Abstract This paper profiles research on housing policy in Africa and evaluates its scale and quality. Using databases developed from Scopus, we reviewed papers on housing policy research from 1989 to 2018, in Africa and in South Africa in particular. We found a steady increase in the number of papers. The disciplines that have contributed most are geography, health-related disciplines, planning, development studies and economics, in that order, and there has been a shift towards disciplines with a more applied focus. Most researchers had not been involved in housing policy research for very long, apart from some in South Africa. We did not find strong research links between the rest of Africa and South Africa. A large proportion of researchers in the rest of Africa were affiliated to institutions outside Africa, unlike South Africa, which had more local affiliation. We argue that, despite room for improvement, it is understandable that the research mainly reflects the housing reality on the ground rather than analysing it theoretically, given the need to draw African governments’ notice to the continent’s severe housing problems and the need to develop implementable African housing policy.

中文翻译：

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非洲住房政策研究现状

摘要 本文概述了对非洲住房政策的研究，并对其规模和质量进行了评估。使用从 Scopus 开发的数据库，我们回顾了 1989 年至 2018 年在非洲，特别是南非的住房政策研究论文。我们发现论文数量稳步增加。贡献最大的学科依次是地理学、健康相关学科、规划、发展研究和经济学，并且已经转向更注重应用的学科。除了南非的一些研究人员外，大多数研究人员并没有很长时间参与住房政策研究。我们没有发现非洲其他地区和南非之间有很强的研究联系。与南非不同，非洲其他地区的大部分研究人员都隶属于非洲以外的机构，有更多的地方隶属关系。我们认为，尽管仍有改进的空间，但鉴于需要提请非洲各国政府注意非洲大陆严重的住房问题以及制定可实施的住房问题，研究主要反映当地住房现实而不是对其进行理论分析是可以理解的。非洲住房政策。