The Youth Cafe In Collaboration with Innovative Governance of Large Urban Systems (IGLUS) released a report on Housing Challenges In African Cities.

According to the report of the World Bank, rapid urbanization and an increasing number of slum dwellers have created severe housing issues in African cities. Capacity, policy, and governance weaknesses coupled with a lack of inter-organizational collaboration for development solutions are halting progress in urban settings.

In order to tackle these issues, new and focused approaches to affordable housing are required. Therefore, there is a need to re-examine current processes and policies to enable short-term and long-term solutions to informal urban housing in African cities. By considering this, in this issue of Innovative Governance of Large Urban Systems (IGLUS) Quarterly having four unique articles, we will discuss the growing concern of providing equitable and accessible options for youth housing by also reviewing the current approaches, best practices, and case studies currently being utilized with a focus in African cities within the urban realm.

The perspectives shared in the articles will add value to what has already been published; very little published written by youth living in the global south. 

The first article comes from South Africa. Dr. Priscila Izar focuses on innovative approaches to housing production and finance. She compares the housing sector to local experiences of housing and neighborhood self-building (auto construction) in Brazil and Tanzania to examine the nature, social and material outcomes, and everyday lived experiences of housing struggles in relation to the urban poor. 

The second article examines the Tanzanian housing sector more extensively with a focus on the impact of Swahili language. Albert Nyiti and Mariam Genes debate the mindsets and/or attitudes derived from the Swahili language that have formed the country’s public perception of what housing means. The paper starts out by pointing out the academic inadequacies in the current local knowledge already available in the housing sector. It then includes interviews of professionals in the real estate and housing sectors as well as the citizens to see if one’s occupation or degree of education had an impact on their overall knowledge of the definition of housing.

The third article is from Nairobi. Agnes Ruth Omollo analyzes the efforts made by the Kenya Government to ensure that its citizens have access to the fundamental constitutional rights. She further examines the Big Four Agenda Action Plan of the Kenya Government, one of the most audacious projects in the history of the country, aiming to provide its citizens with affordable housing, which in turn is fostering employment and encourages manufacturing. She concludes the article by discussing the project’s present status and what has to still be done.

Last but not least, in the fourth article, Willice Onyango explores the informal housing challenge in urban Kenya in the context of the younger generation between the age of 18 - 34 years. The article first examines the housing ideation in Africa, then questions what kind of actions the Kenyan government is taking toward the informal settlement issue. The paper continues by exploring youth-led ideas to solve this issue, as well as speculating on how the situation might change in the future.

We sincerely hope that you can enjoy this issue of IGLUS