By Kingsley Adegboye

Against the backdrop of the widening housing gap in the country, new partnerships and initiatives supported by the federal and state governments to address the housing shortfall  which is a daunting challenge, are being put in place, thereby raising the hope that governments can actually help provide the over 17 million new homes needed across the country in the next 15 years.

*Highbrow residential estate in Abuja

The Family Homes Fund Limited is one of such new initiatives. The Fund is a partnership between the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority as founding shareholders.

The Fund will be the largest affordable housing-focused fund in Sub-Sahara Africa leveraging its significant capital (in excess of N1trn by 2023) to facilitate access to affordable housing for millions of Nigerians on low to medium income groups.

Through strategic partnerships with various players in the sector and some of the world’s main Development Finance Institutions, the Fund has an ambitious commitment to facilitate and supply 500,000 homes by 2023.

However, leveraging its capital to support the supply of new homes for families on low to medium income is only a means to an end. The key priority for the Fund is to take advantage of the opportunity a large scale house building programme offers to create jobs which are sustainable and offer families security, improved quality of life and hope.

With a projected cumulative expenditure of up to N1trillion by 2023 into various inputs into house building process including doors, windows, tiles, roofing materials, blocks, paving stones, paint and others, there is opportunity to incubate large numbers of small scale industries that will create significant employment for Nigerians.

The Family Homes Fund aims to catalyse the creation of new jobs through the investments people make. Alongside investment by other players in the housing sector, there is a real opportunity to achieve impact. Real positive impact on families, women who often carry the biggest burden in poor households and young people. At the national level, this potential if effectively harnessed, could generate up to 1.5 per cent increase to the GDP by 2023.

To make this happen however, the Family Homes Fund Ltd will be by three priorities such as Policy, Partnerships and People.

Policy – The Fund aims to support ongoing dialogue around development of a local content framework for inputs into the house building process. A long-term objective is to ensure that up to 80 per cent of manufactured inputs are locally produced.

Partnerships – Much more can be achieved collectively than with a single player. The Fund aims to build strong partnerships with institutions and agencies to maximise this opportunity. The Fund will work with existing and new partners in the building materials industry, offering where appropriate, guaranteed purchase commitments thus enabling critical access to capital for investment.

People – Through the investments we make, the Fund will equip a new generation of young Nigerians with high-level skills in modern methods of construction and technologies.

Through a combination of these activities, the Family Homes Fund aims to create or support up to 1,500,000 jobs by 2023 making a real difference to the quality of life of their families and the economy.