Climate-smart Low-income Housing in Pakistan

With an ever-increasing frequency of severe climate-related events (as demonstrated by the 2022 flooding), changing crop patterns, depleting energy resources, and a population growth rate that far outpaces the provision of housing, the advent of climate change presents Pakistan with two crippling dilemmas:

1. How can the resilience of lower-income communities be strengthened against climate-related events and their long-term impacts?
2. How can the nationwide housing crisis be solved?

This report explores the potential of ‘climate-smart low-income housing’ as a solution to these two problems. The need and status of climate-smart low-income housing are explored alongside the roles of the stakeholders in its provision. The ultimate aim is to inform where and how commercially and financially viable interventions are needed to promote sector activity.

Overall, the findings indicated that the landscape for climate-smart housing in the country is neither market-driven nor developed. Findings on the uptake of climate-smart housing in Pakistan supported the notion that demand for such homes is relatively low, as is its supply. This low demand is in part due to a lack of incentives for value chain actors, which has hindered the development of the climate-smart low-income housing value chain.

Also Read: Revisiting Low Income Housing A Review of Policies and Perspectives