Building the Just City in Tanzania: Essays on Urban Housing tion in urban Tanzania in the formal and informal areas where some of the houses are multi-family units that pro­vide affordable rental rooms to low-in­come households. Government efforts to put in place a housing microfinance system apparently appropriate for the incremental self-built housing have not progressed as expected. If the Sus­tainable Development Goal 11 is to be achieved, the government in collab­oration with the other housing stake­holders needs to do more towards fi­nancing affordable housing 2 .This paper provides some perspectives on what should be done. 2. The provider approach (1961 – 1971) Housing financing after Tanzania’s in­dependence in 1961 focused on social housing, eradication of slums and in­formal settlements, providing for civil and households with regular and sta­ble income who normally may benefit from a mortgage system(UN-Habitat 2005; 2008). The Government estab­lished National Housing Corporation through the National Housing Corpo­ration Act(1962) shortly after indepen­dence as the main provider of urban housing. Financed by the Government, the corporation implemented housing schemes for rental and outright sale or under the tenant-purchase(rent-to­buy) arrangement on land it acquired, and serviced for housing development 3 . During this first decade after indepen­dence, mortgage finance was provided by the First Permanent Building Society (FPBS) registered in Northern Rhodesia (i.e. Zambia since 1964), which also op­erated in other East African countries. The East African branches of FPBS were restructured in 1963 to form the First Permanent East Africa(FPEA) Ltd., with the shareholders being the East African countries of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanza­nia, and the Commonwealth Develop­ment Corporation(CDC). In 1968, the Government of Tanzania and the CDC took over the business of FPEA Ltd. and formed a new mortgage finance com­pany—the Permanent Housing Finance 2 By 2030, the Sustainable Development Goal(SDG) 11 require the government to ensure ac­cess for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services, and upgrade slums. Access to credit finance at affordable interest rates is key to enabling households and other stakeholders contribute to achieving SDG 11. 3 The National Housing Corporation(NHC) was re-established by the National housing Corpo­ration Act, 1990, specifying its new functions as stipulated in part II Section 4(1) of the Act: “to provide or facilitate the provision of houses and other buildings for use by members of the public for residential, business, industrial or other purposes.”(URT, 1990:21). Unlike in the initial NHC Act, 1962, housing financing does not explicitly appear. However, in line with its Strategic Plan 2010–2014, the corporation has been serving as a master developer of land for supplied to other real estate developers(NHC, 2010). 102