Jakarta's Housing Rights Project Wins Gold World Habitat Awards 2024

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Jakarta’s community-centered housing rights project was honored with the Gold World Habitat Awards 2024, on Thursday, January 4, by World Habitat, an international non-profit organization dedicated to providing decent homes for everyone. 

The World Habitat, in tandem with UN-Habitat, annually recognizes the world's greatest initiatives to provide decent housing for all.

Through a release on its official website, World Habitat stated that a remarkable informal settlement or kampung project undertaken by a group of kampung residents with the help of grassroots organizations was worthy of the prestigious award, thanks to its inspiring story of community resilience and collective action.

“Their inspiring story has earned them the Gold World Habitat Award, a prestigious recognition for innovative and effective housing solutions that promote social inclusion and sustainable development,” the agency wrote.

The grassroots movement managed to fight back and secure their right to housing despite facing the constant threat of forced evictions. They also successfully changed the city’s regulations that protect residents from forced evictions.

The project, dubbed Housing Rights in Jakarta: Collective Action and Policy Advocacy, was organized by three organizations: Jaringan Rakyat Miskin Kota Jakarta or Jakarta Urban Poor Network, a think-tank focusing on urban issues Rujak Center for Urban Studies, and a networking and advocacy organization Urban Poor Consortium. One of the kampungs that the three organizations focused on was Kampung Akuarium in Penjaringan, North Jakarta.

Leilani Farha, Global Director of The Shift and a final judge of the World Habitat Awards, found the grassroots movement to provide a space for residents at risk of eviction or who have been evicted to advocate for significant legal and policy change to be a fantastic project. 

The project, she added, was strongly rooted in a rights-based approach that focuses on systemic change, community engagement, and security of tenure. 

“These are cornerstone aspects of the right to housing. I note that community engagement is often not effectively centered on housing work, so I was particularly impressed with this aspect of the project,” she said.

The Jakarta Provincial Government inaugurated Kampung Susun Akuarium in 2021. Formerly known as Kampung Akuarium, the residents were forcibly evicted from their settlements in 2016 by Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, also known as Ahok. 

A year later after winning the regional election against Ahok, Anies Baswedan built a low-rise settlement in the area, later named Kampung Susun Akuarium.

RIRI RAHAYU

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