Developing a Framework for Creating Sustainable Affordable Housing Schemes in Kigali City
International Journal of Innovative Science and Modern Engineering (IJISME), 5 (12):
45-49 (June 2019)Abstract
Housing, literally is defined as buildings or other shelters in which people live, a place to live, a dwelling and to nations a critical component in social and economic system. Housing represents one of the most basic human needs. To most groups housing means shelter but to others it means more as it serves as one of the best indicators of person’s standard of living and his or her place in the society 1. It is a priority for the attainment of living standard and it is important to both rural and urban areas. These attributes make demand for housing to know no bound as population growth and urbanization are increasing very rapidly and the gap between housing need and supply becomes wider. This housing deficit has continued to accumulate over the years as a result of poor housing policy implementation by successive governments in Rwanda. Researchers in urban housing and community development face significant challenges in evaluating the success of efforts to improve urban neighborhoods and identifying underlying theories that might predict the success of future initiatives. Practitioners in this field confront political considerations, restrictive administrative guidelines and limited funding. It is important to mention that one of the main problems in African cities is that households invest in housing prior to the government’s development of adequate infrastructure. This is the genesis of informal settlements and, as a result, many African cities are plagued with slums –a housing stock that does not have access to the kinds of basic infrastructure needed for cities to be able to serve as platforms for economic growth. Instead of cities serving as centers of agglomeration economies that they have provided around the world and throughout history, they instead become centers of diseconomies which impede rather than enhance growth prospects 2. Rwanda has the opportunity to change the order of these investments with potentially enormous gains. If the government invests wisely it can avoid this looming problem and keep Kigali one of the most livable cities on the continent. However, this effort requires that the government take some “bets” on infrastructure investments prior to households overwhelming existing infrastructure. The question is, “Where to put the infrastructure, and how much to put down. This research highlights some of the framework and financing tools that can be employed to reduce the challenges in housing finance and cost of housing