SA Affordable Housing September / October 2020 | Page 11

EVENTS THE POINT Sam Odia, chief executive of The Millard Fuller Foundation. TO ADVERTISE IN SA AFFORDALE HOUSING Contact: Angeline Martin [email protected] AFFORDABLE SA HOUSING www.saaffordablehousing.co.za PLUS.GM Mustapha Njie, CEO of TAF Africa Global. of USD10 000. “In our market, only 15% of the population can afford the lowest-cost house.” As to whether there will be changes in house design to make them more infection-proof, Odia says that in this market just the fact of having a home is the single major health benefit, and that improving their health features would be highly unlikely as most families in this market segment are larger than average, and the units are already small. To spur this market and bring down the cost of housing requires a PPP approach, says Njie, with private developers continuing to innovate with materials and building techniques, but with governments providing low-cost land (which currently accounts on average for 20% of the cost of any project). “It also requires innovation with the cost of finance, and will require participation of Bretton Woods organisations like the World Bank. Innovations brought about by private developers include to increasingly ‘manufacture’ pre-cast homes in a factory rather than build them brick-by-brick on site. Odia says this has the potential to reduce costs of construction by 10% to 20%. Aliyu points out that it is still the case that in sub-Saharan Africa 75% of the housing stock is self-built. “This points to a lack of access to finance. The longer-term solution has to be improvement in household income, and unfortunately this pandemic is a step backwards.” www.saaffordablehousing.co.za SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2020 9