This webinar is jointly organised by the Sahel and West Africa Club (OECD/SWAC), the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa (CAHF) and the African Union for Housing Finance (AUHF), as part of the promotion of the report Africa's Urbanisation Dynamics 2025: Planning for Urban Expansion.
Focusing on housing as a cornerstone of inclusive, resilient and planned urban expansion, this webinar is the third in a series that brings together experts and policymakers to discuss specific, urgent and interrelated aspects of sustainable urban development. It follows previous sessions on land governance and urban financing.
Setting the scene: Why talk about housing?
Africa is urbanising at an unprecedented rate. By 2050, an additional 700 million people will live in cities. As people create households or move to cities, they need homes—yet today, the continent already faces a massive housing gap. While governments report national housing backlog figures (in 2022 alone, Nigeria faced a shortage of 17 million units, Angola nearly 2 million, and both Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire over 700 000, UMDF/AfDB, 2022), the pressure is felt at the city level. City governments are effectively the gate keepers of adequate housing, with central roles in land assembly, servicing, building inspections, service delivery and urban management. With the pressure of urbanisation, however, they struggle to fulfil this role at the scale required. And without adequate housing, cities cannot function efficiently or equitably. Rather, informal settlements expand, urban sprawl intensifies, and cities lose both tax revenue and economic potential.
Despite recognition of the housing crisis, the current pace and scale of formal housing delivery is falling far short of what’s required. The problem is systemic: from policy frameworks to market inefficiencies, from unsuitable architectural models to the mismatch between material supply and local demand. Added to this, the formal housing that is built often follows imported templates, disconnected from local family structures and affordability thresholds. Meanwhile, low-income households address their housing needs incrementally, building step by step with whatever financial or other resources they can mobilise. Although this approach is often inefficient and inadequate, it offers important lessons by directly engaging with affordability thresholds and, in practice, remains the dominant source of housing supply across the continent.
Key messages and discussion points
The webinar aims to deepen understanding of the complexity and urgency of the housing challenge currently facing urban Africa. With rapid urban population growth and an already significant housing deficit, it is critical to grasp the scale of need and the systemic barriers that hinder progress.
This webinar will unpack three key dimensions of the housing crisis in African cities:
- Taking stock: Assessing the Needs
The countries in Africa are urbanising faster than anywhere else on the planet. What does this mean for cities? What are the current housing needs and how have they evolved over time? How do current housing gaps undermine inclusive, sustainable, and resilient cities? Why is adequate housing the foundation of effective urban development?
- Obstacles: Why Delivery Lags Behind
An exploration of the housing delivery ecosystem—from policymakers and developers to architects and communities. This segment will examine how imported housing models often clash with social and material realities on the ground, and how this limits sustainable delivery.
- Approaches: There is No One-Size-Fits-All Solution
Tackling the housing challenge requires a combination of approaches:
- Understanding the role and scope of public policies, at national and local level.
- Relevant and accessible data (e.g., Nigeria Housing Data Dashboard, household income and affordability tools)
- Locally-appropriate building materials
- Rethinking the definition and branding of "affordable housing"
- Identifying scalable financing solutions
- Showcasing community-led and localised models
- Addressing the role of the State, both at national and local levels, taking into consideration available capacities and resources
The webinar will bring together a diverse group of stakeholders whose expertise and roles are central to shaping Africa’s urban future. These include urban policy makers and planners responsible for setting and implementing housing strategies at national and local levels.
