Building affordable housing will help to revive the hardest hit economies in Africa and Asia

Housebuilding is a job-creating, GDP-boosting, health-improving, climate change-fighting engine of human potential, writes Georgie Davis

(REALL / Johnnie Miler)

The great lockdown is predicted to prompt a global economic downturn on a scale we have not seen since the Great Depression.

This pandemic does not respect race, gender or borders, but it is not a great leveller, and reviving flatlining economies will be the challenge of our time. Developing countries will be the hardest hit. The World Bank anticipates that 49m people will be pushed into extreme poverty this year – 23m in sub-Saharan Africa and 16m in South Asia.

The United Nations Development Programme estimates income losses exceeding $220bn in developing countries. An unprecedented pandemic needs a potent remedy. For emerging economies, we need to build back better. Quite literally.