The decade of the 1980s is marked by a major shift in the discussion of housing policies in developing countries.During the previous decade,most governments had upgraded slums and provided serviced plots to the urban poor.Although slum upgrading and site/service projects were big improvements over the even earlier,traditional policy of public housing provided by governments,they too were criticized for requiring heavy subsidies and relying too much on government efforts to influence housing markets.1 Out of this criticism emerged two new themes which shaped housing policies in developing countries for the last two decades.First, there was a deliberate attempt to make housing policies more market friendly,encouraging market agents to be more involved in housing delivery.And second,there was almost a worldwide effort to engage civil society and its institutions,such as community groups and Non-Governmental Organizations,in the housing delivery process.The government’s role,redefined in the 1980s,was to be that of “an enabler”,in contrast to that of “a provider”of housing :It was to enable market agents and civil society to perform well,and encourage cooperation between private and public sectors to meet the housing needs of the urban poor.2 For such cooperation to flourish,the institutional monopoly of government over the lives of the urban poor had to give away to institutional pluralism,whereby multiple institutions ranging from private firms to community groups,faith based organizations to political parties,governmental institutions to non-governmental organizations,could operate freely pursuing varying strategies to reach the urban poor.Institutional pluralism was considered a prerequisite for not merely housing provisions but to attain the broader objective of “democratization”which too had emerged as a key theme in the 1980s’development discourse.