Housing Expert (National)

Result of Service

Strengthened implementation of Ethiopia's National Housing Policy (2025) by enabling evidence-based housing investment, developing a bankable in-situ rehousing pilot, establishing a replicable city housing diagnostic methodology, and strengthening partnerships to support affordable, inclusive, and climate-resilient urban housing development

Work Location

Addis Ababa

Expected duration

6 months

Duties and Responsibilities

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities, with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all. UN-Habitat works with national and local governments, civil society, and the private sector to strengthen urban planning, governance, and financing systems, supporting countries to manage urbanization in an inclusive and sustainable manner.

Ethiopia is urbanizing rapidly, and housing sits at the centre of both the opportunity and the strain. Urban areas already contribute close to half of national GDP, yet the housing deficit is large and growing, most urban households cannot afford formally delivered housing, mortgage finance reaches a small fraction of the population, and displacement and climate-related shocks continue to push vulnerable households into precarious living conditions. Rental is the reality for a large share of urban households, yet the rental market remains almost entirely unregulated and undocumented, with rents absorbing well over half of income for many low-income tenants.

The Government of Ethiopia’s National Housing Policy (2025) marks a shift toward an enabling approach – mobilizing private developers, cooperatives, housing finance institutions and city administrations alongside public programmes – and includes explicit commitments to formalize the housing market, bring rental and sale transactions under a transparent system, and establish a regulatory framework for the rental market that protects low-income households.

Cities are actively seeking the data, tools and investable projects needed to act on these commitments.

UN-Habitat has supported Ethiopia’s urban development since 1998 and, under its Country Programme Document (2025–2030), prioritizes adequate housing, land and basic services for all.

As part of this agenda, UN-Habitat has prepared an affordable housing investment case for Ethiopia for engagement with the Government of Ethiopia and prospective funders.

Underpinning both tracks is a housing market research programme that examines how the housing sector works as an economic system: the value chain that runs from land, building materials and labour through finance, construction, sale and rental, and the ripple effects that housing investment generates across jobs, upstream industries, municipal revenues and household wealth.

Ethiopian cities have repeatedly signalled demand for exactly this kind of evidence about their own housing markets – land, costs, prices, finance – and UN-Habitat’s flagship State of Addis Ababa reports (2017 and 2021) demonstrated the appetite for authoritative, city-level analysis. Housing has featured in those reports as descriptive context; what cities lack is a dedicated housing market diagnostic that quantifies costs, affordability, land and delivery capacity in a form that supports investment decisions.

Building that diagnostic capability, city by city, is a strategic priority for the country programme and lays the groundwork for a future, full quantification of housing’s contribution to the economy with specialized partners.

To support this agenda on the ground, UN-Habitat seeks a national consultant to serve as the in-country focal point for the housing workstream, supporting the advancement of the Affordable Housing Investment Case with the Government of Ethiopia, co-developing the Addis Ababa in-situ rehousing pilot with the City Administration and technical partners, and developing and piloting a replicable city housing diagnostic methodology in Addis Ababa and one secondary city.

02 _ OBJECTIVE OF THE ASSIGNMENT To strengthen UN-Habitat’s housing portfolio in Ethiopia in advancing the affordable housing investment case with the Government of Ethiopia; (ii) co-developing, with the Addis Ababa City Administration and technical partners, a fundable proposal for an in-situ rehousing pilot; (iii) developing and piloting a city housing diagnostic methodology in Addis Ababa and one secondary city; and (iv) building and coordinating the partnerships required to deliver on all three. Across all workstreams, the assignment supports the implementation of the National Housing Policy (2025), generating the city-level evidence – on costs, land, affordability, finance and rental market conditions – that the policy’s enabling, market-formalization and rental-regulation commitments require.

03 _ SCOPE OF WORK The consultant will work under the direct supervision of the Head of the Sub Regional Hub, in close day-to-day coordination with the regional housing expert and UN-Habitat Ethiopia Country Office. The assignment comprises four interrelated workstreams. Indicative levels of effort are shown as a guide; the balance will shift with the rhythm of the government engagement process.

