The Role Of Standards In Sustainable Real Estate Development In Eastern Africa

Routinely chronic and misplaced funding is one of the key challenges of the Kenyan and indeed the Eastern Africa regional sustainable development of REAL ESTATE. Equally and perhaps more telling is the weakness of the national policy framework to do the same. That would form the setting of much needed standards for benchmarking with the rest of the world in this increasingly global real estate investment market. This paper presents areview of theexperience withstandards provision in Kenya as well as discussing the suite of standards that RICS promotes under various international Standards Coalitions. It needs to explore and analyze the gaps, and, if deemed suitable, adopted and or domesticated. Standards have become relevant, especially in these days of financial crises, collapsing buildings, and failure of other infrastructure, that reflect adversely on the various professionals engaged in the development and maintenance of real estate in the Eastern Africa region and Sub Saharan Africa as a whole. Support for standards programmes cannot be the responsibility of governments alone, given the perceived benefits of Public Private Partnerships (PPP). This analysis indicates that sustainability is dependent on adoption of the Standards Coalition and partnership with professional organizations, governments and the private sector, in the real estate value chain.RECOMMENDATIONS: Global organizations such as RICS, private sector investment, and capacity development through PPP arrangement need to work together in sync to drive the sustainability agenda based on the UN’s SDG model. Private sector participation in real estate creation could actually unlock the myth that they only go for the top end of the market, especially given the economic circumstances of the majority of the people of Sub Saharan Africa. Training and the need for an appropriate and sound legal, regulatory and institutional PPP framework for Investment in real estate is an imperative.