Affordable housing ranks as one of the most pressing social concerns across sub-Saharan Africa . Governments have committed , according to recent estimates , to provide over 18 million new homes in aggregate for their most vulnerable constituents .
AFFORDABLE HOUSING CONFERENCE
Infrastructure planning must be prerequisite for social housing
Affordable housing ranks as one of the most pressing social concerns across sub-Saharan Africa . Governments have committed , according to recent estimates , to provide over 18 million new homes in aggregate for their most vulnerable constituents .
By Professor Jeremy Gorelick
Financial institutions are increasingly aware of the fact that well-functioning societies and industries rely on a labour force made up of the likely residents of affordable housing communities .
Developers , whether under competitively-awarded government contracts or private-market driven factors , programme for affordable housing communities as part of their overall long-term business strategy , and , through the collective efforts of multiple stakeholders , the backlog of units is slowly diminishing in many countries .
And yet , with this increase in collective understanding , the cost of the delivery of affordable housing , whether borne by individual purchasers ( the ultimate beneficiaries ) or by government ( the general taxpaying public ) remains uncompetitive . One of the key , and often underexplored , factors is the failure of the implementers of affordable housing programmes to effectively consider the role of infrastructure finance in the delivery of a housing scheme .
The other three drivers of poor delivery of affordable housing in sub-Saharan Africa are : ( 1 ) access to land , affordability of land and security of tenure ; ( 2 ) the relatively high cost of formal construction relative to household incomes for target beneficiaries ; and ( 3 ) the lack of access to formal housing finance .
As part of its 2017 Housing Finance Yearbook , the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa noted that infrastructure costs can make up as much as 38 % of the total cost of generic formal housing . On its own , this statistic is not concerning ; when there is disagreement over which body – the public sector ( government ) or the private sector ( the developer ) – is responsible for the provision of service , there can be devastating effects .
FIGURE 1
On the outskirts of the Zimbabwean capital of Harare , the cost of housing increased an average of 22 % ( from USD22 000 to USD27 000 ) due to a failure to plan for the required infrastructure to make the large community of Budiriro accessible for prospective purchasers . In 2013 , the Figure 1
FIGURES AND PHOTO : JEREMY GORELICK developers filed for permission to construct 15 000 homes ; by 2015 , two years later , only 3 102 homes had been built and only 345 sold .
FIGURE 2
Not surprisingly , these two issues – infrastructure ( particularly access to a reliable water supply ) and inadequate housing – are often cited as the most significant concerns for households across sub-Saharan Africa . Extrapolating from the Community Survey conducted by the South African national government in 2016 , which shows that these two issues make up the largest collective concerns for citizens , one could reasonably argue that these are the chief challenges for governments in the region .
FIGURE 3
This problem is not limited to sub-Saharan Africa . In the Asia-Pacific country of New Guinea , the lack of infrastructure makes housing inaccessible to the target population . More specifically , the National Housing Corporation failed to develop trunk infrastructure before houses were constructed , increasing house prices from USD88 000 to USD103 000 by an unanticipated USD15 000 , which represents 17 % of the projected housing cost per unit .
Recognising that infrastructure provision often is a constitutional competency at local level , the provision of
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