The World Bank Tokyo Development Learning Center (TDLC), in collaboration with the WBG Affordable Housing Community of Practice, organized a virtual Technical Deep Dive (TDD) on Affordable Housing from October 17 to 21, 2022.
The challenge of achieving adequate housing quality, safety, and affordability is not only daunting but also pervasive. The challenge is not limited to poor nations or poor societies where nearly a billion people live in slums; it is also prevalent in the otherwise-thriving economic centers of advanced economies, where many “non-poor” – including middle-income households – struggle to find decent housing. The formal housing sector has been unable to produce new housing at the scale or price needed to respond to demand. As a result, housing choice is severely restricted for both low- and middle-income households, and a large part of the population is forced to find alternative housing solutions.
There is no single country or city in the world that has fully solved the housing challenge. This is because the housing sector is a complex and dynamic space, constituting not just the physical aspects of shelter and service delivery, but also a range of evolving socio-cultural and economic issues.
The TDD was designed in a way that most effectively highlights the World Bank’s clients’ needs at a global level to better understand constraints and opportunities in the sector, improve the targeting of limited public resources, and mobilize the private sector in the delivery of affordable housing.