Abstract
This paper discusses the role of the United States government’s Agency for International Development (US AID) in housing provision in Zimbabwe. While emphasizing that much of the Agency’s support has helped expand and improve housing for low-income urban groups, it also describes how a US AID-funded project in Harare contradicted the Agency’s own principles of good governance since it was developed without the approval of the local authorities and used a steel-frame technology that had not been approved. This technology subsequently proved to have many disadvantages and the participants in the project find themselves with mortgage repayments that they have difficulty meeting, and poor quality houses within a neighbourhood that the city authorities will not recognize as a legal development.