The Federal Government has showcased its Renewed Hope Housing Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model at a continental forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, attracting interest from African countries seeking to replicate the initiative in their housing programmes.
The presentation was made by the Director-General of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), Dr Jobson Oseodion Ewalefoh, at the Second Forum for Public-Private Partnership Units in Africa, held at Africa Hall, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), with delegations from 36 countries in attendance.
According to a press release issued by Ifeanyi Nwoko, ICRC Acting Head, Media and Publicity, on Monday, the forum was co-organised by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the African Legal Support Facility under the theme, “Making Social Sector PPPs Work: From Policy Ambition to Effective Service Delivery”.
The forum focused on how public-private partnerships could support the delivery of affordable housing, healthcare, education, sanitation and water services across the continent.
Nigeria was among five countries that presented projects at the forum’s project clinic, alongside Malawi, Kenya, Djibouti and Côte d’Ivoire.
Speaking on Nigeria’s housing initiative, Ewalefoh explained that the Renewed Hope Cities programme would deliver 100,000 housing units across selected cities in the country through a joint venture concession involving the private sector.
“The beauty of this PPP structure is that it is not the conventional PPP. In this case, the private party owns the land, has the design, is financing it and is doing the construction,” he said.
He explained that under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, the government’s responsibility was to reduce the risks that could discourage private investment in housing.
“The PPP here is that government agreed to de-risk the project,” Ewalefoh said.
The ICRC director-general noted that commercial lending rates in Nigeria, which exceed 23 per cent, had made housing finance expensive for developers and prospective homeowners.
To address the challenge, the government introduced measures to reduce investment risks and improve affordability. These include designating middle-income federal civil servants as off-takers, committing to the construction of access roads to semi-urban project sites, and providing access to concessionary financing.
The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria unlocked about $19 million in single-digit interest funding, while the Family Homes Fund provided a further $20 million in concessionary loans.
Additionally, buyers benefit from lower mortgage rates through an approximately $112 million MOFI Real Estate Investment Fund. The government also negotiated sale prices with the developer to keep the houses affordable and imposed a limit of one housing unit per buyer to discourage speculation.
According to the statement, the measures reduced the effective cost of the project by about 30 per cent.
The financing arrangement enables the government to facilitate housing delivery without directly financing the construction costs. About $39 million in concessionary funding is helping to unlock a project with construction costs of approximately $125 million in private-sector investment.
“Government does not need to finance housing capital projects. It can crowd in private capital through policy, land availability and off-taker facilitation to create a replicable, scalable model for housing delivery,” Ewalefoh told delegates.
The model generated considerable interest during the question-and-answer session, with delegates seeking to understand how Nigeria’s risk-reduction mechanisms, particularly the off-taker guarantee and access to concessionary finance, could be adapted to their respective countries.
The forum also provided an opportunity for participating countries to exchange experiences on social-sector PPP projects, including their successes, challenges, risk allocation and implementation strategies.
The ICRC said the discussions would also benefit Nigeria, as the country’s delegation drew lessons from other countries’ projects to inform the development of its own social-sector PPP pipeline.
The forum builds on its inaugural edition in 2024, which brought together more than 30 African PPP units to discuss climate-resilient infrastructure. This year’s edition featured heads of PPP units, development finance institutions, private operators and transaction advisers examining ways to make social infrastructure projects financially sustainable and affordable for citizens.