With the built environment representing the most significant concentration of global capital and 13% of global GDP, the institutional investment community holds the keys to solving a housing crisis affecting three billion people, delegates at MIPIM in Cannes heard this week.
Anaclaudia Rossbach, executive director of UN-Habitat, told attendees at the Housing Matters forum that the real estate industry manages and develops the world’s largest asset class, accounting for roughly 40% of global assets, “so the decisions that you make – the decisions from this community – will have a direct impact into our society”.
Rossbach said that, while the past 15 years saw an “unprecedented rise in housing prices, creating immense market value” for investors, it has at the same time revealed “one of the most serious affordability crises”, leading to close to a third of the world’s population living in inadequate housing.
Governments cannot solve the crisis alone
Rossbach told delegates that governments and UN-Habitat alone cannot solve the crisis, and need private-sector collaboration. “Therefore, at UN-Habitat, we are building global coalitions,” she said.
UN-Habitat was established by the UN to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities, and economist Rossbach was appointed executive director in 2024.
“It’s critical that we create spaces for dialogue between local governments, national governments, communities and business leaders,” she added, urging the institutional real estate community to look beyond traditional development models toward “recycling the existing built environment” and “urban densification”.
According to Rossbach, retrofitting and repurposing are among the most “capital-efficient pathways” to expanding housing supply. Such strategies preserve the urban fabric and protect long-term value against a growing climate crisis. Sustainability is no longer a matter of mere compliance, but a core driver of “asset resilience” and “competitiveness”, she said.
Rossbach said governments were increasingly treating housing as a primary engine for economic growth and stability, moving away from viewing it as a welfare cost.
“Cities like Vienna, Cape Town, Bogota and Medellin have found interesting approaches to work between the public and private sectors to unlock land and transform existing building environments,” she said, adding that countries like Singapore and Brazil have “unlocked public assets and recognise the social function of the land”.
According to Rossbach, UN-Habitat is now teaming up with the African Union on a new housing finance compact specifically designed to clear the path for private capital. The goal is to align rules, de-risk investments and finally get large-scale funding into housing solutions that actually work.
She said the convergence of the enormous need and the untapped market potential in Africa is a “striking” opportunity for the business sector to enter.
“Africa is the continent of urgency and opportunity. Nowhere is the convergence of housing urgency and market opportunity more striking,” Rossbach told the audience. “By 2050, we’re going to have almost 800 million people coming to cities in Africa. On average today, 50% of the urban population is living in informal settlements.”
That said, governments in countries like Kenya and Botswana have already committed to affordable housing delivery at scale. “They reflect a continental shift, housing framed not only as a welfare cost, but as a driver of economic growth, of peace, stability and social cohesion. They represent a real opening for the business sector to capture this opportunity.”
Rossbach called for a shift towards zoning reforms, mixed-use developments and vertical developments, urging the industry to dedicate more research to the financial viability of high-density, affordable housing.
With the climate crisis posing a growing risk to global development, from extreme flooding in Asia to record heat in Europe, she said sustainability has moved far beyond mere compliance or reputation. “It is about asset resilience, efficiency and long-term value protection,” she added.
According to Rossbach, affordable and sustainable housing is a “durable, social asset” that should naturally attract patient capital seeking stable, long-term risk-return profiles.
“Housing is an attractive risk investment”, she noted, “and we need to work on business models that work for all of us”.
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