Africa’s deepening housing crisis, estimated at more than 52 million units, is emerging as one of the continent’s most urgent barriers to achieving the African Union’s Agenda 2063 development blueprint, financial and development leaders warned Monday at the Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF2025) in Algiers.
The continent’s housing shortfall, experts say, now carries an estimated price tag of over $1 trillion—a figure nearly equal to the combined balance sheets of all African multilateral financial institutions.
Shelter Afrique Managing Director Thierno-Habiv Hann told delegates that housing must be treated not just as a social issue but as a core driver of economic growth.
“Agenda 2063 assumed a 7 percent annual GDP growth rate across Africa. Today, we are averaging only 3 percent,” Hann said. “To catch up, growth must accelerate to 10 percent — and addressing housing is central to that push.”
Hann stressed that the continent’s housing crisis is both staggering in cost and systemic in impact.
“At a minimum cost of 25,000 US dollars per affordable low-cost unit, financing 52 million homes amounts to more than 1 trillion US dollars. That figure alone is nearly the size of all African multilateral finance institutions’ combined balance sheets,” he explained.
While Shelter Afrique has committed to delivering 200,000 units by 2030, Hann acknowledged the scale of demand dwarfs current commitments. The World Bank estimates the real deficit is closer to 95 million homes.
“Housing is not just about shelter — it shapes the future of cities, infrastructure, and sustainable growth,” Hann said. “African cities are engines of development, but if they expand without planned housing, the growth will be uneven and costly.”
To close the gap, Hann said Shelter Afrique is piloting new models of co-financing with other multilateral lenders. One such product, known as Contoo, blends construction and refinancing responsibilities.
“With Contoo, Shelter Afrique finances project construction and Afreximbank provides refinancing once projects are operational,” Hann explained. “We need to put resources together, even issuing IPOs, to scale up housing finance.”
The model aims to accelerate delivery while creating a pipeline of bankable housing projects that attract long-term investors.
But experts at the session agreed that public institutions alone cannot meet the financing challenge. Dr. Tshepelayi Kabata of the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA) emphasized the need to draw in private sector capital.
“We are using debt-to-equity approaches to recapitalize institutions like Shelter Afrique and development insurers,” Kabata said. “This is the only way to derisk housing projects and attract large-scale financing.”
By reducing the risks associated with housing projects, multilateral institutions hope to crowd in private capital markets, scaling delivery beyond the limits of public finance.
Panelists also highlighted the broader economic benefits that solving Africa’s housing crisis could unlock. Large-scale homebuilding programs, they noted, would stimulate demand in construction materials, create jobs, and expand domestic manufacturing industries.
“Housing is the sector that can transform African economies if we scale up — and we cannot afford to wait,” Hann urged.
Without urgent action, however, the deficit threatens to deepen inequality, strain urban systems, and derail the African Union’s 50-year Agenda 2063 plan, which envisions inclusive and sustainable development across the continent.
The numbers, Hann admitted, are “daunting,” but the cost of inaction could be far greater. Rising populations and rapid urbanization mean the housing deficit is projected to grow unless financing models are dramatically scaled up.
“Agenda 2063 will remain a dream unless we fix housing,” one panelist said bluntly, echoing the urgency that dominated the session.
For now, institutions like Shelter Afrique and Afreximbank are leading efforts to bridge the gap through partnerships and new financing structures. But all agreed: the scale of the problem demands continental collaboration, private investment, and bold innovation.
As Hann concluded: “The housing deficit is not just a crisis. It is also an opportunity to reimagine Africa’s future — and to build it, quite literally, brick by brick.”
