The seventh goal of the MDGs is to ensure environmental sustainability which includes as its targets: increasing access to new technologies to support sustainable development.
This is by making information about sustainable practices more widespread, and bringing new technologies to rural areas such that people will be able to have better access to information and employment without having to migrate to urban areas;
These would without doubt help to system the flow of rural-urban migration and as well stem the growth of slums. Good quality housing as a basic need is lacking for a sizeable number of people around the globe but seem most severe in developing economies including Nigeria.
Also few houses are available, especially in the urban centres, to the ever increasing number of workers in both formal and informal sectors.
To this end, the Oyo West Local Government in Oyo State is set to present an alternative approach to housing policies especially in Nigeria; and has come to the inescapable conclusion that housing is a social responsibility which cannot be left to the free play of market forces.
The Local Government, according to the Chairman, Prince Akeem Babatunde Salami Olukitibi, is of the conviction that there is need to strengthen institutions and overhaul systems and processes for a more virile housing sector such that a balance between the urban housing units and the rural housing units could be attractive.
Consequently, the Local Government has acquired over 100 units of land and commenced works, through private developers for the construction of decent homes both for low-income earners, career officers and eminent citizens under its GSM Housing Estate.
The new Estate is located behind OSADA at Ojongbodu, headquarters of the Local Government.
Prince Olukitibi hinted that the effort of the local government to embark on a social housing scheme in favour of less privileged Nigerians is a commendable exercise because it has started on a sound footing as usual with a near-perfect planning phase.
Said he: “Take it or leave it, we are pragmatically determined to ensure effective implementation and evaluation of the programme to make it work according to its stated goals.
“The Local Government is also recognizing the imperative of social housing as its responsibility, while also not oblivious of the fact that not until some key areas or inputs in housing provision are adequately addressed and re-structured through direct government’s policies of intervention, the scheme might end up the same way as those before it. The project is my heart beat and will be successfully accomplished”, the council boss asserted.
