Housing and the World Bank: mortgaging development

Liam Clegg

Chapter 27 in The Elgar Companion to the World Bank, 2024, pp 321-331 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Globally, over one billion people lack access to adequate housing. Since the early 1970s when the World Bank commenced its lending for housing, its operational approach has evolved through three distinct phases. Through this chapter, I review the shifts from prioritizing state-led upgrading of informal settlements, to increasingly market-based interventions, and most recently to the expansion of housing finance. I explore these trends by presenting a holistic assessment of World Bank housing projects alongside particular attention to lending for housing in Mexico. Overall, in its perennial balancing act between being a ‘development agency’ and being ‘bank-like’, it seems that in its lending for housing the World Bank has pivoted towards the latter, and in doing so moved away from the needs of the lowest income groups.

Keywords: Development Studies; Economics and Finance; Law - Academic; Politics and Public Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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