Formulating an effective public private Partnership policy for housing provision in Nigeria urban centres

Abstract

The argument in the recent time was that the past strategies of the government in housing provision were obviously in favour of high income groups as the low-medium groups are victims of housing inadequacy in cities. The corollary to the situation resulted to the call for the adoption of public private partnership (PPP) initiative in order to accomplish the broad goal of housing-for-all in Nigeria. Most recent studies have established that there is no substantial contribution reported from the initiative, as the housing outputs are only affordable at present by high income groups, thus there is a need for a policy framework to ensure an effective PPP in urban housing provision. The aim of this paper is to suggest a policy framework for the way forward- the approach that is based on both theoretical and conceptual model, as related to Nigeria housing provision structure. This study utilises existing empirical studies, reports and theoretical concepts. It also utilises the responses from housing professionals on modalities of enhancing urban housing provision through PPP model in Nigeria. It was confirmed that the PPP model for housing provision in Nigeria is an emerging concept that lacks a specific policy and has little contribution in urban housing provision. Hence, the paper opines that the context for ensuring an effective collaboration that will make a PPP model is by incorporating all the institutions (poles), interests (motivating factors), norms, values (cultural practices), property rights and transaction costs. It is concluded that all the income groups should be considered as parts of the stakeholders in the formulation of a better PPP policy framework that addresses the housing needs of the majority of the dwellers in cities. This conceptual idea is referred to as New Institutional Economics (NIE) Approach.