BHC boss calls for affordable housing
Isaac Pinielo | Thursday April 30, 2015 18:00
Speaking at the BHC housing conference on Wednesday, he said sustainability of any affordable housing depends upon the local will.
He appealed to the government to come up with policies for sustainable affordable housing.
These policies, he said, should aim at improving access to adequate, safe and ecological housing, involving a degree of the redistribution of wealth and opportunities for the disadvantaged groups to bridge the social divide and reinforce social justice.
“In almost all developing countries, and some more developed ones, unmet housing demand contributes to an unbalanced housing market, poorly planned habitat, unaffordable housing and overcrowding,” said Motswaiso.
While he acknowledged that many developing regions have been successful in slowing down the growth of slums over the last decade, the CEO stated that much knowledge and capacity have already been accumulated to this end, and there is an increasing awareness that housing policies must shift towards bridging the affordable and sustainable agendas.
“There is still no doubt that at the very core of any housing policy lies the need for provision of affordable and adequate shelter for all – irrespective of people’s wealth influence,” the BHC boss said. According to Motswaiso, many African governments are gradually adopting and implementing policies and strategies aimed at making housing habitable, affordable and accessible which offers some promise for expanding access for low-and-middle-income households.
He added that pro-poor, proactive action by African governments to provide and scale-up affordable land and housing is crucial to reverse the trend that new migrants settle in largely informal, non-serviced housing because there are few other affordable housing options available to them.
He said the supply and affordability of key inputs to housing, such as land, finance, and building construction costs, need to be systematically and simultaneously improved through the development and implementation of supportive institutional and regulatory frameworks.
“Scaling up affordable housing provision has the potential to contribute to national economies, create jobs, improve the construction industry, and improve the living conditions for the health and wellbeing of all Africans.
What is needed most however is political will,” he said. Furthermore, Motswaiso pointed out that if affordable land and housing is to be developed at a scale that offer solutions to rapid urbanisation, slum sprouts and squatting, then there is need for pro-active leadership that does not only pay lip-service to the problem but actually channel requisite resources in that direction.
He explained that sustainable housing offers a great spectrum of opportunities to promote economic development, environmental stewardship, quality of life and social quality, while mitigating the precarious convergences of the problems related to population growth, urbanisation, slums, poverty, climate change, lack of access to sustainable energy, and economic uncertainty.
“It is seldom, especially in developing countries that the social, cultural, environmental, and economic facets of housing are addressed in an integrated fashion,” he said.