UN-Habitat partners with TAF Africa Global to promote affordable housing in Africa
The UN-Habitat signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) agreement with Pan-African real estate development company TAF Africa Global (TAF), to provide one million affordable housing units in Africa in the next seven years.
Africa suffers from acute housing shortage as governments struggle to meet the increasing demand for affordable housing. Currently, the continent faces a shortfall of at least 51 million units.
“The MoU is an opportunity to diversify UN-Habitat’s engagement with the private sector to unlock financing and to develop an integrated approach to housing that comes with well-planned and well-designed cities taking into social and environmental safeguards. The MoU will also provide a platform for concrete results to be presented during the High-Level Meeting in New York in April 2022 to share best practices on housing financing in Africa,”said UN-Habitat Deputy Executive Director, Victor Kisob.
The MoU between UN-Habitat and TAF aims at jointly providing affordable housing solutions through innovative financing, support fit for purpose housing policies and new city development, and branding for the housing sector in Africa by integrating TAF Africa’s experience and best practices in previous projects across Africa and UN-Habitat’s global practice, tools and mechanisms.
“Today marks a critical step towards achieving the goal of one million housing delivery across Africa. The agenda 2030 has made a stronger framework to ensure a more cohesive development with no one left behind. I want to use this opportunity to thank all partners. We have a signed MoU with Shelter Afrique and have already completed four projects with them,” said Mustafa Njie, Executive Director of TAF Africa Global.
Other objectives of the MoU include raising awareness on the importance of housing for long term recovery from the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19; demonstrating the capability of the private and public partnership model in delivering at scale affordable housing in Africa; promoting relevant expertise on affordable housing delivery in Africa; as well as joint planning, designing and implementing of affordable housing solutions across Africa.
