Smart Havens Africa (SHA) is a social enterprise, founded and headed by Anne Rweyora, focused on focused on delivering climate-smart, affordable housing and accessible pathways to homeownership for low-income families in Uganda, particularly women-headed households who face significant barriers to secure housing and traditional housing finance. SHA combines affordability with climate resilience, developing environmentally sustainable homes designed to improve living conditions while reducing households’ vulnerability to environmental and climate-related pressures. Its model goes beyond housing construction, using climate-smart homeownership as a pathway to economic resilience through job creation, financial literacy and women’s economic empowerment. In a context where 70% of women-headed families live in informal settlements and only 1% of Uganda’s population has access to housing finance, SHA addresses the interconnected challenges of housing poverty, climate vulnerability and financial exclusion, enabling underserved families to build more secure, resilient livelihoods and long-term assets.

Through RAMA Impact’s support from 2024 to 2029, Smart Havens Africa is scaling access to climate-smart affordable homeownership for low-income families, particularly women-headed households. Building on results already achieved through RAMA Impact’s first phase of support – including a 53% increase in land and home equity ownership among low-income women, a 14% increase in female workforce participation and significant water, energy and embodied-carbon savings – the next phase aims to unlock an initial 15 climate-smart affordable homes through an innovative housing-finance model, while creating a pathway to mobilise additional financing and reach significantly more families as the model scales. SHAfrica also targets 8-15% annual revenue growth over the next three years.