Research and Development-Driven Delivery of Affordable Housing in Tanzania

This presentation is based on a study directed at identifying the key barriers to scaling up and enhancing the impact of projects in low cost housing in developing countries. The foreign collaborators for the project were researchers at the National housing Building Research Agency (NHBRA), a Government Executive Agency. Tanzania’s housing deficit is a staggering 3 million units. Efforts by different players in both the private and public sector such as NHBRA directed at providing affordable housing have had limited success with little potential for impact at scale. Financial constraints were identified as a key barrier to the deployment of large scale housing units. To a large extent the design and development of  low income housing and slum upgrading projects are largely confined within disciplinary silos, thus severely limiting the impact of each study. The nexus between the provision of adequate shelter, the infrastructure industry and business is generally overlooked. Given the slow growth in the provision of housing vis-a-vis the reality of rapid urbanization, it is inevitably that the housing deficit in countries like Tanzania will increase exponentially. That escalating deficit will inexorably compound the problem of informal settlement in Sub-Saharan Africa. Built Environment professionals tackling the growing demands for low incoming housing can dramatically enhance their collective effectiveness by seeking alignments and synergies emerging players in creative financing.