ABSTRACT
In Sri Lanka, the government's public housing programmes, like many in developing countries, were unable to mobilize the kind of money and resources needed, nor sustain the government's pledge in 1982 to provide a million houses. A new paradigm was needed that would be politically expedient and innovative. It would be grounded on participatory practices and on shifting the role of public authorities from providers to enablers, facilitating families and communities to provide for themselves. For the Sri Lankan delegation, facilitating families and communities to provide for themselves was a timely and more pragmatic means of mobilizing local resources, and fitted well with their new political ideology of 'people's reawakening'. The Sri Lankan programme had avoided simplistic problem-solving techniques, recognizing the complexity of shelter as a system involving people, actions, intentions and events. While these programmes ended formally in 1989 with a change in government, their legacy nevertheless is significant.
