Naomi Gabriel —
Day 2 of the 42nd Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Shelter Afrique, in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, had issues of housing data and the introduction of proptech to housing development in Africa dominating discussions at a Ministerial roundtable.
The Rwandan representative of the country’s housing Minister, said Rwanda working with its Bureau of Statistics has been doing well in housing data and statistics because the country lay key importance on survey every three or four years, during the period of its midterm development planning.
He said the recent population and housing census conducted by the government last year (2022), gave the country a good image of the state of housing in the country. He said the National Population Commission should work together with the Bureau of Statistics so that it can come up with details regarding housing materials and technology to have a clear picture of the state of housing in the country.
“It can give you the image of housing that you need, the new and the ones that need to be rehabilitated or demolished”, he said.
“For Rwanda, it has opened us up. In the last ten years (2012 – 2022), housing ownership (in Rwanda) has moved from 78 percent to 71.6 in terms of ownership, while the rent has now moved from 15 percent to 22.2 percent, meaning the trend is moving.
:Nigeria Owns 15.8 Percent of Shelter Afrique With Over $30 Million Contribution — Fashola
“We did a survey initially to identify reasons people want to own (houses) and we realize, for the case of Rwanda that most Rwandans that were once refugees in previous countries couldn’t own anything. They came back after the 1994 genocide and know that they would love to own (houses) because, they realized that they had the right to own in the previous time when they were in other countries.
“But, right now, with the trend and dynamics coming in urbanization, and even globalisation, people are moving. They don’t want to be tied to housing when they get other jobs.
:Africa, A Business Landscape for Housing Development — Shelter Afrique
“You realize that it has now moved from house ownership to more of house rentage and that is what has changed the whole housing policies right now with the National Housing Strategy which has been maximized with the statistics that we have and now targeting towards more of house renting to house ownership.
He added that it’s a very big chance for Nigeria to emulate, as it plans to hold its housing and population census this year. He said it affords the Nigerian government the critical statistics that it needs in addressing housing challenges in the country.
Babatunde Raji Fashola, the Nigerian Minister of Works and Housing laid emphasis on the role of data in housing development and planning.
While addressing the issue of housing data, Fashola noted that his administration during his tenure as governor of Lagos state delivered 200 housing unit per month for a period of three years.
“The discussion about the data question at this housing of meeting shelter afrique, sub Saharan Africa is very important, Fashola said.
“The first pleasant news I want to share in this meeting is that my country will be undergoing a housing and population census this year, which will also aid in housing data collection”.
“The world has come to accept that perhaps in the last 50 years the world has come to accept civilization.
“People are moving from rural areas to urban centers and it is a phenomenal that people now call rapid urbanization. So, we know that those who have some basic economic rudimentary knowledge that when there is an increase demand for a product or service or a commodity and supply is not commensurate, there will be scarcity and increase in demand.
“My most important message for this section is that Africa and the rest of the world should stop dwelling on deficit. What I mean is that, often it seems that we are eager to accept to own or propagate the worse narrative about our countries, or our continent, especially on data whose sources are sometimes unproven sources or unproven integrity.
“During my tenure as Governor in Lagos, another period of my public service, our government in Lagos was delivering 200 housing unit every month, between 2012 and 2015.
“That was a three year period and at that same time, other state governors at least, successfully executed housing projects across most of the 36 states”, the Nigerian Minister explained.
“That was possible because, under the Nigerian law, state governors have control of lands and what we did then was that the whole planning and preparation process took almost three years. Immediately we opened the allocation on a monthly basis, we already had stock of houses that will last us for at least, one year.
“We had stocks of houses already at the different stages of construction. So, in fact, at a point, we started at a 100 per month and as our stocks increased, we went up to 200 per month. The whole idea was that, we were never going to go back and we were building in about 23 different construction sites at the same time”.
On a point made on digital and mobile money raised by the Rwandan representative, Fashola said the Nigerian government recently passed a policy on block chain and it intends to provide guidelines on how cryptos operate. He said it’s a way of taking away
Zainab Ahmed, the Nigerian Minister of Finance, National Planning and Budget, added that the Nigerian government under President Muhammadu Buhari led administration, has invested considerably in social housing.
She also emphasized the need for government (public)-private partnership in addressing the housing needs of Nigerians and the need to provide precise data, adding that other important data statistics must be looked into.
“There’s need for precise data in the Nigeria housing space”, she added.
Ghana’s Minister of Works and Housing, Hon. Francis Asenso-Boakye also stressed on the need for requisite data in housing planning and development.
Uganda’s Minister of State, Housing Hon. Namuganza Persis Princess said the need to minimize housing deficit in Africa is as important as the data being collected.
