Paper short abstract:

This research presents findings on housing access in eight African cities within a political settlements frame. It explores similarities and regional differences in rental housing ecosystems, and fluid relationship between formality and informality, offering insights for urban reform.

Paper long abstract:

This paper presents emerging components of low-cost rental housing in six African cities, arguing that rental markets do not simply represent the failure of the state to supply affordable home-ownership units, but they currently exist as valid sub-components of the African urban housing market.

Rental housing ecosystems across African cities are however mostly unregulated, with housing developers, ranging from individual households offering ‘backyard’ rooms for rent to middle-and-large scale developers offering hundreds of rooms in multi-storey tenements. Applying a value-chain perspective enables a deeper understanding of the fluid relationship between formality and informality as investors access land, connect to urban services, construct rental housing, and manage this stock over time. The paper also highlights existing gaps in governance, urban management, and service delivery, which result in the production of rental houses without accompanying services and infrastructure.

The unregulated nature of low-cost rental housing however also creates uneven power dynamics and spaces for tenant exploitation. In many instances, landlord-tenant relations are often exploitative, with tenants frequently subjected to poor living conditions, with little recourse for housing justice. The paper therefore proposes for a pursuit of urban reform pathways that secure tenant rights and access to housing, while supporting landlords and developers with technical and financial resources to produce improved affordable housing.