Any rational discussion of affordable housing must take earnings into account. Housing affordability is measured in terms of the share of a person's income that's spent on rent or mortgage payments. It's when this share is less than 30% that housing is considered affordable. 1/n

The national household survey of 2016 found that the average household income in Ugandan urban areas is UGx730,000 per month. Therefore, for the average person in our urban areas, affordable housing is that which takes less than UGx219,000 as rent or mortgage payment. 2/n

Only 41% of people in Ugandan urban areas earn monthly wages/salaries. The fraction that have terms of employment that are so well-defined that they can attract mortgage is not given in the report, but it must be much smaller. 3/n

For the vast majority of Ugandan urban dwellers, mortgage is inaccessible and the affordable UGx220,000 monthly housing expenditure has to be in the form of rent. The shortage of houses that are affordable to the average UG urbanite is both a problem & a business opportunity. 4/n

It's a business opportunity for those who can access mortgage or whose personal savings are adequate to construct housing units of monthly rent ranging between UGx150,000 & UGx300,000 : For such units, demand is greater than supply. Most UG urban households can afford them. 5/n.

The exciting challenge that we've been tackling at Kisana Consults is that of designing decent, well-organised housing units whose construction cost should range between 15m and 30m, land inclusive, and yet which are within close proximity of urban centres. 6/n

Many said it was impossible. And indeed, it's impossible if you adhere to convention. But the conventions in Ugandan real estate development, like those in other sectors, are conventions of inefficiency. In the design of these units, we've had to flout many of these conventions.