A/HRC/10/7 page 12 29. In most developing countries, especially those which had passed through intense processes of urbanization in the 1960s and 1970s (like Brazil and other Latin American countries) the rolling back of the State interrupted fragile attempts to establish welfare systems. The result was, in most cases, an increase in poverty and informal arrangements, worsening the living standards of the poor.35 30. It should, however, be noted that while provision of public housing was cut throughout Europe, in addition to the changes in governance of housing systems and the delivery of housing policies, States continued to facilitate home ownership for lower income households.36 B. Structural adjustments 31. The same policy preferences for reduced State intervention initially adopted by developed countries were gradually spread through the work of international organizations, donors, and other actors influencing the policies of developing countries. Thus, whether as a matter of imitation or imposition through conditionalities of aid or loans, particularly in the context of structural adjustment programmes, critics argue that models of development that were put in place in many developing countries caused governments to lessen their efforts concerning economic, social and cultural rights, including housing.37 In Ghana for instance the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank sponsored structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) were seen to have pushed real estate prices beyond affordable levels for a significant proportion of the population.38 32. The 1980s, when the IMF and World Bank were mobilized to help the restructuring of the economies of many developing countries in order to reduce their debt, were the years when slums grew explosively, attracting not only poor rural migrants, but also millions of city-dwellers displaced or impoverished by the impact of these adjustments.39 35 Instrumentos financieros para mejorar el acceso a la vivienda de los sectores de menores ingresos en America Latina y el Caribe, Sustainable Development and Human Settlements Division, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, XV General Assembly, MINURVI, 2006. 36 Based on policy strategies and initiatives across 12 countries these characteristics were described in J. Lawson and V. Milligan, International Trends in Housing and Policy Responses, Final Report No. 110, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, December 2007, available at http://www.ahuri.edu.au/publications/download/60323_fr. 37 M. Rodwan Abouharb and D. Cingranelli, Human Rights and Structural Adjustment (Cambridge University Press, 2007). 38 K. Konadu-Agyemang, “Structural adjustment programs and housing affordability in Accra, Ghana”, Canadian Geographer, vol. 45, No. 4, 2008, p. 528. 39 See footnote 21, p. 404.