Partson Paradza

Cooperative Housing: Do Synergies Work when Housing the Urban Poor? Partson Paradza

Though the pace of research on cooperative housing in Zimbabwe has increased over the past decade, there is still very little empirical work on cooperative consortia effects. Despite the vast research literature on cooperative housing (Chirisa and Munzwa, 2008; Butcher, 1990; Vakil, 1995, 1996; Hakizuwera, 2007; Mguni, 2007; Nyashanu, 2001; Mubvami, nd; Munzwa, 1999; Hall, nd and Chenga, 1993) there still remains an unfilled knowledge gap on the effectiveness of aggregating existing housing cooperative societies for the purpose of delivering site services. This research explores the usefulness of amalgamating housing cooperatives for site servicing using the case of Current Housing Consortium in Budiriro, Harare, in a bid to inform policy and cooperative management practice. In Harare, the idea of amalgamating housing cooperatives came against the background of failure by other site servicing options. Options which failed in Harare include some of the following; Government provision, private sector initiatives, public-private partnerships and individual cooperative initiatives.