The thirteenth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) takes place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 17 to 22 May 2026. The theme of WUF13 is: Housing the world: Safe and resilient cities and communities.
Is Africa's housing challenge the world's next major investment opportunity? The Africa Affordable Housing Compact is a strategic, multi-stakeholder initiative designed to transform Africa's housing sector by driving investment, fostering innovation, and strengthening partnerships. Its core objective is to tackle the continent's severe housing deficit—currently estimated at over 51 million units—by promoting scalable, sustainable, and financially viable affordable housing solutions for urban populations. A central feature of the Compact is its deal platform, which acts as a dynamic connector between investors, accelerators, financial institutions, and high-impact housing projects. This platform will create a robust pipeline of innovative housing solutions and focuses on unlocking and mobilizing capital to deliver large-scale, affordable housing. Through this approach, the Compact aims to advance sustainable urbanization, equity, dignity, and socio-economic development across Africa. Guiding questions How can UN-Habitat facilitate coordinated action to scale affordable, sustainable, and inclusive housing across Africa through the Africa Affordable Housing Compact and its deal platform? How can blended finance be mobilized and bankable project pipelines standardized to close the 51+ million housing gap and prevent it from reaching 130+ million by 2030? How can efforts accelerate local construction capacity, technology transfer, and access to basic services, while strengthening tenure security? How can UN-Habitat catalyze effective public-private and cross-country partnerships to drive large-scale housing delivery? Expected outcomes The dialogue will facilitateconcrete agreements between developers, innovators, financial institutions, and development agencies, leading to successful project financing and implementation of bankable affordable housing solutions. This includes direct investment interest and commitments for at least 2 scalable affordable housing projects; identification of innovative financing mechanisms and strategies to unlock the estimated $650 billion funding gap, enabling scalable, affordable and sustainable housing projects across Africa; exchange of best practices, innovative solutions, and data-driven insights to inform policy-making and tailored interventions in the African housing market andidentification of innovative financing mechanisms and strategies to unlock the estimated $650 billion funding gap, enabling scalable, affordable and sustainable housing projects across Africa. Objectives The Africa Affordable Housing Compact -Deal Room Investor Special Session will bring together Governments, developers, innovators, financial institutions, private sector actors, international organizations, and other key actors to address the critical gap between innovative housing solutions and the necessary financing to implement them. The session will highlight how the Affordable Housing sector presents a valuable investment opportunity for Global financiers and institutions, making it essential to highlight the emerging business prospects within the Africa's housing market to the Global audience.
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