Rwanda’s National Housing Policy which was rolled out in March 2015 aims at fast-tracking affordable housing projects and encourages the use of local, green and affordable building materials. Due to the cost of imports and expensive transportation, cement and even sand are more expensive in
Rwanda than in Germany. The manufacturing sector in Rwanda is comparatively small, accounting for 230 billion RWF in 2014 (290 million Euros,
24 Euros per capita) or 5.1 % of Rwanda’s gross domestic product (GDP). That is why most building materials are imported and expensive. Kigali envisions construction of 344,068 new dwelling units (DU) until 2022. The largest segment within the future housing demand is affordable housing with a demand
of 186,163 DU (54.11%). The National Housing Policy which was rolled out in March 2015 aims of fast-tracking affordable housing projects and furthermore encourages the use of “local, green and affordable building materials”.