Shelter Afrique’s 2016 Symposium was designed to address the uncomfortable and increasingly often less told story of Africa’s urban poor.
Almost universally, housing supply has failed to respond to the need of the urban poor with the cost of new housing including those built by Government Agencies significantly in excess of what this segment of the population can afford. The consequence is the rapid growth of informal settlements, slums on the edge of Africa’s major cities with obvious consequences for economic development, health, safety and security.
It is on this background that the Symposium sought to address the following key objectives:
1. Explore and introduce the audience to current approaches and innovations in planning and designing affordable housing for Urban Low Income Earners;
2. Showcase a range of construction methodologies appropriate for implementing affordable housing for people on low income;
3. Explore Financing Options and Structures for Low Income Housing Projects
Key Outcomes
The Symposium received two key note addresses including one by the Honorable Minister for Power, Works and Housing of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Thereafter, experts from Nigeria, Malawi, United States of America and Senegal constituted two panels and engaged the audience in two thematic areas. The first panel discussed on “Designing and Building Low Cost Housing” while the second panel discussed “Financing Housing Supply and Demand for Low Income Earners”. Key messages from the well selected experts included:
1. Need for proper Planning: That there is need for proper planning throughout the house delivery chain to identify opportunities for cost control and reduction. Planning should also encompass inclusion of storage facilities, adequate and reliable water supply, power, roads and other relevant infrastructure as well as social amenities for workers to avoid proliferation of informal settlements. Planning should further be extended to post-implementation property management and maintenance.
2. Need for Standardization: That there is need for standardization of housing stock as opposed to customization. When there is harmony and uniformity of design, then it becomes possible to standardize fittings and other construction materials which then encourages manufacturers and other businesses including small scale businesses to assemble and deliver in mass scale to builders. This mass delivery yields economies of scale and cost optimization that lead to low construction costs.
3. Industrialization: Significant reduction in cost and time of housing production can be achieved through sustainable industrialization of the housing delivery process through the building of indigenous productive capacity. This will require various paradigm shifts including:
– Transition from low-consistency craft based labor to high consistency high-productivity technology-enhanced labor;
– Transition from use of low value-added building materials to high value-added high performance building components and technology;
– Transition from low-productivity customized building construction to high productivity modular industrial production.
4. Use of unconventional building methodologies to bring down the construction costs while adopting innovative financial solutions to fund both construction and home purchase options. Approaches include availing technical assistance and use of stabilized soil blocks and other indigenous materials in an organized building system.
5. Use of micro-finance institutions to access housing micro-loans was identified as a major avenue through which the urban poor can be supported to become home owners. Two models were discussed including: Stand-alone Incremental Housing Microfinance, and; Linked Housing Microfinance (Housing Micro-Finance linked to other products offered by a micro-finance institution). Through either model, access to financing becomes available for home extensions and renovations as well as for new homes built incrementally.
6. Is subsidized financing for low income housing a sustainable option? The Symposium noted that indeed various governments have adopted different approaches to subsidize the cost of home ownership with varying degrees of success. Some of the subsidy options adopted includes reducing interest rates to specific income groups, extending loan tenors through government supported mortgage liquidity facilities as well as credit enhancements such as down payment assistance and insurance for housing loans.
Conclusion
By exploring various approaches and innovations in planning and designing affordable housing for urban low income earners, and by identifying financing options and structures for low income housing projects, the Symposium’s objectives were well achieved. The outcome of the Symposium can be well adopted by SHELTER-AFRIQUE and other stakeh