cash, which is often a problem for the many families who live outside the cash economy.

So many families under fragile metal roofs

Choosing expensive metal roofing sheets

Families are locked into a vicious circle of poverty and squalor, with no durable solution to the problem of decent housing; this costs local economies several billions of CFA Francs every year. Local economic conditions are also worsened as a direct result of the environmental cost of the manufacture, processing, and transport of imported roofing materials: the resultant pollution and carbon emissions contribute to the climate changes leading to desertification.