{"id":6448,"date":"2017-07-04T16:35:52","date_gmt":"2017-07-04T15:35:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tolet.com.ng\/blog\/?p=6448"},"modified":"2017-12-28T00:46:56","modified_gmt":"2017-12-27T23:46:56","slug":"home-construction-in-nigeria-lafarge-africa-bridges-skills-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/propertypro.ng\/blog\/home-construction-in-nigeria-lafarge-africa-bridges-skills-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Home Construction in Nigeria: Lafarge Africa Bridges Skills Gap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Easy Home, an affordable housing initiative, is established by Lafarge Africa Plc. Its purpose is to help bridge the skills gap in Nigeria\u2019s construction industry, reports Bennett Oghifo, a journalist at ThisDay Newspaper.<\/span><\/p>\n

This will be achieved by giving home builders access to artisans skilled in block making, among other free services. The use of incompetent workers, low-quality building materials, poor maintenance culture, are some of the many reasons given for poor workmanship in Nigeria.<\/span><\/p>\n

Easy Home is an ambitious housing solution which involves 25 countries globally. In 2016 alone, over 445,000 people were impacted and it is targeting to impact 25 million people by 2030. In Nigeria, about 30,000 people have benefited from the initiative and still counting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Skilled Manpower<\/strong><\/span>
\n Nigeria is in dare need of infrastructure and skilled manpower for its socioeconomic development. For a sector involved in providing shelter for lives and property, the number of people employed in Nigeria\u2019s construction industry is way smaller than those engaged in retail, wholesale and auto repair.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe housing backlog is estimated at 14 million units and it will require \u20a649 trillion to bridge,\u201d according to a 2010 report commissioned by EFInA and Finmark Trust.<\/span><\/p>\n

CHECK: PROPERTIES FOR SALE IN NIGERIA<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Construction Style<\/strong><\/span>
\n Experts in the construction industry believe that Nigeria, presently, needs \u20a659.5 trillion to bridge its 18 million housing deficit. \u201cEvery year, only a tenth of the one million homes required are built. Most of these are by intrepid individuals who contend with shoddy workmanship, poor building materials, deficient financing, and an under-developed mortgage market. Easy Home is designed to suit individual home builders (IHBs) needs and soothe their pains.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Aurelien Boyer, Head of the Lafarge Africa Affordable Housing initiative, says, \u201cThe value proposition of Easy Home is that if the challenges are addressed, Nigerians could build more houses faster.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He said Easy Home beneficiaries, in addition to getting access to trained artisans skilled in block-making, enjoy the Lafarge advantage i.e. artisans trained in site safety.<\/span>
\n \u201cThey also get access to trained technical assistants that can handle different phases of construction from start to finish, and a network of professional and experienced engineers who assist in the construction process through site visits\u2014before construction starts to prepare a plan, design and bill of quantity, during construction and at the end. The engineers also help). As these bricklayers, technicians and engineers work on construction jobs their skills improve,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Boyer said \u201cIn effect, by addressing individual home builders\u2019 pressing needs, the free services of Easy Home form an ecosystem that bridges the skill gap and creates value for all stakeholders including individual home builders, artisans, construction professionals and retailers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur provision of free technical assistance,\u201d stated Boyer, \u201clinks to trusted builders, reliable retailers and qualified artisans, maximizes home builders\u2019 budget and makes their dream a reality.\u201d<\/span>
\n The Easy Home initiative, in his words, was another example of how Lafarge is contributing to the construction of cities around the world, through innovative solutions providing them with more housing and making them more compact, more durable, more beautiful, and better connected<\/span><\/p>\n

Easy Home to boost affordable housing<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Boyer, who spoke at a media roundtable in Lagos, recently, described Easy Home as a pragmatic affordable housing solution with which they are building a business initiative with positive social impacts.<\/span>
\n He said the objective of the initiative was to build new markets for LafargeHolcim and improve housing conditions, pointing out that it is an investment vehicle launched with CDC Group \/ UK \u2013 DFID to take affordable construction solutions to scale with a focus on Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n

Boyer said, \u201cEasy Home looks at how people build, facing the challenges of finance, artisans, project execution and land acquisition. It offers builders the opportunity to leverage its partnerships such as the one it has with Lapo Micro-finance Bank which provides housing finance for those that come through this initiative. It also provides free technical advisory services and assistance and we deliver a construction estimate such as the number of cement, blocks and their unit cost in just 10 minutes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He said \u201cThese technical advisory services are offered unconditionally, but the beneficiaries are expected to use Lafarge cement and blocks because those are the materials the company is confident to use. The technical support is also available to anybody who has his own source of funds other than the one offered by LAPO Micro-finance Bank.\u201d<\/span>
\n Boyer said that anyone, whether he is a business owner, a salary earner or civil servant can apply for this solution, but he has to show evidence of stable source of income.<\/span><\/p>\n

To access the loan, he said the borrower needed to bring a deed of agreement or transfer showing that he is the owner of the landed property and a proof of income as the primary criteria.<\/span>
\n He said within the three years of operation, the Easy Home has impacted people in some states of the federation including Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Kwara, Ondo, Osun, Nasarawa, Niger, Calabar, Abia, Akwa Ibom, and Rivers. It has enabled about 10 per cent of its beneficiaries to build business structures such as shops, schools, clinics, bakeries, etc and is creating opportunities for these businesses to generate billions of naira and thousands of jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Boyer said, \u201cThis is the only home construction solution for low income earners; it is the solution for this class of people who earn from N20,000 to N300,000 and are aiming to build their homes. The solution is accessible to everybody including petty traders, civil servants, taxi drivers, barbers, etc.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the Director, Communications and Public Affairs, Folashade Ambrose-Medebem, \u201cLafarge Africa is committed to facilitating affordable housing across Nigeria with its Easy Home initiative, a home construction solution which has so far benefited over 30,000 people since it began three years ago.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

CHECK: PROPERTIES FOR RENT IN NIGERIA<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The Easy Home solution, she said, was an opportunity available for whoever desired it. \u201cWe will provide you with technical support as long as you have a building project because we vouch for our cement and concrete solutions.<\/span>
\n \u201cBased on the long-term aspiration of the affordable housing value proposition at the group level, LafargeHolcim hopes to positively impact about 25 million around the world by 2020; we hope that Nigeria would represent a significant portion of the projected beneficiaries.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"tolet-need-to-find-na-small-tin\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: News Online Nigeria<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Easy Home, an affordable housing initiative, is established by Lafarge Africa Plc. Its purpose is to help bridge…\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":6450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1204],"class_list":["post-6448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-real-estate-news","tag-lafarge-africa","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/propertypro.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/propertypro.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/propertypro.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/propertypro.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/propertypro.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6448"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/propertypro.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8882,"href":"https:\/\/propertypro.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6448\/revisions\/8882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/propertypro.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/propertypro.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/propertypro.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/propertypro.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}