CAHF Housing Finance Yearbook Webinar Series: Focus on West Africa

The webinar series on affordable housing finance in Africa launched by CAHF in December 2019 is inspired by recent information from our Housing Finance in Africa Yearbook 2019 which covers 55 countries and 5 regions of the continent.

On Friday February 28, 2020 from 10:30 am to 11:30 am GMT was held the second webinar on housing finance: focus in West Africa which saw the participation of 38 experts and actors representing the Housing Bank of Senegal, the private sector, development banks (with the participation of the French Development Agency), etc. They joined us from Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, South Africa, and Cameroon. Other participants based outside the continent also attended this exchange. They were from France, Spain, the USA, Canada and the Reunion Islands.

The webinar was structured around presentations on the current state of housing finance in West Africa and on specific themes related to access to housing finance and income in Senegal, housing supply and real estate market in Guinea, land laws and regulations in Côte d’Ivoire and finally, access to data in Senegal. All this was done with the aim of:

• Collecting relevant insights from housing and housing finance actors on the situation in West African countries;
• Sharing with stakeholders the recent changes observed in the various elements of the value chain of housing finance in West Africa, and;
• Maintaining constructive discussions around the theme of housing finance in West Africa with a view to finding effective solutions to the development of this sector in West Africa.

The discussions were led and moderated by CAHF professionals, Olivier Vidal, head of the Francophone program and Jean Philippe Ado, research manager in charge of West and North Africa. They were assisted by the panelists, for the most part author of the WAMU country profiles in our Yearbook, and; of our Special guest, Mr. Williams BELLA. A brief presentation of our panelists and our special guest below:

• Thierno Birahim NIANG is an Engineer Statistician Economist and currently Research Assistant at the Consortium for Economic and Social Research (CRES). He is the author of the Senegal profile in our 2019 Yearbook and also involved in the writing of our Housing Investment Chronicle in Senegal which was published in December 2019;
• Mr. Edwin ASSOGBAVI is a graduate of the University of Lomé in Management of organizations. He has 15 years of experience, including 7 years in the building materials sector. He is stationed in BENIN as Commercial Director in the HEIDELBERGCEMENT group, number 2 worldwide in the production and sale of cement. He is the author of the profile of Togo in our 2019 Yearbook;
• Dr Youssouph KEITA Graduate in economics, and currently teaches courses in econometrics and macroeconomics at the University of Sonfonia Conakry. He is also a consultant in real estate investment and setting of public private partnership in this industry. He is the author of the profiles of Guinea and Guinea Bissau in our 2019 Yearbook;
• Originally Williams BELLA is a banker specializing in structured finance in real estate. He is now Managing Director of Property Kro, a real estate services and development company based in Abidjan and which offers services in WAMU at the request of customers. He is also a Real Estate Expert with the Cour d’Appel in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.