A general overview of housing supply in Accra and the issue of affordability amongst civil servants

Housing provision in most cities and towns in Ghana for civil servants has been the responsibility of the Ghana government. The reason being, Ghana's pursuance of socialist ideologies which had at its core, public- sector housing provision. This became the defining line between the development of urban Accra and pre-colonial rural Accra. But with time, housing provision has experienced many changes due to the implementation of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1983, an International Monitory Fund (IMF) economic reform. The target on housing in the economic reform was to deviate from government's heavily subsidized housing supply in urban Accra for civil servants through privatization towards a capitalist market mechanism. Thus, making housing a commodity rather than welfare good. This gives rise to the issue of affordability. Affordability however has been the most difficult preposition to home ownership amongst civil servant households in urban Accra. The research seeks to give a general overview of housing supply in rural and urban Accra, the impact of the Ghana government housing reform through the SAP on civil servants and the issue of affordability in a city that has experienced tremendous population growth since independence. The research further seeks to find out what could be the potential drawbacks in the provision of sustainable housing development. Finally, it assesses potentially adoptable strategies to build and operate effective public housing system through the establishment of non-profit housing organizations to promote affordability