Assessing building costs in a low income environment

Building costs

Local construction costs are hard to put figures to, as so much does not have a monetary value. However, we do know that paradoxically, over a 30 year period, a very poor family is likely to spend much more, in terms of time, effort and maybe money, on their shelter compared to a medium income family. This is mainly because poor families often use poor quality materials which do not last long, or build in a manner which is not durable. The poverty trap that makes the poor spend a lot on water, or building etc. is one of the things DW tries to address by providing training in poor communities to improve the quality of the built environment. This not only improves living conditions, it improves health too.

Costs are context specific

The unit cost of construction in low and medium income groups will vary enormously from one place to another and is extremely context specific. In the formal building sector using modern building techniques coefficients are used to reflect the distance away from urban centres to allow for greater transport costs. But with woodless construction, the reverse is true: in urban areas, costs can be twice or three times as much when the same (rural) methods are used because ‘local’ no longer applies – materials have to be transported into town and this costs money.

Local transport for most people means the distance that can be travelled easily by a donkey.

The table shows estimated costs per m² for an identical 32m² building in different villages in Burkina Faso in CFA francs (10,000 CFA francs = approx. 15 €). Individual local builders themselves made these estimates based on their knowledge of local costs and on how fast they thought they could work.

Detailed cost figures for two of the villages are given below

PETEGOLE	Quantity	Unit cost incl. transport	Total CFA francs
Large bricks	5 170	20	103 400
Small (roof) bricks	2 237	10	22 373
Wheelbarrow loads of earth	128	150	19 200
Water (N° of full oil drums)	96	200	19 200
Builders = 4 * 18 days	72	1 000	72 000
Labour = 4 * 18 days	72	750	54 000
Total			290 173
Total per m²			9 079

                                                                     

KOURIZENA	Quantity	Unit cost incl. transport	Total CFA francs
Large bricks	5 234	20	104 680
Small (roof) bricks	2 238	20	44 760
Wheelbarrow loads of earth	128	250	32 000
Water (N° of full oil drums)	96	250	24 000
Builders 4 * 30 days	120	2 000	240 000
Labour 4 * 30 days	120	1 000	120 000
Total			565 440
Total per m²			17 692