 Good afternoon everybody today. There's been several mentioned about Singapore So I'm going to try to do justice in the five minutes that I'm given to talk about 60 years of public housing Development, so it's going to be quite you've done it before no not at all So this is my outline and I thought I will start with the context About Singapore. I do not know how many of us have visited Singapore, but just To ask what comes to mind when we talk about Singapore's its location its location is one degree north of the equator and for those of us Who knows Singapore Singapore is a city? It is a country It is also a collection of islands. There are about 60 islands some of them appear or disappear according to the tide and All of that is about seven hundred and twenty square kilometers and the current population is 5.8 million and with urban redevelopment the city much of the city's population has moved Into high-rise Housing over 90% of the population lives in high-rise and over 82% of that in Public housing and this is a public housing landscape But this has not always been the case during the British colonial Administration in 1947 the British Housing Committee actually did a survey of the housing situation in Singapore and concluded that Singapore has one of the world's Worst slums and it was I quote here a disgrace to a civilized community in that period of time over 50% of the population was Estimated to be living in slums and in squatter settlements and in 1960 with internal self-government the Singapore initiated a large-scale public housing moving the population from the slums to High-rise housing and you may ask why because the government took on the responsibility to provide Affordable and accessible housing to the lower income which until up to that point in time had suffered from Discriminatory action as well as Inadequate housing. Let me just quickly bring you through the kaleidoscope of the housing trajectory in the 1960s Given the huge backlog and the inadequacy of housing The emphasis was very much on just producing the numbers It was about producing the largest number of housing units within the shortest possible time at the lowest cost And you can well imagine that the provisions were very basic then in the seven in the 70s With much of the housing backlog addressed there was focus on quality on comprehensive planning introduction of the new town model and the neighborhood planning concept and as we move into the 1990s with globalization greater emphasis was on Identity to what's unique spaces designed with nature environmental sustainability low carbon development So we talk about high-rise in Singapore situation We have opted for high-rise why it is a case of a small island with big needs It's about meeting housing demand about providing quality environment and living while minimizing the land that we do not have and You find that many of the all in fact all of the public housing estates and new towns They are not just about housing In addition to housing there is a suite of Facilities and services that are being provided Markets shops schools sports facilities so on and so forth The concept is a total living concept of live work Play and learn within the residential environment. So the residents are able to achieve Many of their basic needs within the town that they live So if you look at this chart, you will notice that only about 50% of the land is allocated to housing the rest are for the services and facilities and as I mentioned the concept is neighborhood so The walking distance is a maximum of about 400 meters and there will be schools shops markets, etc in terms of transport it is to integrate land use and Transport using what we call a hub and spoke concept The feeder buses will bring the residents from where they live to the transport hubs of the Mass rapid transit or the metro stations or to the bus terminal for longer journey commute It to other new towns or to the city center or to the employment areas The important thing to note here is the emphasis on seamless travel journeys and in particular on the first and last mile Journey experience that it is convenient and that it is pleasant because the emphasis is on public transport for those of us who live in Singapore car car price or To own a car and to use a car is very very high. So the Policy option is to promote public transport whether it is by bus or Okay, so the other things that I've been given the flag so I wanted to highlight that from housing problem Okay to home ownership and this home ownership Obviously when we talk about housing provision You need to have housing assess and housing assess has been achieved to very clear target groups as well as eligibility rules these are all published and You know what you could get from the public housing sector and for those of us who are not able to afford Then there are rental assistance to help People because the policy is that it is shelter for all nobody should be denied of housing to help buy housing to purchase to move from rental into home ownership just like Mexico City, we have mobilized our retirement savings fun for the purchase of housing unit which Basically allows us to draw down on our retirement Savings fun to pay towards the deposit as well as the monthly Mortgage and therefore leaving intact of disposable income for consumption Taking to public housing living high-rise public living has not been easy for some residents because you have different Ethnic groups in Singapore. It is not more no ethnic group There are different ethnic groups and you have to learn the habits and the cultures of the other Raises because you are living in close proximity and for some for the early people the