Workstream 1: Support to the housing investment case (indicative 15–20%)

• Within the first month, conduct a critical “red team” review of the submitted investment case to anticipate the questions government and funders are most likely to raise, and prepare draft responses.
• Serve as the standing in-country focal point on the investment case; prepare briefing notes, talking points and tailored presentation materials for meetings with federal ministries, the National Bank of Ethiopia and city administrations.
• Respond to technical queries and challenges on the case (costs, affordability, land, finance, delivery capacity), conducting rapid ground verification with banks, developers, materials suppliers and city officials where required, and maintain a living issues log so that every challenge strengthens the evidence base.
• Attend meetings alongside or on behalf of the team as delegated; capture commitments and objections and ensure systematic follow-up when the lead researcher is not in country.
• Track policy and market developments relevant to the case (housing policy implementation, banking directives, budget cycles) and flag openings and risks. Workstream 2: Addis Ababa in-situ rehousing pilot – proposal development (indicative 35–40%) The pilot is premised on enabling existing residents to remain within their community through redevelopment. All work under this stream will be co-produced with the Addis Ababa City Administration through an agreed joint working arrangement and will position the pilot as the first demonstration of the investment case.
• Establish and service a joint technical working arrangement with the relevant City Administration bodies as the vehicle for all pilot preparation.
• Support finalization of the site within the area indicated by the City: develop site-selection criteria, assess candidate sites (tenure status, density potential, infrastructure, community profile) and facilitate the City’s decision.
• Support household enumeration and community engagement on the selected site, including documentation of existing tenure and informal claims, and identification of an appropriate community vehicle (cooperative, association or equivalent) to hold residents’ interests through redevelopment.
• Support the technical and financial structuring of the proposal: unit costing and materials options, cross-subsidy and density analysis, affordability analysis for returning households, phasing and transitional (decanting) arrangements, and return guarantees for existing residents.
• Coordinate technical partners – including the World Resources Institute (WRI) and other interested institutions – within a UN-Habitat-led framework agreed with the City Administration, including scoping partner roles and potential co-financing.
• Prepare the resource-mobilization package: a master funding brief and tailored short versions for different funder types, for use by UN-Habitat senior management in fundraising engagements. Workstream 3: City housing diagnostics (indicative 30–35%)
• With remote support from the regional housing expert, co-develop a replicable city housing diagnostic template covering: housing demand and demographics; housing stock and tenure (formal and informal); the rental market (rent levels and trends, tenancy terms and security, landlord and tenant profiles, and the current regulatory gap); land supply and pricing; construction costs and materials (using a housing cost benchmarking approach as the data spine); housing finance access and terms; delivery actors and capacity; and the housing value chain and its wider economic ripple effects. Climate resilience and displacement are integrated throughout as both vulnerability factors and programmable opportunities.
• Frame the diagnostics as an evidence base for implementing the National Housing Policy (2025) at city level – in particular its commitments to market formalization, transparent rental and sale transactions, and the establishment of a rental market regulatory framework that protects low-income households – and identify, in each diagnostic, the data and instruments cities would need to act on these provisions.
• Apply the diagnostic in Addis Ababa, drawing on and updating the existing market assessment and feeding the rehousing pilot’s evidence needs, so that a single fieldwork effort serves both outputs.
• Lead a structured city-selection process for the second diagnostic city, in consultation with the federal counterparts, city administrations and partners, using explicit criteria (data accessibility, partner readiness, relevance to the investment case, displacement and climate salience, government demand) and informed by the reception of the investment case.
• Apply the refined diagnostic in the selected secondary city, including field verification of costs, prices, land and finance conditions.
• Produce short, publication-quality analytical briefs from the diagnostics, formatted as candidate content for the housing chapter of a future State of Addis Ababa edition and equivalent city-level products.
• Document the diagnostic method and prepare a short note making the case to government for a full quantification of housing’s economic contribution, including options for engaging specialized partners (e.g., the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa) in a subsequent phase. Workstream 4: Partnerships and portfolio development (indicative 10–15%)
• Maintain a partner engagement tracker across government (federal, regional, city), financial institutions, developers, cooperatives, UN agencies, research institutions and technical partners.
• Use diagnostic and pilot findings to identify further partnership and pilot opportunities in Addis Ababa and secondary cities, and draft short concept notes for the most promising (target 2–3), integrating climate resilience, displacement and community/cooperative-led delivery approaches where relevant.
• Represent the housing workstream in stakeholder meetings and UN coordination fora as delegated, contributing to the visibility and credibility of UN-Habitat’s housing portfolio.

Qualifications/special skills

Advanced university degree (Master’s or equivalent) in economics, finance, urban planning, civil engineering/construction management, or a related field. A first-level degree with additional relevant experience may be accepted. Minimum 5 years of professional experience in Ethiopia’s housing, construction, urban development or finance sector. Demonstrated experience engaging senior government officials at federal and city level; experience working with or alongside the Addis Ababa City Administration is desirable Practical knowledge of the construction sector, with demonstrated ability to verify materials prices, construction costs and delivery capacity through field work and professional networks is required Working knowledge of housing finance in Ethiopia; established relationships with, or demonstrated ability to engage, banks and microfinance institutions is desirable Familiarity with housing market analysis and with value chain or economic impact approaches to the housing sector is desirable Experience with the UN system or international development partners is desirable

Languages

For this post fluency in Amharic and English is required

Additional Information

Not available.

No Fee

THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.