The African Housing Conference that was held recently by Shelterafrique debating on formal rental housing as a critical housing option particularly for the rural population was eye-brow raising. Firstly, the key note speakers mainly comprised of foreigners, disproportionate, I think, which raises the question on how minority representation in such strategic, high profile discussions should be constituted. The argument is that most of the population in Africa cannot afford to buy houses because they cannot afford a home or do not qualify for a mortgage. Eco-friendly buildings are increasingly becoming popular and provide affordable housing and have the additional advantage of generating employment needed to empower the artisan to own them.

Shelterafrique advocate for a lease-to-own which looks like an improvement on current practice due to the oddity that a new rental is upto 50 % cheaper than a mortgage in Kenya. This could bring in an extra 5 % of the population leaving out the 85 %, who cannot afford the rents anyway.
I think the mortgages are more expensive than rentals because the western financial model considers Africans high risk, and robs them anyway, like every other western business set up in Africa. In 1 billion-strong market, is it the customer or the financier who should adjust their position to suit conditions? Given that, out of a 1 billion continental population, 400 million Africans are urban, the 90 % figure necessarily includes 500 million rural land owners. In this paradigm, how does rental work?
In a discussion on how Africans can house themselves, out of 13 keynote speakers, 10 were Europeans. Of the 3 Africans, one was the Shelterafrique CEO, who would be expected to speak anyway and the other was the CEO of at the meeting sponsoring firm, who made a sales speech for the cement his company manufactures. We can therefore say that of the 11 substantial speakers, only 1 was African. Are there some rules about minority representation in such strategic, high profile discussions?
The main partner of Shelterafrique is the French equivalent of USAID and, with the hindsight of the pact colonial and how the French have strangulated 14 African francophone countries, are they upto any good?
Currently, Europe is awash with savings and, with the tax rate greater than the interest rate, such funds would build the European-owned properties for African tenants in their own land to support an ageing European population. Are these the capital safe-guarding adjustments to suit prospective lenders and developers in legislation that Shelterafrique seeks?

To my simple mind, the discussion seems to be who will invest in rental property? Shelter Afrique is advocating for big investors to do that (like themselves). But we have small private investors doing it everyday - look at the blocks of flats in Pipeline, Kahawa etc. Those aren't units built by big corporations but entrepreneurs. As long as these units come into the market, who really cares who the developer is? Shelter Afrique focus should be getting more units into the market, not who owns the units.