Nigeria’s urban housing problems manifest in overcrowding, slum housing and the development of shanties in virtually every major Nigerian city. The housing problems vary from inadequate quantity and quality of housing to the attendant impact on the psychological, social, environmental and cultural aspects of housing. Housing is capital-intensive and for this reason, the cost of adequate housing is beyond reach for the majority of Nigerians.
An assessment of slums undertaken by the UN-Habitat indicates that 828 million which is an estimated 33% of the urban population of developing countries resides in slums. In sub-Saharan Africa, 62% of the urban population resides in such settlements. The new generation of civil engineers, architects, and urban planners have to consider several factors in the design of sustainable solutions to address this major issue.
This is one of the areas of that the SusCrete Infrastructure initiative was founded to contribute. However, we are currently seeking support to be able to grow our reach and it would be amazing to see that we can raise awareness to this project and to future collaborations.
With the recent completion of the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris and the release of the ratified 17 sustainable development goals by the United Nations, there is increased awareness of the influence of anthropic activities on climate change. This gives SusCrete a good pedestal to initiate conversations and network for business potentials with the private sector and governments around Africa. The adoption and commitment to a less rigorous methodology towards cutting down on greenhouse gases that allow cities and governments to align their actions for local problem solving will, in turn, allow SusCrete to have the advantage to propose flexible and localised solutions that suit different problems in our focus markets.
However, our major challenge is creating enough traction that is required for the intiative to reach a wider audience both financial or through networking. Whether, it is governments in Africa, potential partners or the communities (especially Lagos, Nigeria our focus). We have considered that using a crowd-funding platform like Kickstarter will not only help us raise finance but create awareness to like-minded persons who think they want to align with our goal of a greener and responsible construction sector for Sub-Saharan Africa.
The SusCrete team has worked on projects in the past for some of our potential customers. This rapport is beneficial to us and will be our first points of contacts for business partnership proposals.
Kindly, go to our Kickstarter page to show your financial support for this initiative