Ivory Coast home-hunters' struggle highlights Africa's deepening housing crunch
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As Abidjan's population tops six million, a UN-Habitat report says Sub-Saharan Africa has the world's highest rate of rental unaffordability, with households spending over 30% of income on rent.
For months, Veronique and Faustin Kla have looked for a home in Abidjan, tired of juggling their finances in the hunt for a place to raise their one-year-old son, Junior. "We had a budget of 80,000 CFA francs ($142), but as the search dragged on, we increased it a bit to 100,000," Faustin told AFP during a viewing. As in many fast-growing cities across Africa, finding affordable, decent housing is an increasingly costly headache for residents of Ivory Coast's economic capital.
A report published in May by UN-Habitat, the United Nations' cities and housing agency, said Sub-Saharan Africa, at 55 percent, had the world's highest rate of "rental unaffordability" - defined as households spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent. Although Ivory Coast has enjoyed an economic boom for more than a decade, the minimum wage of 75,000 CFA francs is not enough to secure decent accommodation.
Africa's urban population is expected to grow from 700 million to 1.4 billion by 2050, creating around 20 additional megacities with more than 10 million inhabitants, according to the African Union. Abidjan's population has doubled in 20 years to exceed six million people, but the housing supply remains insufficient. Thousands of people end up settling in precarious areas, sometimes flood-prone and officially off-limits for construction, prompting the Ivorian government to enforce evictions and demolitions.
The costs of searching add to the burden. In Abidjan, estate agents charge between 5,000 and 10,000 CFA francs just to view a property, even if it is eventually judged unsuitable. Eric Djedje went through that during the two months he spent searching before finding a house in the Cocody district, only to face another hurdle: with the monthly rent set at 180,000 CFA francs, his landlord required a total upfront payment of about one million francs, covering deposits, advance rent, agent fees and meter installation charges, with no instalments accepted.
Others face yet another obstacle: proving their ability to pay in a country where the informal sector employs around 90 percent of the workforce. Experts describe the situation as unprecedented, with demand for decent housing far outpacing supply across the region's fast-growing cities.