The Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa (CAHF) commissioned 71point4 to assist with the development and implementation of their data agenda. This agenda aims to foster a data-driven approach to affordable housing markets in Africa that provides regulators, policymakers, developers and housing financiers with accurate, relevant, and current data.

The team has relied on a variety of methodological approaches. A review of data management norms and best practices was conducted to create a set of protocols that covers data collection, appraisal, curation and dissemination. Having established these protocols, the team developed a framework for the establishment of a set of headline indicators for CAHF that measure activity along the housing finance and delivery value chains.

Populating these indicators relies on the availability of public data sources including household surveys and aggregated administrative data. However, available data do not always fully meet indicator definitions. In light of these challenges, the team developed data gathering guidelines describing the data elements underlying each indicator. These guidelines facilitate cross-country comparisons and research replicability.

Once data is collected, the team conducts an assessment of the housing data landscape. This assessment explores the underlying operational environments to understand why certain data gaps exist. The team then devises strategies to close these data gaps in the most efficient way, to reduce the data provision burden on the various entities that typically generate useful housing data.

Our collaboration with CAHF on this agenda is ongoing and targets the following outcomes

• Collect, assess and curate available data as relevant to CAHF’s overall mission and increased investment in affordable housing across Africa.
• Identify data gaps that inhibit market activity and close key data gaps through engagements with data custodians
• Integrate, optimise and expand CAHF’s set of knowledge products and data tools to produce a set of key data outputs that are widely referenced and support CAHF’s broader objectives
• Build the capacity of partner institutions to analyse data and engage with data-driven outputs
• Promote the importance of accessible, credible data as a catalyst in the affordable housing market