In early September, USC’s Lusk Center for Real Estate, in partnership with the Way Forward Housing Coalition, put on an in-person Washington, DC conference “Housing’s Contribution to Economic Development.” Featuring many of my professional friends and colleagues as speakers, the conference sought ‘to reframe the narrative’ because, to quote the conference organizers: Within the world of macroeconomics and development policy, housing has …
Manoj Sharma, ADB’s Chief of Urban Sector Group, SDGs and Climate Change Development, exclaimed that the ADB’s 1st Asia Pacific Housing Conference (AHC 2022) has “woken a sleeping giant”! He was referring to the renewed strategic attention that ADB has committed itself to in the housing sector. There are several myths and metaphors of a sleeping giant: Japanese Admiral Yamamoto …
This blog originally appeared as the introductory essay[1] to the 2021 edition of the Housing Finance in Africa Yearbook. After a difficult year, African housing markets are showing their resilience, responding to the challenges with innovation and perseverance that earlier years might not have imagined. Housing circumstances across the continent continue to be dire – living conditions have worsened in …
