Creating Impact

 

How we work

Empowa works with affordable housing developers and trusted partners to deliver ‘lease-to-own’ and climate-smart housing projects to market.

The first delivery partner Empowa has chosen to work with is Casa Real from Mozambique. Casa Real wants to partner with Empowa to “green” its housing offering for their lower income clients, those with monthly income ranges of US$250 – 750. In the last few years Casa Real has been showing that an inclusive approach to affordable and climate-smart housing is possible, even in a country like Mozambique.

    • By using an incremental housing approach Casa Real lowered the cost of the cheapest newly built house on the market from US$55.000 (which was affordable to just 1.2 percent of the urban population) to US$10.000, as was confirmed in research by CAHF | Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa
    • By partnering with local banks, primarily Absa Bank Mozambique, and opening up the market to those that earn even only US$200 per month, Casa Real is deepening the access to affordable housing even further.

Empowa is building a pipeline of delivery partners across Africa. We invite both experienced organisations and those in start up phase to join our journey. If you are in a start up phase, do consider joining Empowa’s Affordable Housing Academy. If you are a more mature organisation and interested to collaborate, do contact us via the contact form at the bottom of this page.

Field testing Empowa’s model confirms:

  • Accelerated access to affordable housing: Tenant-purchase clients are on average 20 years younger than outright buying clients.
  • Grown local mortgage markets substantially: We are underway to grow Mozambique’s mortgage market by 5%.
  • Built wealth for underbanked and low-income group: Previously, only 1% of Mozambicans could afford a house. We are expanding that to over 60%.
  • Stimulated climate-positive construction methods: The housing we invest in is greener than the local norm. We use EDGE certification for a metrics-driven approach to certify exactly how our delivery partners are building greener.

Empowa’s eco-system ensures financial inclusion by tracking and tracing informal payments

  • Track, record and validate housing payments on the blockchain
  • Capture and dislay informal payments sector-wide
  • Facilitate asset ownership by traditionally excluded communities
  • A light web-based, responsive, mobile-accessible application
  • Create a trusted source of African low-income housing market intelligence, based on people’s actual payments
  • Powered by Empowa, leveraging Cardano, built on Joget