Nigeria’s biggest social housing fund, Family Homes Funds is leading the way when it comes to forging beneficial partnerships across the housing sector to improve the affordable housing drive in Nigeria.
With the lofty goal of building at least 500,000 houses for low and middle-income earners by 2023, the Fund’s MD, Femi Adewole has recognised the importance of partnering with other government institutions, state governments, financial, mortgage institutions, research and development agencies to achieve this goal.
The Fund is currently working on at least 20 projects in different states of the federation including Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Kano, Delta, Ogun, FCT, and this has only been possible because of how they are tapping into the comparative advantages of their partners. The Fund has confirmed that more positive outcome of the partnership with these states will be revealed in the coming weeks..
Having inked concrete agreements with these states, the Fund is also working with research institutes like Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI).
On the relationship between the two, Femi Adewole said; ‘’we are in an age of information and knowledge for delivering change. And for the Family Homes Funds, we are absolutely clear that if we are going to deliver change in the way that housing is delivered in Nigeria, knowledge has to be a critical part of that, and I think the nation’s leading building research institute, therefore, becomes a key partner and I think we agreed today that we will work together.’’
The Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI) is responsible for researching and developing road and building materials for the Nigerian Construction Industry.
To scale through common challenges in the housing sector, the Fund is also working with professional institutions like REDAN, MBAN, NITP, NIOB, HDAN and other professional bodies to agree on fundamental approaches and how to face these challenges as a team.
The importance of such partnerships will enable them learn from each other’s experience as operators in the Nigeria housing sector, access collected data and networks.
It is worthy of mention that Family Homes Funds is partnering with the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, as well as Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board and Association of Housing Corporations of Nigeria to succeed in the affordable housing project.
They are equally in partnership with some international financial institutions such as Shelter Afrique to device the most effective strategies of providing affordable housing for low-income earners in Nigeria who may have given up hope of owning their own homes.
The Fund has also established a beneficial working relationship with other housing finance agencies like CBN, FMBN, NMRC, and are also supporting affordable housing advocacy with the Housing Development Advocacy Network.
With a focused and determined leadership of Femi Adewole, a well tested international housing finance guru, a lot of stakeholders are confident about what the Fund can achieve, especially with the kind of partnerships that it is leveraging on to deliver its key goals.
All these achievements have been made more remarkable by the work of the members of the board of Family Homes Funds whom have all excelled very well in their chosen careers and are putting that experience to good use at Family Homes Funds.
Such spirit of collaboration can only be sustained and effective enough to inspire other key stakeholders in the sector to leverage on partnerships and collaborations in achieving affordable housing in Nigeria and reduce the country’s alarming housing deficit.
During the recent visit of the supervising minister in charge of Family Homes Funds to Kano FHF project- The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, commended the board and the management for a job well done.
