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Two major themes of Botswana's Fifth and Sixth Development Plans (1976–1991) have been the creation of employment and rural development. As one means of fulfilling both objectives the Government of Botswana explicitly decided that labour-intensive methods should be used by District Councils to improve and maintain the 11,000 km of non-gazetted roads for which they were responsible. To this end, between 1980 and 1982, a Pilot Project was carried out to examine the potential of labour-intensive methods. In 1982, following its evaluation of the Pilot Project, the Ministry of Local Government and Lands decided that the methods developed during the Pilot Project should be replicated throughout Botswana. As a result District Council Roads Units have been established in all districts of Botswana. Over 2,000 people are employed.

From the late 1950s to the late 1970s the use of industrialised methods of building in the U.K. took place almost entirely in the public sector: local authorities and new towns. Having first established this proposition, the paper continues to describe in quantitative terms: (i) the proportion of all local authority housing built by industrialised methods; (ii) the distribution of industrialised building among regions and local authorities; (iii) the type of dwelling produced in relation to the form of the building, the method of construction and the material used; (iv) the major systems involved, and finally (v) the costs. A summary of the major findings of such a quantitative analysis may be found in the conclusions.

The UK building industry has been held to be reasonably resistant to the adoption of advanced technology. In the period 1964 to 1977 this may not strictly be said of several large building companies as the overwhelming majority of industrialised dwellings were produced by very large national or regional contractors. After substantiating this proposition the paper then proceeds to outline the five sets of internal reasons why industrialised building developed: first, internal technical developments combined with the increase in the use of similar building types and the side effects of government policies on other issues; secondly, specific government action related to industrialised building intimated or ensured large markets which would protect the initial investment and lead to both higher turnover and high profit; thirdly, theoretical premises related to the benefits of prefabrication; fourthly, particular stress on the need to increase labour output in the face of a shortage of craft skills; and, fifthly, the effect of fashion.

Between 1965 and 1977 industrialised methods of building were used to construct 27% of the dwellings constructed in the UK public housing sector; in 1969 the proportion was as high as 42%. Technical efficiency is achieved if a technologically sound product is obtained at an economically competitive price. The paper deals first with the extent to which the technical efficiency of industrialised building affected the decline in their use. Secondly, we will discuss technical efficiency in the long run since it is still important to current and future housing policy.

During the 1950s and 1960s policies based on the principles of industrialised building were introduced in many countries. The paper will summarise the data on the extent to which industrialised methods of building were used in the countries of Eastern and Western Europe. The major conclusion from the paper is that the widespread and continued use of industrialised building was directly related to the scale of the public housing sector.