NAIROBI, May 21 (Xinhua) -- Financing of affordable houses in Africa's urban areas is one of the biggest opportunities for investors because of the ballooning population and high demand, head of a pan African housing financier has said.
Andrew Chimphondah, CEO of Shelter Afrique told Xinhua that Africa is urbanizing at rates the region has never experienced before, thus making the delivery of quality affordable housing a mammoth challenge.
"With African cities estimated to add over 40,000 people every day, this has pushed the current housing deficits in Africa to more than 56 million housing units," Chimphondah told Xinhua in an interview on Thursday.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, over 60 percent of the urban population are estimated to live in areas categorized as slums and informal settlements and therefore need improvement to better housing units, according to Chimphondah.
Speaking in Nairobi, Chimphondah said it is important for governments and other related public and private stakeholders involved in affordable housing delivery and urban development to adopt more pragmatic, innovative and sustainable solutions to the related urbanization challenges facing the region.
He said investors from across the world should take advantage of the shortage of financing in Africa to cover the gap and benefit from the high demand for affordable housing across the continent.
"The lack of financial capacity of the African governments has resulted in an increasing deficit in affordable housing delivery in the region," said the head of the agency with offices in Nairobi, Abuja in Nigeria and Abidjan in Cote d'Ivoire.
Shelter Afrique, which is a partnership of 44 African governments, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Africa Reinsurance Company has delivered 17,562 housing units, worth cumulative loan approvals of 124.44 billion shillings (1.17 billion U.S. dollars) up to December 2019. The agency is using this period of COVID-19 pandemic to build and strengthen referral partnerships. Enditem
