Extreme inequality and housing injustice in the DRC: rebuilding ‘Kinshasa la Belle’
Past policies and programmes in the city of Kinshasa have led to little or no improvement in housing provision and affordability. A new report reveals that proposed policy approaches risk perpetuating already stark inequalities and entrenching the role of housing as an investment – rather than as a right.
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (Photo: Paula Sevilla-Núñez, IIED)
In Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the phrase débrouillez-vous (fend for yourself) is considered such an important life lesson that the city’s inhabitants refer to it as ‘article 15’ – an imaginary addition to the Congolese constitution.
In a vastly resource-rich country where 73.5% live on less than US$2 a day, and in the city that is expected to become Africa’s largest by 2030, débrouillez-vous represents people’s response to a lifetime of extreme inequality, violence and corruption.
Policies and government action have failed to meet the majority of people’s needs and aspirations, and left them effectively ‘on their own’. Far from giving up residents, or Kinois, resort to entrepreneurial, creative strategies to make their way through the many obstacles of life.
The housing challenge in a ‘megacity’
The spirit of ‘article 15’ comes into play when trying to access housing in this prohibitively expensive city. As the stronghold of political and economic power in the country, Kinshasa’s history and spatial makeup reflect the stark inequalities that are shaping Congolese society.
A city that covers almost 100 times the size of Paris and grows at the dizzying rate of 61 people per hour, Kinshasa’s growth would be an enormous challenge for any public official. Today, it is estimated that half of the DRC’s current housing deficit of nearly four million units is found in Kinshasa.
Past forms of urban investment, however, have failed to deliver improvements to the lives of most of the city’s residents.
A housing trajectory shaped by extreme inequalities
From its colonial origins as a racially-segregated town to its contemporary status as a sprawling metropolis of about 17 million people, Kinshasa has simultaneously experienced a dramatic accumulation of wealth by domestic elites and international investors, while housing more than 75% of its population in informal settlements with limited, if any, access to basic services.
Cité Kin Oasis is one of the numerous housing initiatives that the Congolese government has promoted in recent decades. The homes are however, far from affordable, taking the average worker (with a monthly salary of $26) over six years to earn enough for one month’s rent.
High construction costs, limited financial options, inadequate planning laws and opaque land tenure systems make building housing a cumbersome and highly-costly process. Private developers cater to the upper classes to seek profit.
Meanwhile, plots of land and buildings are illegally parcelled out to house multiple families, using recycled or poor-quality materials such as sheet metal (giving some of them the nickname ‘555’ after the 555 brand of aluminium roof coating) that leave residents extremely vulnerable to frequent floods.
‘Financialisation’ perpetuates housing inequality
In response to the housing crisis, the Congolese government periodically announces ambitious plans to not just build housing for everyone, but transform the urban fabric of Kinshasa into a global capital to the likes of New York or Dubai.
But as the new report explores, these plans encourage an approach to urban development that frames housing as an aspirational commodity rather than as a universal human right. This phenomenon, often referred to as the ‘financialisation of housing’, mirrors challenges faced by major cities worldwide.
In Kinshasa, luxury housing estates like Cité du Fleuve are presented as the ‘safest bets’ for the investment of both licit, and illicit, wealth for the powerful few. As these projects are developed in isolation from any broader strategies to improve the city’s urban life, funds that could improve infrastructure for all are instead lost to privatisation, speculation and corruption.
In parallel, narratives of replacing the old ‘parasitic’ or ‘sick’ city with a clean, modern metropolis can lead to criminalising and disregarding informal settlement dwellers, tagged as ‘dirty’ or ‘chaotic’. Efforts to retain or recover the splendour of ‘Kinshasa la belle’ (‘Kinshasa the beautiful’) thus come in conflict with the reality of most people’s survival in ‘Kinshasa la poubelle’ (‘Kinshasa the trash heap’).
Shaping another path for housing justice
Kinshasa's challenges underscore the urgent need to reclaim the right to the city for all its residents, re-imagining housing policy as a cornerstone of equitable governance – one that prioritises people over profit, rectifies historical injustices, and ensures housing serves as a gateway to broader inclusion and opportunity.
The report suggests some steps to guide more equitable urban policies, including:
- Applying a housing justice lens to policy, prioritising the social function of housing, integrating housing policy into broader poverty-reduction and climate adaptation strategies, and building solidarity with other social movements
- Supporting community-driven solutions, recognising and facilitating the work of communities to build affordable housing through adapted financing mechanisms and participatory approaches, and
- Strengthening public policies for housing, updating planning laws and regulations, combatting corruption and the use of real estate for money laundering, and developing financing tools – from wealth or property taxes, to climate funding mechanisms – to finance housing services.
In Kinshasa and everywhere, ensuring access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing requires more than policy changes. It means challenging the status quo by asking, ‘who belongs in a city?’, and ‘who is deemed worthy of spaces designed for them?’.
It requires protecting people rather than profit, recognising the opportunities offered by grassroots efforts to access shelter, rather than punishing them in the interests of a wealthy few.
Only then will housing turn from an exacerbator of inequalities into a gateway for the fulfilment of the right to the city.
The ‘Urbanization for the few: soaring housing inequality in Kinshasa’ report was produced in collaboration with the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies, with support from the LSE’s Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme.
Further reading
Analysis of a planned neighbourhood of Kinshasa and its mix with spontaneous extension neighbourhoods: the case of the Maman Mobutu City, Manilo Michieletto, Victor Bay Mukanya Kayembe (2024), Universidad de Valladolid, Ciudades no. 27
Urban fortunes and skeleton cityscapes: real estate and late urbanization in Kigali and Addis Ababa, Tom Goodfellow (2017), International journal of Urban and Regional Research, Volume 41, Issue 5
