Shelter Africa (SHAF), another pan-African housing finance institution, and the United Nations Human Settlements Agency (UN-Habitat) are collaborating to promote housing provision and sustainable urban development in Africa.
The Head of Communications and Marketing of SHAF, Mr. Babatunde Oyateru, disclosed this in a statement provided to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Abuja on Thursday.
He said both organizations signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the realization of the New Cities Agenda.
The New Urban Agenda is an action-oriented document that sets global standards of achievement in sustainable urban development and rethinks the way countries build, manage and live in cities.
He further said that the MoU was signed at Habitat III, the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, held in Quito, Ecuador in October 2016.
He noted that the MoU, signed during the 26th UN-Habitat General Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, will enable both organizations to realize their ambitious agenda on affordable housing on the continent.
The official said the memorandum of understanding between the two organizations will enable the creation of a financing mechanism for housing and housing-related infrastructure in Africa by 2018, with the aim of raising $1 billion by 2020.
Mr. Oyatelu quoted Femi Adewole, Acting Managing Director of Shelter Africa, who highlighted the similarities between the New Urban Agenda and Shelter Africa’s strategic vision to impact the continent.
“We are committed to this action because the scale of the challenges facing us as a continent requires ambition, dedication and commitment.
“Our commitment to achieving the goals of the New Urban Agenda has always been resolute, and we are taking the first of many steps to make that happen, which frankly is what we need as an organization at this time.
“We are doing this in part because we hope our shareholders and members will support our commitment to achieving these goals and use Shelter Africa as a vehicle for doing so.
“We will also elaborate a pan-African slum elimination program based on best practices and successfully implement such programs in 20 countries by 2021,” he said.
Mr. Oyateru further said that Shelter Africa and UN-Habitat will jointly establish the African Large Employers Coalition to implement the Employer-Supported Housing Program in Africa.
He said the plan should commit to producing 100,000 homes by 2020.
He added that both organizations are expected to create a rental housing promotion initiative that will influence regulations and create an enabling environment for rental housing in Africa.
He also said he would immediately work to create a 360-degree housing policy review for organizations to provide feedback to the government on policy flaws and gaps.
“We will establish a monitoring mechanism to assess progress,” he added.
Shelter Afrique is the only pan-African financial institution exclusively supporting the development of Africa’s housing and real estate sector.
Shelter Afrik will hold its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe in July. UN-Habitat is also expected to play a role at the conference.
