A home truth: public-private partnerships are key to solving Africa’s housing crisis

Global warming, meanwhile, is driving the adoption of eco-friendly construction methods. Developments like this are set to have a significant impact on the industry and may even come to define the next decade of housing in Africa. For that to happen, though, the continent’s policymakers will have to be bolder and much more dynamic.

Shaky foundations
Housing policies in Africa are a hangover from the post-colonial era. Many of the major initiatives carried out on the continent were instigated by newly independent African nations and focused on mass housing – particularly for civil servants, who were usually the greatest contributors to the labour force and, therefore, the largest pool of voters. These policies reflected the conventional wisdom of the time, which suggested governments alone could stimulate demand and generate enough supply for housing.

Today, there is a constant battle between public sector intervention and private sector capacity. The right approach, as with most things, lies somewhere in the middle: public-private partnerships. The private sector neither has the will nor the incentive to take on affordable housing alone, and this is where the government must intervene. Governments, on the other hand, often lack the technical capacity or the systems to deliver affordable housing – areas in which the private sector excels.

Fortunately, there are signs that government policy in Africa is starting to catch up with this reality. The Big Four Action Plan – Kenya’s guiding social and economic development policy – has launched an ambitious affordable housing programme, bringing together both the private and public sectors. Equally, Morocco’s social housing programme has reported tremendous success, making it a key reference point for future study, while newly enacted tenant protection laws in Nigeria seem to be making good progress.

Unfortunately, governments have been slow to enact innovative policies unless forced to by crisis or dramatic change. Consequently, the push for more affordable housing will most likely have to come from elsewhere.

Estate of mind
Housing has always been deeply political, but with the rise of technology – and its ability to coalesce people around a single idea – we can expect to see more social movements emerge in the coming years. It has already had a significant impact in the UK, with The Economist reporting that those who lived in areas with stagnant housing prices were more likely to vote ‘leave’ in the 2016 EU membership referendum.

Already, the impact of human activity on our environment is becoming difficult to ignore – we’re seeing more heatwaves, flooding and uncontainable wildfires than ever before. These severe weather conditions have a direct impact on housing and how we develop infrastructure. While the housing industry has often toyed with the idea of using alternative building materials, the effect of climate change may force it – and government bodies – to accelerate the adoption of green innovations into building strategies.

It’s not just global warming we need to factor into our construction methods, though. The Ebola crisis that ravaged West Africa between 2013 and 2016 – and continues to rage through the Democratic Republic of the Congo – can also be viewed as a failure of housing policy. One of the reasons the contagion spread as quickly as it did is because of the density of housing in informal settlements. In the age of global epidemics, we will be compelled to consider how construction interplays with the environment beyond just the materials we use.

As safe as houses
Over the next decade, policymakers’ main challenge will be crafting a policy that not only addresses the aforementioned concerns, but also passes easily across African states. There have already been some positive steps in this direction. For example, the African Union Specialised Technical Committee on Public Service, Local Government, Urban Development and Decentralisation is pushing for a model law – an overarching legal and policy framework that all countries can adapt their national strategies to. This is informed by the recent conceptualisation of affordable housing as a human right.

Advocacy in the next decade is expected to be highly influential in pushing affordable housing to the top of the agenda. However, external forces – such as global warming, youth dissatisfaction, global crises and epidemics – may ultimately force African governments to reprioritise housing.

Technology could also play a pivotal role in alleviating the pressures that the housing sector faces. Africa has always tried to harness technology to leapfrog certain stages of economic development, and blockchain may help to transform the housing industry over the next decade, removing the need for intermediary players and streamlining the registration of property documents and other real estate processes. Smart contracts will be established entirely between the buyer and the seller (or, in this case, the renter and landlord) without requiring any human interaction.

The next 10 years will transform affordable housing in Africa. Admittedly, there is still much uncertainty – many things need to happen in order to drive change. Nonetheless, there are actions we can take today: investors, for instance, would do well to finance projects that benefit Africa’s youth, be it the construction of student housing, multipurpose buildings or rental homes. After all, Africa’s youth is its greatest resource – the best way to ensure a positive future is to invest in it.