Ghana’s housing problem goes beyond numbers – it’s also about quality

Source: The Conversation – Africa

For years, Ghana’s housing debate has revolved around one headline figure: a national shortage commonly estimated at about 1.8 million homes. The number is useful. It signals that housing supply has failed to keep pace with population growth, urbanisation and household formation.

But it tells only part of the story. A household may have a roof over its head and still live without adequate sanitation, safe waste-disposal arrangements, clean cooking fuel, durable construction or enough space. Counting the homes that are missing does not tell us whether the homes that already exist are healthy, safe and adequately serviced.

In our recently published research, we examined this less visible side of the housing challenge. We used Ghana’s 2021 Population and Housing Census to analyse 836,515 households across all 261 districts. We asked a straightforward question: how adequate are the homes in which Ghanaians already live?

To answer it, we developed a Multidimensional Housing Quality Index that combined nine housing conditions recorded in the census. These covered structural durability, room crowding, drinking water, electricity, toilet and bathing facilities, cooking fuel and space, and waste disposal.

The findings indicate that Ghana’s housing policy must ask not only how many homes are missing, but also where existing homes fail to provide safe and adequate living conditions, which deficits occur together, and what combination of interventions is needed.

A home can exist and still be inadequate

Each condition was assessed against a minimum adequacy threshold. The nine indicators were then combined and rescaled to a 0–100 index using a statistical method suited to indicators that record whether a standard is met. Higher scores indicate better material and service-related housing conditions.

The national average is 62.2. This figure should not be read as a pass mark. Its main value is comparative: it reveals how sharply housing conditions differ across places and population groups. Urban households score 73.1 on average, compared with 45.3 for rural households. That difference of almost 28 points is too large to be treated as an urban advantage. It reveals a sharp geographical divide in access to housing-related infrastructure and services.

We also used a multidimensional poverty method to identify households facing overlapping housing deficits. A household is classified as housing poor when its deficits account for at least one-third of the total indicator weight. Severe housing poverty is when they account for at least one-half. On this basis, 56.5% of Ghanaian households are housing poor and 37.2% are severely housing poor. These are housing-specific measures, not estimates of income poverty. They show how many households experience a sufficiently broad or intense combination of inadequate housing conditions.

Progress in one service can hide deficits in another

Some of the most revealing results concern the uneven distribution of access across basic services. Electricity meets the study’s adequacy threshold for 86.2% of households, while 82.4% meet the threshold for safe drinking water. These services are comparatively widespread.

But only 37.3% of households use clean cooking fuel, 42.9% have an improved toilet facility and 33.4% use an adequate waste disposal method. In other words, the relatively high access to electricity and safe drinking water has not been matched by comparable access to sanitation, clean household energy and waste disposal.

Housing quality is produced by a bundle of conditions working together. Electricity cannot compensate for unsafe sanitation. A durable structure does not compensate for reliance on polluting cooking fuels. Improving one service while neglecting the others can leave households exposed to overlapping risks.

The national average hides local issues

The housing divide is often described as a contrast between the better-served south and the poorer northern regions. Our results confirm a strong north-south pattern, but they also show why regional averages are not enough.

Greater Accra, where the capital is located, has the highest regional score at 78.5, while Savannah Region, in northern Ghana, has the lowest at 36.1. Yet substantial differences also appear within regions. In Ashanti, home to the second city of Kumasi, district scores range from 24.3 to 84.1. Greater Accra’s districts range from 51.0 to 86.7.

This means a region that performs relatively well overall can still contain districts facing severe housing inadequacy. Conversely, a national programme aimed only at the lowest-performing regions may overlook deprived localities elsewhere.

Neighbouring districts also tend to have similar housing outcomes. This clustering is consistent with the influence of shared infrastructure networks, environmental conditions, settlement patterns and the uneven reach of public services, alongside differences in household resources.

What housing policy should do differently

The Multidimensional Housing Quality Index is not a replacement for the housing deficit. The two measures answer different questions. The deficit asks how many additional homes are needed. The index asks where the existing stock falls short, which deficits overlap and which services should be prioritised.

Using both would produce a more realistic housing policy. A district where the main problem is weak structural quality requires different intervention from one where homes are structurally adequate but sanitation and waste services are poor. Another district may need clean cooking support, electricity extension or improved water access.

A single national housing remedy will not address these differences. District housing profiles should inform the location and design of investment. Housing policy must also be coordinated with sanitation, waste management, energy, water, local government and spatial planning. These sectors jointly determine whether a dwelling is genuinely habitable.

The district estimates could support a housing quality atlas or public dashboard, allowing national agencies, assemblies and development partners to compare local conditions and track which deficits are changing. Future censuses and nationally representative surveys could then show whether housing deprivation is falling, persisting or changing in composition.

What the index cannot tell us

No single index measures every aspect of adequate housing. The census does not provide direct measures of housing affordability, tenure security, service reliability, neighbourhood safety or residents’ own assessments of their homes. The Multidimensional Housing Quality Index therefore measures observable material and service conditions, not the full meaning of housing adequacy.

That limitation is important, but it is not an argument for continuing to rely on the housing deficit alone. Ghana already collects detailed housing information through its census. The opportunity now is to use those data in an integrated way that can guide local decisions.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/04/ghanas-housing-problem-goes-beyond-numbers-its-also-about-quality/