Bio-based Construction

Rethinking how East Africa builds

East Africa is urbanising rapidly.Over the coming decades, millions more people will need homes, creating both an enormous challenge and an opportunity to rethink how the region builds.

Gatsby Africa’s Bio-based Construction programme is exploring how industrialised building systems using responsibly sourced regional materials such as timber and other bio-based products could help meet this demand, while strengthening local manufacturing, creating skilled jobs and building more resilient regional value chains.

Our ambition is to help demonstrate new ways of building in East Africa that can deliver dignified, affordable homes at the scale the region needs.

Millions more people across East Africa will need homes over the coming decades.

Bio-based construction could meet this demand while strengthening local manufacturing and creating skilled jobs.

Our ambition is to deliver dignified, affordable homes at the scale the region needs.

The Opportunity

Meeting East Africa’s growing housing demand will require more than simply building more using existing methods. The construction sector needs approaches that can improve speed, quality and affordability while supporting the development of competitive local industries.

Bio-based construction presents a promising opportunity.

Greater use of manufactured timber and other bio-based components could enable parts of the construction process to move from building sites into factories. Components such as wall systems, floors and joinery can be manufactured with greater precision and assembled more quickly on site.

At the same time, growing demand for these products could create new markets for East Africa’s forestry and manufacturing sectors, support investment in higher-value processing and create new skilled employment.

But this is still an emerging market. Questions remain around cost, supply, standards, technical performance, financing, developer demand and consumer confidence.

That is where we are focusing our work.

Our areas of work

Testing new approaches to housing delivery

Working with pioneering and mainstream developers to test where bio-based building systems and components can improve the cost, speed, quality and performance of housing.

Strengthening regional manufacturing and supply chains

Exploring opportunities for East African manufacturers to produce higher-value timber and other bio-based construction products, while improving quality, consistency and supply reliability.

Generating evidence and building confidence

Producing practical evidence on performance, affordability, durability and commercial viability to help developers, investors, regulators and other decision-makers make informed choices.

Creating the conditions for scale

Bringing together developers, manufacturers, financiers, government, standards bodies and other partners to understand what needs to change across finance, skills, regulation, manufacturing and market demand for a commercially sustainable sector to emerge.

Building an East African pathway

There is no ready-made model for East Africa to copy.

The region has its own materials, manufacturing capabilities, building traditions and rapidly changing housing markets. Our role is to work alongside those already shaping the sector to test what works in this context and learn from what does not.

Success will not be measured by individual demonstration buildings. It will be when manufacturers are confident enough to invest, developers choose to adopt new building systems, financiers are prepared to back them, governments and regulators create enabling conditions, and people can access high-quality housing at an affordable price.