Abstract

• More than half of the world’s population is living in urban areas and the global urban population is projected to grow by 2.5 billion between 2018 and 2050 according to UN reports. One of the most prominent consequences of rapid urbanisation in developing countries is the persistence and ongoing growth of informal settlements in major cities that challenge the sustainable urbanisation of the developing countries. Yangon is the largest city and main economic hub of Myanmar with a population of more than 4.7 million according to the Census 2014. About 10% of the total population of Yangon is now living in informal settlements (DUHD, 2016). Due to a lack of proper housing schemes, informal settlement largely took place in many parts of the new towns that were established in the urban fringe areas of Yangon during the last three decades. Currently, the informal settlement in new townships of Yangon had increased (World Bank, 2019). Among them, the largest informal settlement of Myanmar can be found in Hlaingtharyar Township. Against this background, the main aims of this research are to understand the controlling factors for the growing informal settlement in Yangon, to assess the housing policy regarding informal settlements and to find feasible solution. This is a primary approach mainly based on secondary data and literature. However, many interviews had done during 2012, 2015 and 2017. Intensive literature search and analysis were made. The limitation of this research is difficulties to conduct field work due to pandemic and security issues related to recent political changes. To substitute this gap, extensive media review was conducted. This study found that community participation is the best to solve the informal settlement problem of Hlaingtharyar in line with the sustainable urban development goals of Yangon.