Innovative Building Materials In Sub- Saharan Africa – Competitive Advantage For Creating Affordable Housing?

Housing is one of the most important basic needs for people. However, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the housing shortage is still increasing. The affordable housing sector, in particular, is reliant on alternatives to conventional house building to address the housing shortage. One approach is to implement innovative building materials and technologies (IBMT) for faster construction at lower cost. There are already a large number of IBMT in Africa, which could reduce the housing shortage. However, uptake in African countries is still low and conventional materials are still used to a large extent. Various causes can play a role here. For instance, developers will not exert efforts to implement IBMT without potential buyers. Thus, it is crucial whether the consumer accepts the materials used in construction. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to identify which IBMT already exist in Africa as well as to understand the desires and requirements that the consumers and stakeholders have towards new materials, and thereby identify on which acceptance criteria their decision depends. We conducted a qualitative study examining the experiences of experts regarding IBMT in Africa. Based on interviews with highly established multipliers from the field of construction, project development and financing, we contrast findings from existing studies to current insights of the experts. The result of the work shows that obstacles such as developers and banks must be overcome first, i.e. to convince them of the innovative construction method, before the acceptance criteria of the population can be met. As soon as this challenge is met, the price of the house plays the most important role for the end user. According to the experts, the quality of the building material as well as social aspects and cultural influences rank very highly behind the cost aspect. Next important factors are aesthetics and flexibility, and then comfort. Only the sustainability aspect has so far not been important for the population within the affordable housing sector. For a successful introduction of IBMT, the experts advocate show houses: exclusively theoretical information about technical conditions or advertising via flyers seem less effecve. Community concepts including a homeowner association and a community manager are considered a very good option. Solutions to the challenge should account for social structures of the population and should simulate the local by creating jobs. For the respective IBMT to gain high market acceptance, image creation is essential. This is possible, among other things, by building flagship projects.