Rapid urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa has led to a major housing challenge characterized by sustained poverty and informal housing. Past approaches to addressing the housing challenge included public housing and slum clearance in the 1950s-60s, sites and services projects partnering with local communities in the 1970s-80s, and enabling private sector housing starting in the 1980s. Current differentiated approaches involve both global support policies and local housing supply practices. Opportunities exist in recognizing the value created through housing investments and using land value capture and redistribution instruments to facilitate affordable, formal housing for low-income communities.

1. Urban infrastructure in Sub-
Saharan Africa
Harnessing land values, housing and transport
Presented by Sylvia Croese
21 July 2015
The housing challenge in Sub-Saharan Africa:
approaches, challenges and opportunities

2. Characteristics of the housing
challenge
• Rapid urbanisation
• Sustained poverty
• Effects of displacement
• Most housing is
informal housing
Source: World Urbanisation Prospects: 2011 revision. United Nations

3. Housing policy trends
Time Approach Who Main publications
1950-1960s Public housing and slum clearance State
1970-1980s Sites-and-services and upgrading People World Bank (1974) Sites and services
projects.
UN-Habitat (1976) ‘The Vancouver
Declaration on Human Settlements’.
1980s-1990s Enabling approach
 from ‘supply to ‘support’ policies
Private UN-Habitat (1986) Global Report on
Human Settlements
UNDP (1991) Cities, Poverty and People:
urban development cooperation for the
1990s.
UN-Habitat (1990) The Global Strategy
for Shelter to the Year 2000
World Bank (1993) Housing: enabling
markets to work.
UN-Habitat (1996) ‘The Istanbul
Declaration on Human Settlements’.
Cities Alliance (1999) Cities without Slums
action plan
2000s-current Differentiated approach
 global support policies vs local
supply practices
Mix Millennium Development Goals (2000)
UN-Habitat (2003a) Global Report on
Human Settlements: The Challenge of
Slums
UN-Habitat (2005) Financing urban
shelter. Global report on human
settlements.

4. Examples
• Angola’s National Urbanism and Housing Programme (2009),
Namibia’s National Mass Housing Programme (2013), Ethiopia’s
Integrated Housing Development Programme (2005), South Africa’s
National Outcomes and ‘mega-projects’ approach (2010; 2015)
• Also: plans for ‘new cities’ (eg. Kenya)
 Seen as resolving the problem of scale
 Seen as more cost-effective (?), easily implementable
 Role of external (f) actors (eg. China)
However, problem of affordability (and sustainability)

5. Housing finance
“Adequate shelter which is built formally is unaffordable,
informally built housing is affordable but inadequate” (UN-
Habitat, 2005)  in SSA less than 15% of people are eligible for
mortgage financing (Rust, 2007).
 Gap between what is built and financed by state and what is
built and financed by people
 Increasingly filled by micro-finance (non-regulated vs
regulated), although constrained by housing delivery
environment

6. Opportunities
Recognizing ‘invisible’ housing investments at different
stages of the house building process (housing value
chain) and multi-dimensional value of housing (financial,
economic, social)
 however, value creation also creates barriers and
opportunities for rent-seeking

7. Opportunities
Instruments for value capture and re-distribution:
• Regulation or collaboration so as to enable/facilitate the
appropriate transfer of value to households
• The use of land value captured from middle to high income
residential developments and commercial property to
provide infrastructure both for the areas where it is raised and
for infrastructure serving low income housing developments
 Low income housing as a beneficiary of land value capture

8. Thank you
Urban infrastructure in Sub-
Saharan Africa – harnessing land
values, housing and transport