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Overview

As a mega-city and the most populated city in Africa, Cairo is characterised by a high birth rate, escalating rural-urban migration and where the socio-economic services are centralized and overwhelmed, these generally poor migrants have no choice other than to create and develop their own informal shelter in the outer city areas that lay farthest from the reach of the authorities and from where they then search for better job opportunities. The expansion of these slum areas places an extra burden on the already deteriorated natural and unplanned urban environments. No government or public sector mass production housing units . inherited from the former socialist system . have been able to cope with the magnitude of housing demand nor is the private sector interested in investing in a non-profitable market. At this juncture there is an urgent requirement for new ways of thinking that address the realities of the situation and consider integrated socioeconomic long-term solutions for the informal settlements. Under the Egyptian-German Cooperation, GTZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit) proposed the Participatory Urban Upgrading Program as a possible means of addressing the problem which is based on stimulation, promotion and effective participation of local communities in the upgrading process. The Participatory Urban Upgrading Program operates at two levels, (i) the local level: through .Demonstration projects. to be applied to a limited geographical area. Ezbet Bekhit Demonstration Project is the case of the present study and (ii) the national level: the experiences gained through several .Demonstration Projects. will give substance, and thereby prominence to the participatory approach, so that the Program has an increasingly beneficial impact on the national policy. The experiences gained from Ezbet Bekhit Upgrading Project will offer the opportunity to examine the main concept expressed by the Program and increase the prospects of having an imp