Shelter Afrique, iBUILD sign pact to manage housing projects

By Steve Umidha

Pan African housing development financier, Shelter Afrique Friday signed a deal with iBUILD Global in a move that will see the latter provide its platform for the financier’s project management capabilities as well as transparency in accounting of all funds disbursed.

iBUILD’s customization of Its Lender platform for Shelter Afrique, will give SHAF the ability to report data on projects in real time as well as report the impact its financing is creating throughout the projects it supports.

The collaboration formalized in Nairobi by Shelter Afrique’s Chief executive Andrew Chimphondah and iBUILD’s Co-founder and Chairman Lew Schulman at a signing ceremony, will majorly focus on the establishment of a platform with know-how to reduce timelines for lending approval, greater over site and real time quality control of project financed by SHAF while at the same time provide a capacity building in housing microfinance and technical assistance.

“We look to benefit through the partnership by using the platform to increase the training of developers, contractors, artisans and also the reporting of employment. Secondly, investors will be looking at transparency in the money they are lending. Investors want to know where is our money going and how can we have transparency in terms of what that money has delivered within Africa,” said Chimphondah.

iBUILD also provides wage statistics, Quality of workforce, Supply Chain management and improved adherence to construction standards and on time performance among others in its end to end ecosystem.

“They will be able to bid those projects out competitively, start those projects and see the activity as it unfolds,” said Schulman.

IBUILD’s business assessments will begin in the next several weeks with localization changes specific to location to immediately follow, while full integration will commence later.