- UN Urges Ghana to Strengthen Rent Control Department as Housing Costs Soar
The United Nations has called on the government to provide the Rent Control Department with adequate funding, personnel and logistical resources as rising housing costs push more Ghanaians into informal settlements.
Koldo Casla, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, said Ghana must strengthen its housing institutions and improve market monitoring to protect tenants from arbitrary rent increases.
The recommendation followed his 12-day official visit to Ghana, during which he examined housing conditions, construction activity and the affordability of formal accommodation.
Mr Casla said the scale of real estate development in Accra contrasted sharply with the limited ability of average-income households to purchase or rent formal housing.
“During the visit, I observed the housing construction and physical transformations taking place primarily in Accra,” he said.
“I could see flashy billboards around the capital promoting real estate investments at stratospheric prices far from the reach of the average Ghanaian.”
The UN official said Ghana’s housing market was increasingly producing homes as investment assets rather than affordable accommodation for ordinary households.
This affordability gap, he noted, was leaving many people with little choice but to live in informal settlements, where access to water, sanitation, secure tenure and other essential services may be limited.
“About 31 per cent of the urban population lives in informal settlements,” Mr Casla said, adding that a considerable number of Ghanaians remained homeless.
The figure means that nearly one in every three urban residents lives outside the country’s formal housing system, highlighting the scale of the challenge confronting policymakers.
Mr Casla urged the government to strengthen institutional mechanisms for monitoring rent and housing conditions. He also called for greater attention to the experiences of low-income households when public housing policies are being designed.
The recommendation places renewed focus on the capacity of the Rent Control Department, which is expected to mediate disputes between landlords and tenants and support enforcement of Ghana’s rental regulations.
Without sufficient staff, data systems and enforcement resources, however, the Department’s ability to respond to arbitrary rent increases and other abuses remains limited.
Ghana’s housing challenge is complicated by the economic importance of the construction industry. Mr Casla estimated that the sector employs hundreds of thousands of people and contributes between 7% and 15% of gross domestic product.
The policy challenge is therefore not simply to slow construction, but to ensure that development produces housing within the financial reach of a broader section of the population.
Strengthening the Rent Control Department could improve protection for existing tenants. But addressing the wider affordability crisis will also require increased housing supply, accessible mortgage financing, serviced land and stronger incentives for private developers to build for lower- and middle-income households.
The central issue raised by the UN assessment is whether Ghana’s expanding cities are producing accommodation for the people who live and work in them or primarily creating property assets for buyers who can afford increasingly elevated prices.
