TOR Housing and Health Consultant

Terms of Reference:

Housing and Health

Background

Habitat for Humanity International established the Terwilliger Centre for Innovation in Shelter (Terwilliger Centre) to build and expand inclusive housing markets by supporting local firms to innovative and expand client-responsive services and products. The Terwilliger Centre for Innovation in Shelter understands that the role of local markets is critical in closing adequate housing gaps among the low-income market segment. Indeed, most low-income people already use available market options to put a roof — no matter how frail or insecure— over their heads and often through an incremental housing process. These transactions in the local market far outstrip any philanthropic effort to improve shelter. Therefore, Habitat for Humanity International strives to make markets work more effectively for low income people in need of decent, affordable housing. Ultimately, Habitat for Humanity International intends to generate exponentially more impact by improving systems that make better housing possible for millions more families.

In Kenya, in as far as housing in general and affordable housing in particular, recent efforts from government have served as a welcome push for new programs and projects. However, public sector initiatives alone are not sufficient to drive systemic sectoral changes required to meet the growing housing deficit. A McKinsey Global Institute forecast, estimates the global affordable housing gap to swell to 1.6 billion people by 2025. A World Bank report states that out of an annual demand of 250,000 housing units in Kenya, developers can only put up 50,000 units, with 49,000 of these targeting the upper-middle and high-end market segments. This leaves the low-income group undersupplied, with only 1,000 units to share. Furthermore, it is also not clear that the incremental and owner driven housing process used by many families in Kenya and indeed globally to acquire homes is accounted for in these statistics.

For the past five years, The Terwilliger Center and HFH East Africa in Kenya have been engaging stakeholders in the affordable housing market system, to facilitate efforts to drive housing quality up and housing costs down, taking into account the social and community aspects of housing in Kenya. The aim is to stimulate inclusive housing markets while generating expanded benefits to low income households in a sustainable manner. A market systems development[1] approach that focuses on systemic change with the key objective of stimulating the low-cost housing market system to innovate and replicate promising practices on a sustainable basis is the main thrust of interventions. This approach ensures partnering with key actors to identify impediments and opportunities in the subsystems of the low-cost owner driven housing market; and facilitating initiatives that strengthen competitiveness of private and public sector actors through market-based initiatives. By adopting the market systems development approach focus is maintained on low cost housing services and products with potential to be developed in an equitable and inclusive manner through the market leverage. The approach further ensures that efforts are driven with and through private and public sectors and other market-based actors where anchor/lead firms/catalytic companies are evident and strengthened to lead systems change even beyond the programme intervention.

Construction Practices Programme

Construction practices and especially those that foster effectiveness, efficiency, durability, quality and ultimately cost saving are key to the attainment of quality incremental housing construction among owner driven housing projects in Kenya. The Construction Practices programme seeks to trigger, consolidate and/or facilitate efforts, understanding, practices and learning on construction practices that include value engineering: optimizing value by increasing efficiency while reducing cost of production (the latter day “lean manufacturing”), building capacity of materials innovators, developers and owner driven contractors and labourers and to document understanding of existing and emerging construction practices that contribute to quality affordable housing in real economic terms for incremental housing, inter alia. Given the impact of COVID 19 and the global call to ‘shelter in place’, the programme will also contribute to the discourse of Health and the build environment. According to Kenya’s National Center for Healthy Housing, housing quality refers to the physical condition of a house as well as the quality of the social and physical environment in which the house is located. This definition will be a key guidance as we implement interventions in health and housing this year.

Building Out Malaria causing Vectors

Habitat’s for Humanity’s Terwilliger Center through its Construction Practices programme is currently in advanced conversation with scientists from the BOVA Network an interdisciplinary network that focuses on preventing vector borne diseases like malaria, dengue and zika through improving the built environment. TCIS and the BOVA Network aim to pilot a project that will leverage some BOVA’s research and solutions developed for malaria protection and later expand to other diseases in Kenya. This pilot targets malaria endemic areas in Western and Coastal regions of Kenya and seeks to initially reach 15,000 households. As part of the intervention, a study is being designed to help understand how households are coping with mosquitoes, malaria prevalence in the regions and willingness to improve houses to be vector proof. TCIS and BOVA Network scientists will then use the information obtained from the study in combination with previous work done by BOVA in Tanzania partly to develop manuals that will be used to train artisans from the two regions and also form part of the standard quality exemplar house to be built and documented under the programme. The pilot will collaborate with key stakeholders involved in the fight against malaria, including the government of Kenya through the Ministry of Health and respective County governments. This pilot aims at raising awareness among households on available and cost-effective opportunities to keep away vectors through home improvements; creating demand and facilitating market actors to avail required skillsets and materials in building out vectors and eventually reducing malaria prevalence significantly in the target regions. Overall, this will contribute to improved housing qualities in the regions. A survey study and household education will be conducted as part of the initial phase will focus.

Scope of work

i. Prepare and disseminate digital content targeting 15000+ households on a relevant, accessible and easy to use platform for sensitizing and educating households on opportunities to vector-proof and improve their homes. The content should serve both,

a. As a rapid survey on households in the target areas (Coast, Nyanza and Western regions) to assess current coping mechanisms in keeping out vectors, and

b. To gauge knowledge, practice and demand by households for vector-proof home improvements

ii. Conduct impact assessment to determine uptake and impact of interventions and solutions on participating communities in helping them incorporate vector-proof housing improvements in their existing and new homes

Deliverables

i. Digital content incorporating rapid survey and knowledge, practice and demand analysis capability

ii. Delivery of content to 15000+ households in identified malaria endemic regions,

iii. Content deployment report, and

iv. (post intervention by the programme) impact assessment report

Duration

This study will last for 12 months from household education to impact study. The first 3 deliverables should be completed within 6 months of the intervention.

Experience

Desirably a firm with,

i. Prior knowledge and experience in digital information development and dissemination,

ii. Experience working with low income households in content delivery,

iii. Prior experience in aggregating analysis that inform market-based interventions and strategies.