1st Edition of the Affordable Housing Finance course in francophone Africa

The launch of the first annual Francophone course on Affordable Housing Finance in Africa was held in, Dakar Senegal, from 20 to 25 January 2020. The first edition was organised by the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa (CAHF) in partnership with Institut Africain de Management (IAM) and Sciences Po Rennes. The course is essentially tailored to address the needs of housing and housing finance practitioners in Francophone Africa.

The objective of the course is to focus on the pressing issue of access to housing finance for low to middle income earner as well as informal income earner and to provide an adequate training to both the private and public sector in their implementation of affordable housing policies and creation of affordable housing finance products to serve the francophone market. During the week, 22 participants from Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo and Benin, all from various sectors such as banking, private equity, microfinance, public sector, etc. took part in the training. The course’s agenda was divided into five sessions that included:

• Context and Introduction to housing and housing finance landscape in west Africa;
• The main actors and institutions;
• The affordable housing finance products
• The different tools for an affordable housing products
• Site visit of the new city project in Diamnadio

The visit of Diamnadio offered insightful ideas in terms of how effective Public Private Partnership can steer funding towards the development of affordable housing projects while offering adequate guarantee to investors.