IHDP — Ethiopia's Integrated Housing Development Programme (Addis Ababa)

Since 2005 the Ethiopian government, working with UN-Habitat, has run the Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP) in Addis Ababa to close a housing backlog of roughly 300,000 units and replace much of the city's informal "kebele" housing stock.

IHDP initially targeted 400,000 housing units, 200,000 jobs and 10,000 micro and small enterprises, later extending toward a 500,000-unit goal over a twenty-year period running from 2006 to 2026.

The programme mass-produces subsidised multi-storey condominiums, with subsidies of up to 90% for the lowest-income tier and 80% or 60% for mid-income households, building on an earlier 1999-2002 low-cost-housing research pilot that had cut construction costs and waste.

Delivery has been substantial, with over 300,000 condominiums produced by the mid-2020s and 20,000 apartment keys handed over in March 2021 alone; 53% of allocated households are female-headed, but independent review finds rising construction costs price out the poorest even at maximum subsidy, an estimated 70% of allocated units are sublet by owners who cannot sustain mortgage payments, lottery-based allocation disrupts existing community ties, and residents report persistent water and power failures on upper floors.

IHDP shows both the scale a direct state housing programme can achieve and the affordability and tenure-security limits of that model when construction costs rise faster than incomes.