In an attempt to meet increasing housing demand, Nigeria established its Federal Housing Authority in 1973, with the goal of providing over 250,000 housing units. Though originally aimed at providing housing through the public sector, by 1991, the government adopted a housing policy focused incentivizing housing development from the private sector by offering discounted land and development finance.
But instead of resulting in greater production of housing, this has resulted in land speculation in cities, where the private sector was able to acquire high value land for little to no cost. Instead of building affordable units, many of the contracts with the government were ignored or unenforced, so any housing that was built was far out of the price range for low-income populations. By 2012, only 41,000 units, or 15% of the goal, had been completed – evidence of the ineffectiveness of incentivizing development in this case.
Source:
World Bank Group. (2015) Stocktaking of the Housing Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa : Challenges and Opportunities. World Bank, Washington, DC.
Link: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/23358