these SSA cities.

TABLE 4: Results on housing conditions

||Accra|Antananarivo|Dar es Salaam|Addis Ababa|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Number of rooms|(+)|(+)|(+)|(+)|
|Number of rooms squared|(-)|(-)|(-)|(-)|
|Unimproved house|(-)|N.S.|(-)|(-)|
|Unimproved roof material|(+)|N.S.|N.S.|N.S.|
|Unimproved wall material|(-)|(-)|N.S.|N.A.|
|Unimproved foor material|N.S.|N.S.|(-)|(-)|
|Unimproved drinking water source|N.S.|(-)|(-)|N.S.|
|Unimproved toilet facility|N.S.|N.S.|(-)|(-)|
|Not collected solid waste|N.S.|(-)|(-)|N.S.|
|Electric lighting|(+)|(+)|(+)|N.S.|

_Notes:_ The direction of the correlation between rent and housing characteristics (Appendix Tables C.1 to C.4)is denoted by positive (+) and negative (-) signs for statistically significant results (at the 10% level). Rela- tionships in the expected direction are in blue and in red otherwise. NS is not statistically significant at the 10% level, NA is not applicable i.e. the variable is not included in the estimations.

# **4.4 Discussion of the main challenges**

There are some major challenges related to assessing the relationship between flood risk and rents in the context of African cities. Some of the specifications in Appendix Tables C.1 to C.4 show a nonsignificant relationship but this does not mean that people are not willing to pay to avoid exposure to floods. Rather it highlights some of the remaining issues and knowledge gaps which make it difficult to capture the influence of disaster risk on housing markets in African cities.

First, tenure matters because it is linked to both housing costs and flood risk and violates the assumption of perfect markets in a hedonic regression. Unfortunately for researchers, tenure is not a binary concept but rather a range. In Accra 80 percent of owners have no tenancy/ownership agreement, but not all of them fear eviction. Fifteen percent of households report fearing eviction in the next 12 months. Informal housing markets in Accra rely on social networks. For example, for 46 percent of households, non-household relatives own the land that the dwelling is housed on. In Dar es Salaam, 74 percent of renters provided down payment. In 80 percent of cases the down payment covers more than six months. Being locked into a rental agreement with huge upfront payments increases transaction costs significantly. Tenure insecurity itself also drives vulnerability since it can discourage investment in housing quality (Nakamura, 2017), which could increase resilience to floods.

Another problem is the lack of transparency related to flood risk. As reported, in Dar es Salaam for example, only 12 percent of households directly affected by floods reported having been aware of the flood risk when they moved into their homes. Flood maps and information on flood risk are not readily available, and landlords can choose to withhold information on historic flood experiences to new tenants. In contexts where deals are made in social networks and rental properties are not being widely marketed, it becomes difficult for consumers to access information on what rents should be in different neighborhoods. As such, dysfunctional and informal housing market results in factors that 18