The importance of bamboo as a construction material particularly for housing has received a greater attention in recent years. Building with bamboo is highly popular in Latin American countries like Columbia, Costa Rica, Equador and some parts of Asia like India, Bangladesh, Philippines, China. People in those countries have built very low cost to highly expensive luxurious houses using bamboo. However, it hasn't got so much attention as a building material so far in Africa.

Ghana is one of the developing African countries where the need of low cost houses is high, as the housing problem is one of the acute social problems associated with country's economic condition. The housing backlog is already 420,000, which is increasing with the short supply of annual demands of 120,000 houses.

Not only dwellings for people but also public infrastructures are limited in the rural areas. Only 76% children get primary school enrolment and only 37% to secondary school. Many children in rural villages are deprived of primary education simply due to lack of school in the village and people lacks mean to send their children to the nearest school which is located far away from the village. Such circumstances demand for cheap, quick and sustainable solution to mitigate the problems. Bamboo, due to its great versatile characteristics, would be a great potential for the solution.

From the lessons learning and experiences from other countries on bamboo housing, INBAR as a part of its mission has initiated to transfer of technology on bamboo housing in Ghana. The first phase included mainly two activities: 1) building of demonstration bamboo school building and 2) bamboo housing workshop.

INBAR with Bamboo and Rattan development Programme (BARADEP), under the Ministry of Lands and Forestry organised a housing workshop from 31 March to 4 April at Wood Industries Training Centre (WITC), Kumasi. The technical assistance for the workshop was provided by Bamboo and Rattan Network (BARANET), Building and Road Research Institute (BRRI), TRADA International and Ministry of Works and Housing. British High Commission Accra supported financially for the programme.

The main objectives of the workshop were: (i) to disseminate information on the housing and building system among engineers, architects, builders and development practitioners, (ii) to focus on practical aspects of Bamboo construction, by practical sessions on construction techniques and, (iii) to provide an opportunity to the participants to interact and share their knowledge and experiences on the use of bamboo in construction.

The main target groups of the workshop were engineer, architect, builders and interested professionals. There were 30 participants from 17 different institutions that include governmental organisations, NGOs, independent consultants, research institutes, university, building companies and bamboo factories. Additional 25 participants were participated in the last presentation day, which were mainly from media, development programmes working in Ghana.

The workshop constituted both theory and practical sessions and emphasis was given on two-way communications and discussions to make the workshop lively. The first day was mainly focused on introductory session so as to provide overall picture of bamboo housing and its development throughout the world. The second and third days included technical sessions on bamboo properties, preservation, building with bamboo, IPITRI construction model, Kumasi school design and construction and Jointing of Bamboo. The fourth day was for group work. The workshop was concluded on fifth day with presentation and publicity.

Each session was followed by practical session. Participants were taken to bamboo preservation site to practice preservation method and to the school building site to explain the process of construction. They were divided into four mixed groups of engineer, architect and other professionals. They were given a task to join bamboo. Each group was asked to join bamboo into different shapes with different jointing systems.

The four groups were asked to design the four different types of buildings (one type for each group) i.e. low cost house, moderately high cost house, school building and rural health post. They were provided with a checklist to facilitate their group work. The groups presented their works with nice designs and details. They also highlighted the prospects and constraints of bamboo housing in Ghanaian context.

The final day was the presentation day. Journalists and development practitioners were invited to join. The workshop was highlighted in media so as to let people know about bamboo housing.

Chief Regional Manager of Forestry Commission, Kumasi and District Chief Executive marked the opening ceremony of the workshop and Chief Director of Policy and Planning from Ministry of Works and House marked the closing ceremony. The participants evaluated the workshop in general as a very useful event and good management.