The inaugural Conference will be hosted by KMRC in collaboration with the State Department for Housing and Urban Development and is themed –Affordable Housing in Kenya: Leveraging the Supply and Demand Linkages
Nairobi, December 6, 2021- Players in Kenya’s housing industry converge on the conference mecca of Naivasha this week to take stock of achievements under the Affordable Housing Pillar of the Big 4 Agenda, enhance demand and supply sides linkages and discuss issues affecting the delivery of affordable housing and how to resolve them.
Convened by the Mortgage Re-financier Kenya Mortgage Refinance Company (KMRC) and the State Department of Housing and Urban Development the Affordable Housing Conference, the first of its kind in Kenya, is schedule for December 8-9, 2021.
The conference, on the theme Affordable Housing in Kenya: Leveraging the Supply and Demand Linkages, is expected to bring together public and private sector players to discuss demand and supply side factors relevant to the delivery of affordable housing in Kenya.
The Affordable Housing Conference targets project developers, investors – pension funds, insurance companies, SACCOs, consumers, development partners (AfDB, USAID, World Bank, IFC), Government MDAs and County Governments. Others are financiers, consultancy firms, policy makers and regulators, research institutions and professional associations in the built environment.
This conference is key to fostering public-private dialogue in the pursuit of Kenya’s AHP goals. As we address the demand side by progressively lowering interest rates on home loans, thereby driving affordability, KMRC is alive to the fact that for truly sustainable affordable housing to be achieved, the supply and demand side must work in tandem. We hope this conference will engender viable solutions to the challenges currently constraining the sub-sector,” said KMRC CEO Johnstone Oltetia. “
The conference comes against the backdrop of an aggressive Affordable Housing Program (AHP), that the Government is currently implementing. The Government has also tasked both private and public sectors’ stakeholders to reimagine practical measures that can be implemented in the short to medium term to fast-track delivery of housing objectives. In his recent State of the Nation address to Kenya’s Legislature, President Uhuru Kenyatta noted that some 186,000 units had been constructed in the last four years.
Housing is recognized as one of the critical sectors under the social pillar of the Vision 2030, Kenya’s main economic blueprint. Further, Affordable Housing has been prioritized as one of the initiatives under President Kenyatta’s “Big 4 Agenda” to ensure that low and middle-income households have access to decent and affordable housing units. Additionally, AHP is one of the Government’s main development objectives for the period 2017 – 2022, under the third medium term plan (MTP III) of Kenya’s Vision 2030. The State Department for Housing and Urban Development is mandated to implement the Program by providing an enabling environment and implementing plans to deliver 500,000 affordable housing units.