As African countries invest in affordable housing, new evidence highlights a critical question: are these investments creating meaningful economic opportunities for women, or are we measuring success by the number of homes built?
Across Africa, governments are pursuing ambitious housing programmes to address growing demand for adequate and affordable homes. Yet behind the housing targets, construction figures and financing commitments lie an important question: who benefits from these investments, and how do they improve people's lives?
For women, access to adequate housing can mean more than having a secure place to live. It can influence access to employment, the time spent on unpaid care responsibilities, opportunities to run home-based businesses, personal safety and control over economic resources.
But how much do we know about these connections?
This question was at the center of ‘Beyond Shelter: Housing, Inclusion and Women's Economic Empowerment, a webinar convened by the International Centre for Evaluation and Development (ICED) through its ALL-IN Research Network (ARN), as part of activities marking World Habitat Day and Urban October.
The conversation brought together research evidence, practical experiences from African housing programmes and perspectives on the policy changes needed to make housing more inclusive.
What does the evidence tell us?
Presenting findings from ICED's Evidence and Gap Map (EGM) on gender-responsive macro-level policies and women's economic empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa, Dr Clarice Panyin Nyan highlighted a significant gap in the available research.
Of the 245 studies mapped across 48 sub-Saharan African countries, only eight examined social housing policies. By comparison, 101 studies examined childcare and 57 focused on health insurance.
Research on key dimensions of women's empowerment was also limited. Only 23 studies across the wider EGM explored women's agency, their ability to make decisions and control resources.
These findings do not suggest that housing policies are ineffective. Rather, they reveal how little systematic evidence is available to understand whether housing interventions improve women's economic opportunities, under what conditions and for whom.
As Dr Nyan challenged participants:
"How do we move from housing to income to agency?"
The question points to a wider policy challenge: providing housing is an important achievement but understanding what happens after people access that housing is equally important.
Beyond affordability: who can access housing?
The discussion also highlighted the persistent disconnect between housing ambitions, affordability and implementation.
Drawing on examples from Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa and other African countries, Dr Jonathan Oladeji of the University of Johannesburg and Housing Africa Founder examined how different housing models influence inclusion and economic opportunity.
His presentation demonstrated that housing policies take different forms across the continent, including mortgage-supported ownership, social rental, buyer assistance and subsidized condominium programmes. However, these models are rarely assessed using comparable measures of affordability, inclusion and long-term outcomes.
The conversation also questioned what governments mean when they describe housing as affordable.
A home may be subsidized but remain financially inaccessible to households with low or irregular incomes. Even when the purchase price or rent is reduced, transport costs, access to services and financing requirements can determine whether housing is genuinely affordable.
Can housing unlock economic opportunities?
Research on Ethiopia's condominium allocation programme identified improvements in formal employment among heads of households who received housing through a lottery system, although the reported estimate was not disaggregated for women.
In Cape Town, research on government-provided housing found that household income gains were driven partly by increased employment among female household members.
These findings illustrate potential pathways through which adequate housing can support economic opportunities. However, they cannot be generalized across all housing models or countries.
Governments need to consider housing as part of an integrated policy package that includes access to water, sanitation, energy, transport and care services. Housing affordability must also be assessed against the circumstances of different population groups, particularly women in informal employment, single mothers and other underserved households.
