Publication: Housing and Urbanization in Africa : Unleashing a Formal Market Process
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2013-11
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2013-11
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The accumulation of decent housing matters both because of the difference it makes to living standards and because of its centrality to economic development. The consequences for living standards are far-reaching. In addition to directly conferring utility, decent housing improves health and enables children to do homework. It frees up women's time and enables them to participate in the labor market. More subtly, a home and its environs affect identity and self-respect. Commentary on the emergence of an African middle class has become common, but it is being defined in terms of discretionary spending and potential for consumer markets. A politically more salient definition of a middle class will be in terms of home ownership and the consequent stake in economic stability. This paper examines why such a process has not happened in Africa. Our hypothesis is that the peculiarity of housing exposes it to multiple points of vulnerability not found together either in private consumer goods or in other capital goods. Each point of vulnerability can be addressed by appropriate government policies, but addressing only one or two of them has little payoff if the others remain unresolved. Further, the vulnerabilities faced by housing are the responsibility of distinct branches of government, with little natural collaboration. Unblocking multiple impediments to housing therefore requires coordination that can come only from the head of government: ministries of housing have neither the political weight nor the analytic capacity to play this role effectively. Yet in Africa, housing has never received such high political priority. This in turn is because the centrality of housing in well-being and of housing investment in development has not been sufficiently appreciated.
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“Collier, Paul; Venables, Anthony J.. 2013. Housing and Urbanization in Africa : Unleashing a Formal Market Process. © http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17586 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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Publication Housing and Urbanization in Africa : Unleashing a Formal Market Process(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-05)The accumulation of decent housing matters both because of the difference it makes to living standards and because of its centrality to economic development. The consequences for living standards are far-reaching. In addition to directly conferring utility, decent housing improves health and enables children to do homework. It frees up women's time and enables them to participate in the labor market. More subtly, a home and its environs affect identity and self-respect. Commentary on the emergence of an African middle class has become common, but it is being defined in terms of discretionary spending and potential for consumer markets. A politically more salient definition of a middle class will be in terms of home ownership and the consequent stake in economic stability. This paper examines why such a process has not happened in Africa. The hypothesis is that the peculiarity of housing exposes it to multiple points of vulnerability not found together either in private consumer goods or in other capital goods. Each point of vulnerability can be addressed by appropriate government policies, but addressing only one or two of them has little payoff if the others remain unresolved. Further, the vulnerabilities faced by housing are the responsibility of distinct branches of government, with little natural collaboration. Unblocking multiple impediments to housing therefore requires coordination that can come only from the head of government: ministries of housing have neither the political weight nor the analytic capacity to play this role effectively. Yet in Africa, housing has never received such high political priority. 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It warns of the challenges they face and provides guidelines on how to develop or redevelop a sound rental sector. it can enable key players in housing markets be they government officials, private rental property owners, financiers, or nongovernmental organizations to add rental housing as a critical housing option and to have an informed discussion on how best to stimulate this sector. The housing policy of most nations focused on increasing home ownership. There had been very little discussion about rental housing, less about social housing, and virtually none about public housing. 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The (PIIP) Project objectives are to: i) improve the living conditions and productivity of low income residents through better access to basic services; ii) promote economic growth through strategic investments that enhance mobility and increase private sector participation in the City's economic development; and iii) improve city and district level management through institutional and human resource development and capacity building. During the course of (PIIP) Project preparation activities, the Government expressed a desire to include a further sub-component to support the provision of housing for poor households not affected by the Project. This provided the rationale for the Assessment of Housing for Low Income Groups in Danang, (hereinafter referred to as the Low Income Housing Assessment Study (LIHAS)), which will parallel, support and inform preparation of the PIIP Project, while not being an integral part of it. 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