Delivering affordable homes in any part of the world has multi facets and require both the involvement of the public sector in collaboration with the private sector.

With growing urbanisation in Africa, Rwanda is taking the leading role in partnering with the private sector to deliver and meet the exponential demand and access to affordable homes to the wider population as well as affordable rents for renters.

We both the public and private sectors must also find ways to deliver a green and sustainable development because what we do today has an implication to our future generation.

This partnership work quite well because, the delivery of affordable homes requires the political support from the government side and innovative way of building houses by the developer. To help the population to have access to affordable and decent homes, both the government and developer are require to develop a model that works for the benefit of the population, for instance, the majority of the cost to build a house is driven by the construction cost of the house which is mainly material cost and labour cost itself the land cost, the infrastructure cost.

In Bwiza Riverside Affordable Homes, our partnership with the government of Rwanda responds quite well in the aspect of driving the cost of the housing development down by way of the government providing the land and infrastructure cost and we the developer must find ways to bring the cost of construction down by applying our construction technologies to the development.

ADHI’s construction technologies is quite ingenious, because we African have been building our traditional houses with mud and stick, in this case the mud is replaced with light concrete which is Thermal insulation,   Waterproofness — it does not pick up moisture, so, it is not prone to be affected by microorganisms,  It is resistant to rotting,  Ensures good soundproofing; High-quality bearing properties; non-combustible which also fire resistant;  Eco-friendly;  Durable — designed to be operated over more than 200 cycles which is equal to 200 years resistant.  basically, the gravel is replaced with EPS which is Expanded polystyrene (EPS) concrete, in our case we trapped air and this material will be produced locally. For the stick, this is replaced by Light Steel Frame, the benefits light steel framing in particular come to the fore in urban residential projects that often involve a mixture of townhouses and larger apartment buildings. This is not a new technology, but ADHI adapted this concept to suit the local environment and culture. Furthermore, this construction approach is good for sustainability rating, in addition all steel components can be recycled and building extensions can be made easily in the future.

For ADHI to succeed, our aim is to also train local workforce so that project is less reliant on expatriates which further impact on the cost of construction.

Our approach to manufacture most of the construction materials within our production warehouses, for instance the roof, windows, doors, light concrete and rolling of light steel, further demonstrate our conscious effort to lower the development carbon footprint  and to keep the construction cost to a value that doesn’t exceed the selling price threshold for affordable homes.

In closing, one should recognise the leading role that Rwanda has taken in this sector in both policies and proactive approach and  for the developers who are either present in the country or reading this article, we need to work, collaborate, share ideas together to find the best way to make every single Rwandan to access a dignifying and affordable homes, the country is big to accommodate our businesses.

The writer is the General Manager at  ADHI RWANDA LTD

The views expressed in this article are of the writer.