Already the second largest African city (after Cairo) and indicated by the Economist as having the fastest population growth prospects throughout the entire continent (third in the world after Delhi and Dhaka); to say that the base of the pyramid housing and urban infrastructure sectors are stagnant would be a severe understatement.  A prime example of what Nelson Mandela once quoted as a situation of “urbanisation leading to negative economic growth,” Kinshasa´s population has swelled some 40 times since 1950 and – with over 60 percent of the population being under the age of 20 – core social housing supply issues are intensifying dramatically.  It was indeed this city that “Planet of the Slums” author Mike Davis used as an indictment of where formal economies and state institutions have “utterly collapsed.”

Presenting one of the most visceral examples of extreme wealth divides on the planet – homelessness, a relentless lack of formal employment, street children (at least 20,000 strong), begging, gang violence, malnutrition, prostitution, AIDS, cholera outbreaks all characterise day to day life.  The residential urban landscape is a chaotic mix extremely poor infrastructure combined with widespread slum presence haphazardly blended with the informal economy – invariably located in high risk areas ranging from railways, riverbanks, hills, gullies and other flood prone areas.

Following the end of the brutal civil war in 2002 and the state bankruptcy of 2005, despite a range of bureaucratic issues and some violence, the elections of late 2011 did somewhat signify an important step in bringing a certain degree of progress.  Nevertheless, political instability in the city remains rife and very little focused on the socio-economic well being of its ever ballooning base of the pyramid population.

In terms of moving forward, it is hard to decipher where to start in a city where the majority of the urban landscape is fuelled not only by the omnipresence of informality but also rampant corruption.  There has, for example, never even been a properly conducted census.  Property records are also scarce and; with the limited availability of legalised land (many prime areas are under complex litigation mainly related to past ownership); competition is heavy and catered to the minority elite and wealthy expats.  Take the US$ 1 billion River City (La Cite du Fleuve) to be located on two islands on the Congo River and being oddly quoted as the “new Manhattan” where apartments will be sold at a minimum of US$ 200,000 – all whilst nearby shacks continue to be demolished without any compensation nor any opportunity to call the development plans into question (the project is being financed by overseas investment groups).

The construction sector in itself is also ill-prepared moving forward.  In August 2011, the BBC pointed to much of the activity being managed by Indian and Lebanese developers (paid for by cash) who exploit local and cheap labour as a result of the poor governing regulations.  Also speaking to the news site, head of the Congo´s Banking Association Michel Losembe commented on the saturation of the luxury projects that have come to the city whilst also questioning the financial system’s ability in its current form to support these initiatives. “When you start a real-estate project, you need banks that are able to finance during 10 or 15 years.  That’s not the case yet in DR Congo; banks are not yet ready to really support this industry,” he commented.

The last major plan for the city was drawn up during the colonial period and is now considerably dated and irrelevant to the modern landscape of the city.  For instance, the absence of progress in infrastructure supply invariably means that when rainy season hits, sewerage waste mixes with water producing a nasty stench.  Indeed, whilst water supply flows to a fair proportion of the city, it is rarely clean and many live in the dark or abuse electric cabling at their own risk.

Upon the collapse of colonialism in 1959, attempts at excluding the Bahumbu traditional chiefs, who used their “ancestral rights” to effectively take control of land, fell short of original intentions.  In 1984 it was estimated that, for every 1,100 plots that were legally established, more than 11,000 of such transactions were undertaken outside the legal system – a situation that is considerably worse today.  Land jurisdictions are hard to define and, with interests continually overlapping, legitimate ownership is difficult to establish.  Whilst plots become irregularly “owned” by extended periods of occupation, under very little regulatory control residents are under constant threat of being removed by superior forces such as the chiefs themselves or civil servants who are governed by haphazard and confusing regulations.

Indeed, the urban authoritative bodies are unashamedly characterised by intense disorganisation, huge imbalances of power, corruption, weak calibration and monitoring systems as well as being led by undemocratically selected committees that rarely have the real interests of the city at heart.  Surveyors are known to abuse their positions, appropriating tracks of land illegitimately whilst colluding with real estate agencies managed by civil servants who take advantage of confidential knowledge for their own gain.  There is often reluctance to legalise informal housing, with the paradoxically confusing excuse being presented that “more illegal settlements” will be created.

Reading about the city is sad, uncomforting and truly brings the worsening reality of BoP environments home.  Whilst there exists some debate that Kinshasa is turning a new leaf (citing increasing Chinese FDI interest as an example), with the acuteness of the political and socio-economic issues being so prevalent, it is very far from prepared to undergo a trajectory of sustained growth.  The BoP housing sector’s ability to cope with such a young and up and coming population is also of considerable concern – exacerbated by what is already an extreme lack of employment and income opportunities in addition to a constant threat of market segregation as the elite push forward speculatively-led projects catered to their own desires as opposed to real necessities.

Download the full fez ta pronto 2012 PDF report and ask any of your questions to Ruban Selvanayagam on the global affordable housing project by clicking here