Government policies and programmes to enhance access to housing: response to two papers

This paper has been prepared as a response to two papers prepared for the Bank of Namibia’s Symposium on Housing in Namibia, which took place on 29 September 2011. The Symposium seeks to answer the question: has the situation changed 21 years after independence? To provide some input towards the question, the Bank of Namibia commissioned two papers. The first, by Professor Aloysius Clemence Mosha, considers the experiences of the USA, Japan and China relating to access to housing finance and financial sector stability. The second, by Dr Mark Napier, considers experiences from South Africa’s housing programme.  This paper considers these two inputs by first setting out a set of key concepts against which to consider the role of the state in housing markets, and then using these concepts to recommend a particular approach. In this regard, the paper explores the nature of the housing asset, and the nature of the housing market, drawing on concepts of filtering, pools and flows, and the housing value chain. The concluding section explores how Namibia might approach the very real challenge of housing affordability, especially in the current economic context of the country and bearing in mind the lessons set out by Mosha and Napier.