The Establishment of the Global Bamboo Housing Partnership (GBHP)

On the 28th-30th August 2006 the International Workshop on Bamboo Housing organized by the International Network of Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR)adopted a global partnership to develop and promote bamboo housing around the world.

The primary purpose of the workshop was to address the problems of inadequate Housing throughout the developing world and to implement an official partnership forum for a global network of bamboo housing.

1. The following problems were identified;-

• 1.1 billion people live in inadequate housing conditions in urban areas alone and an estimated 100 million people are homeless around the world, with increasing proportions of women and children. To improve housing conditions to acceptable levels some 95,000 new urban housing units have to be constructed each day in developing countries (UN habitat report ).
• In addition, natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes kill thousands of people and make millions homeless. The UN disaster assessment report 2006 reveals that poor building techniques and low quality building materials contribute greatly to the large number of people killed and the high level of damage.
• The majority of the building materials currently used in the houses are either unsustainable or environmentally unfriendly and unaffordable for poor people. The majority of the developing countries have to import building materials from other countries spending a hug sum of money. This has significant affect on the gross national economy of the countries.

2. The workshop recognized bamboo as an alternative and building material which can ameliorate these problems;

• Its remarkable growth rate and versatile properties have made it one an excellent building material. Bamboo has strength, flexibility and exceptional durability when combined with other technologies and can be used in many construction applications l.
• Despite its excellent quality as a building material, it is also one of the cheapest materials generally costing less than 1.00 USD per culm in most of the countries where it grows.
• It is known as highly resistant to earthquake shocks due to flexible strong longitudinal fibers. According to the TRADA's earthquake testing, bamboo house can resist up to 7.8 Richter scale. There are instances in multiple countries where bamboo houses have resisted earth quacks more than 7.8 on the Richter Scale, whilst concrete houses in the same proximity collapsed.
• Bamboo housing has been a well established culture in some Latin American countries where even wealthy people choose to live in bamboo houses. This has assisted the shifting the negative image of bamboo being "a poor men's timber".
  

3. The worldwide promotion of bamboo housing has been severly limited by the following factors;

• Image of bamboo: One of the main problems to promote bamboo hosing is people's negative perception. In the most of the developing countries except a few countries in Latin America, people consider bamboo as a "poor men's timber" and living in a bamboo house carries a social stigma of being poor.
• Scattered efforts: There are independent efforts from various individuals and institutions to promote bamboo housing which is not enough to promote bamboo housing at global scale, the workshop declared to develop the global strategy for partnership for global housing programme.
• Resource availability: Of more than 1200 species of bamboo, a limited number of bamboos are tested and approved for the construction. The mechanical properties of bamboo vary with species and location, therefore research and lab testing expensive and time consuming. This has significantly inhibited the development of a large scale bamboo housing project.
• Proper use: There is a serious threat that improper and non-scientific uses of bamboo for housing, and therefore quick deterioration of houses, may negatively affect the overall image of bamboo for building in the future. There is an urgent need to educate the public and building professionals at a global level and raise awareness to avoid such a threat.
• Technical enhancement: Bamboo is a non-dimensional material. Bamboo is hollow, not uniform in size and shape that make difficulties to use it as a substitute of timber. Bamboo requires technical enhancements and improved processing technology for its proper use.
• Building code and standards: Although there is an international bamboo building code, the national building codes for bamboo are lacking in many countries. Lack of the codes and standards will limit its promotion especially to get building permission from the governments and to secure loans from the banks.

4. To overcome the limitations, the workshop realized a joint effort and declared a global partnership. The main themes of the global partnership are as follows -

• To establish the Global Bamboo Housing Partnership (GBHP) with various international, governmental, non-governmental and private institutions who have been directly or indirectly working or contributing to the promotion of bamboo housing around the world to work for the common goal and understanding.
• The main objective of the GBHP is to promote bamboo as an energy efficient, sustainable building material and where appropriate, to provide solutions to the shortage of proper housing for the poor and to contribute to MDG 7 target 11 that aims to improve the lives of slum dwellers with environmentally sustainable development by 2020.
• The GBHP will prepare a global bamboo housing strategy. The strategy will be drafted by a taskforce and will widely be circulated among the partners for necessary comments and suggestions. The final strategy will be prepared and approved by the endorsed partners.
• Based on the approved strategy by the GBHP, the partners in collaboration with INBAR will develop various projects depending upon their areas of interests and expertise and will submit them to the donors. The partners who develop the project will also be responsible for implementation in close collaboration with INBAR.
• The GBHP will promote the image of bamboo housing by providing easy technical solutions for the rural people solutions such as preservation techniques, jointing, building manuals as well as by demonstrating improved quality houses in different countries. It will also encourage government and environmental related institutions to build offices, schools, clinics using bamboo as the key building material.
• The GBHP will build local capacity to solve the local problems by establishing regional centers in all the continents. The local technological centers will be run by the partners in collaboration with INBAR. The GBHP will prepare simple manuals on how to use bamboo for construction in different languages. The GBHP will also encourage local colleges, training centers or universities to consider bamboo architecture in their curricula.
• The GBHP will enhance scientific research through partnership with research institutes for the development of simple technologies on bamboo preservation, bamboo joints and the local testing of bamboo properties (to make a simple judgment to know suitability of a particular bamboo species to use for housing). The GBHP will work on cataloging, listing and publishing the right type of bamboo available in different regions or countries. The developed technologies will be converted into simple and easy to use manual in different languages.
• The GBHP will strategically work with private sectors to commercialize the bamboo housing. The emphasis will be given to produce housing materials in the developing countries (in the south) with the market target in the developed countries (in the north)
• The initiative will, at the outset, make use of the partners' in-kind contributions (including sites, staff resources, information and knowledge) to consolidate previous and ongoing activities and outputs. All partners will commit to making efforts in fundraising to expand the scope of the initiative to wider geographical areas and working fields.
• The initiative remains open to future cooperation with other relevant initiatives and partners. The GBH partners will actively interact through workshop, seminar, emails and other electronic forums.

5. Endorsement of the global partnership

Please contact Shyam Paudel (spaudel@inbar.int) for the partnership endorsement.