Kenya has framed its two‑million housing deficit as a business opportunity for investors while lobbying for more funding at the World Urban Forum (WUF13) in Baku, Azerbaijan, where the government described the shortage as a development emergency.
Speaking at the forum, Public Works, Housing and Urban Development Cabinet Secretary Alice Wahome outlined the challenges of financing large‑scale housing projects amid dwindling foreign support. She emphasised that injecting patient capital into the affordable housing programme is crucial to meeting the annual target of 200,000 units.
Wahome said Kenya requires blended finance, concessional funding, equity and technical assistance to bridge the deficit. She stressed that concessional funding, particularly for building social infrastructure such as schools and markets within housing projects, must be offered at fair rates as lobbied by President William Ruto. “The money we borrow is paid by the people of each of the member States: why apply standards that are different. The yardstick should be the same,” she said.
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President Ruto, who addressed the forum on May 18, called for reforms to the international financial architecture, arguing that the current system is biased against African nations and stifles the continent’s economic growth compared to developed countries. He underscored the urgency of housing on the continent, noting demographic projections that Africa will host a quarter of the world’s population, with 70 per cent living in urban centres.
“If there is a place where housing is important and urgent, it is our continent, because that is where a quarter of the world population will be living, and 70 per cent of that population will be living in urban centres, and therefore housing becomes a central pillar of how the world looks like in the future,” Ruto said.
By Frank Mugwe
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