squatters and the farmers who had moved from their villages the compounds to the high-rise housing many of them had Coping mechanisms or adaptations to the new high-rise living environment and we have for example Farmers who would cook their pigs and who would keep chickens and ducks in their kitchen as they go. Oh I think this is reverse Okay, and these are some of the worries. I think I'm told to end So perhaps I should end with this what cities can learn From Singapore is that we had set a vision a Vision which is shelter for all very clear objectives and policies as well as setting the institutional the legal and financial framework and It involves starting with a long-term Planning process and importantly to start from the people from the people and their needs and to start from the Fundamentals as you have seen from the space provision and then refining them over time Thank you. I think Belinda. Yes, it is unfair to ask you to speak for five minutes on this extraordinary story I think most of us are just stunned about how you do this How do you pay for it? And how you did it so quickly effectively when other cities around the world have taken maybe a hundred or 200 years to go Through that cycle. I think the question for all of us is going to be How reproducible is this model and if not, why not and I think we can come back to that I'm going to just try to ask a question to both yourself Elias and And Belinda because Belinda you spoke about the cultural component of some of these like big Shifts in in housing type which had didn't come up before I think in the conversation and Yesterday one of these states we we visited here in Addis. It was very interesting that somebody was talking about I think this was a Fuzzle about how The way that it had been perceived that people would inhabit some of these houses and some of some of these estates It's kind of shifted and they've been these sort of like tweaks that people have made themselves Where they'd been like say a shared kitchens for example or some shared spaces that have evolved into other uses because people have Quickly adapted to the discomfort. So I just wanted to hear from you one how people have sort of Adopted to this like quick shifts happening and I also wanted Belinda to Maybe ask you to follow up on How did Singapore actually address? That those issues of of culture and how long it took to actually get to a point where you can say we've got a system That is perhaps That has got a set of lessons from elsewhere. I think to a certain degree like you mentioned People have to adapt to this new kind of way of living because of the spaces to begin with Most of the people particularly the lower from the lowest income group they come from a situation where they were living close to the ground And when they go up into these apartments The space are so limited So they had to fit into this kind of situation and We hear that the young most of the young are or they are okay, but the Older generation they have difficulty in in fitting in in this kind of situation and that in terms of Gadgets and technology there was some kind of modifications. For example, you might have heard that we have this injera The basic food and now we have new ways of Preparing this this this stuff this injera that fits in in this type of Condominium housing and the size of So far for example, it changed So they they advertise this kind of furniture is going to fit in condominium house so there is an adaptation in Production of furniture and then adaptation in the way people live And converting them sometimes For example, we have the tradition of having house helpers. So where do they sleep? So they have to modify The kitchen or the buzzroom sometimes Or the balcony where they make them they made some sleep So there is a two-way kind of modification on the one hand the space had to modify to fit into the way of life and On the other hand the way of life should motive to be modified to fit into the spaces I would like to first emphasize that Singapore's public housing program or development is still very much work in Progress is not completed. So it is very much work in progress and still learning by doing in terms of Accommodating and understanding the residents needs the different cultural background and the different users of The spaces there is public education So the housing and development bought at a very early period of time would issue magazines That would be distributed free of charge to all the different to the residents to the households to inform them about how to lift functions How, you know, utilities how the refuse shoot works so on and so forth about civic Mindedness of living together in high-rise high-density Environment so there is this kind of campaigns and public education and importantly it is also about research Research and development to understand what is actually going on on a daily basis So researchers would come out in One of these flats in in a state, you know And would observe what is happening on a daily basis and bring these back to the engineers to the architects to the designers to fold them into the next cycle of improvement Thank you very much. We're going to move to our if in a moment But so that everyone is aware we started a quarter of an hour later than planned So we're going to end around 6 15 so don't run away at 6 o'clock simply because it was on the program You now realize the program is an incremental project not unlike The city itself. I know that Jose has a sort of now an allergy to the word of mass But I think our if your experience in Pakistan and the sheer numbers that you're talking about is of enormous interest to all of us So please give us your overview