The housing deficit in Africa is alarming at 58.1 million units! This is despite the fact that all African countries see housing as a right of their citizens. Africa is where international property developers should be operating now if not for the general lack of effective demand by the majority of the under-housed due to high incidence of poverty. Housing is a shelter or physical enclosure used as a dwelling or living space by individuals, families, or a collection of people. It provides a space for resting, procreation, store of value, investment option, family interaction, preparing food, storing belongings and strategising for the future. Housing is also a status symbol due to the fact that in Africa, property owners, also known as landlords, are respected. African nations have been struggling with housing finance because of the numerous infrastructural challenges in the continent.
According to the World Bank in “Africa Pulse, October 2025: Pathways to Job Creation in Africa”, “By 2050, Africa will add 620 million workers, but most jobs remain low-paying and informal”. This means that the majority of future workers in Africa will be between low-, and medium-, income earners.
Africa will continue to struggle to accommodate its people because housing demand will surpass housing supply! Africa’s population is projected to reach 2.50 billion to 2.67 billion by 2050, according to Statista 2025 projection. This is a wide increase from its mid-2025 population of around 1.55 billion with the most populous nation being Nigeria with about 237 million people.
All heads of governments in Africa will be pre-occupied with how to provide affordable housing for their citizens between now and 2050 as housing is a right of every citizen. But finance will continue to be a major challenge as there will be a need to spend more on security, food provision, road infrastructure, energy provision, education and health of the people. A unique way different from the traditional housing finance must be evolved if Africa must have adequate housing for its people. This inventive means of financing housing in Africa must consider housing as a social commodity and a right of all citizens and must have ‘no interest’ or ‘low-interest’ rate at heart.
International property developers are not interested in property development in most cities of Africa as they do in UAE (Dubai and Abu Dhabi) and few African cities like Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa, Marrakech and Casablanca in Morocco, and cannot fill-in the gap resulting in private developers only providing about 10 percent of the housing needs of Africans. International property developers do economic profiling of the sites where they want to operate because they depend on commercial loans for their operations. Purchasing power parity (PPP) is low in most nations in Africa. African housing needs, otherwise known as African affordable housing, are more of social than economic housing! Blended finance in housing development is one of the best ways of providing affordable housing in Africa where governments are incapable of doing it alone, especially with the huge housing deficit of about 51.8 million units in the continent. Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) and private sector participants must pull resources together to complement government efforts as lack of adequate housing by one African is lack of adequate housing by all Africans.
Blended finance is an innovative approach to development financing that strategically combines public, philanthropic, and private capital to fund sustainable development initiatives, particularly in low income and developing countries. It is a strategic approach that combines public and private funding to mobilize private and non-interest or philanthropic capital flows towards emerging and frontier markets. Blended finance uses public/philanthropic capital to attract private investment in sustainable development by improving the investment risk-return ratio.
It is a strategy that combines capital with different levels of risks in order to catalyze risk-adjusted market-rate-seeking financing into impact areas of development. Blended finance brings together public, charitable interest-free and private capital into a single investment structure, with each playing a distinct role in the development process. This type of finance is the best for financing people-oriented projects like mass housing, security, food provision, transportation, telecommunications, and health provisions.
The World Bank president, Ajay Banga, warned of an 800 million global job gap for 1.2 billion youths by 2030. The majority of this deficit will be in Africa where the governments are least prepared for youth unemployment. The unemployment trend among the youths in Africa is already affecting housing demand among this demography. Africa’s urban housing crisis leaves youth priced out as rapid urbanisation, soaring costs, and over 58 million housing deficit deepen inequality. In Lagos, Accra, Lome and Dakar, four major commercial hubs in West Africa; Durban in South Africa and Nairobi in East Africa, young people are increasingly being priced out of the rental market.
This trend can only cease if authorities look for housing financing ways and models that see housing as a social product. Poor maintenance economy and maintenance culture will not make social/public housing where properties belong to the public and occupiers are only lessees for temporary period to work. This model works in The Netherlands, Austria and Denmark.
The King’s Foundation is a global charity that works on sustainable urbanisation and housing through projects like community planning, designing sustainable communities and promoting sustainable development. It advocates for high-quality, community-focused housing, offers educational programmes in architecture and craft, and works on specific projects like sustainable social housing in Sydney, Australia. The European Union (EU) provides significant aid to Africa through various programmes, including substantial humanitarian aid for crises, a large-scale investment initiative called the Global Gateway, and long-term development cooperation like the Neighbourhood, International and Development Cooperation Instrument (NDICI). This aid focuses on humanitarian assistance for food, shelter and healthcare in conflict-, and climate-, affected areas, and developmental support for agriculture, education, and entrepreneurship. The EU-Africa partnership is guided by joint political visions and seeks mutual benefit through initiatives like the Global Gateway Africa-Europe Investment Package, which mobilises public and private investment for strategic sectors. The affordable housing sector in Africa requires philanthropic interventions of this nature to impact African citizens.
Olufemi Adedamola Oyedele, MPhil. in Construction Management, managing director/CEO, Fame Oyster & Co. Nigeria, is an expert in real estate investment, a registered estate surveyor and valuer, and an experienced construction project manager. He can be reached on +2348137564200 (text only) or femoyede@gmail.com
