Zambia National Building Society receives $25 million from AfDB to finance affordable housing
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) has approved $ 25 million in Kwacha equivalent to Zambia National Building Society (ZNBS).
The Senior Loan will support ZNBS in building institutional capacity and financing affordable housing in Zambia, thereby improving access to long-term affordable housing finance to Zambia’s lower-middle and middle-income earners currently with limited opportunities to access financing.
The loan will consolidate the growth of a strong affordable housing sector within Zambia. It will also assist in reducing fiscal pressures on the Zambian government and enable ZNBS to mobilize funding from other sources, including Zambia’s capital markets.
The Bank intervention is in line with the Bank Group’s High 5 agenda, building on its existing 2013-2022 Strategy, and specifically the 5th agenda – Improving the Quality of Life for the People of Africa.
The five focus areas are essential in transforming the lives of the African people and therefore consistent with the United Nations agenda on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Bank’s intervention will also have multiplier effects on real estate and related industries and jobs creation in the construction industry.
The loan will complement the Zambia government’s efforts to develop a self-sustaining long-term affordable mortgage market in the country.
The intervention will enable ZNBS to expand and deepen Zambia’s housing finance sector and encourage orderly urban development for the provision of basic utilities such as water, sanitation, roads and electricity. In this respect, it will improve the lives of Zambia’s and create new employment opportunities.
By extending this Senior Loan, the AfDB complements its existing initiatives in the provision of affordable housing and development of mortgage finance institutions on the continent.
As one of its priority objectives, the AfDB supports investments that widen and deepen financial markets in Africa, and enable the private sector to mobilize and access long term local currency funding from local financial and debt markets.
