International financial institutions and housing policy transfers (draft version)

International financial institutions and housing policy transfers (draft version)

Renaud, B.

2010-03-24

The central theme of this conference is the transferability of public housing policies and private practices from country to country – and presumably from city to city as well. To explore the role of international financial institutions (IFIs) in the transfer of these housing policies and practices, the paper is divided in three unequal parts. The first part looks back at the road we have traveled since the 1960s in research and policy work on housing markets. Then it turns to the present and outlines the broad consensus that has emerged on the basic anatomy of any housing system. These ?seven pillars? of housing are the foundations of modern comparative housing policy. Explicitly or implicitly, they can be used to organize the diagnosis of a national housing system or to understand the dynamics of a specific city in its economic, spatial, social and historical housing dimensions. The second part emphasizes three major factors that are too easily overlooked in carrying comparative housing policy proper. Yet these three factors are determinant and shape the daily work of the IFIs. They have a decisive impact on the probability of success of proposed housing policy reforms, programs and/or projects. How is it that no type of project – not only in housing, but in any sector - can be ?insulated? from poor macroeconomic policies? What is the role of the state in the economy and how has this role changed since the 1950s? Related to these first two questions is the changing structure of economies during the development and growth process. How might the structure of the economy also affect choices of housing policies? Overlooking these three questions is a recipe for failure. Unfortunately, this oversight is only too frequent in the name of the speedy transfer of "best practices". The third part of the paper points at the drastically changed nature of the channels for transfers of policies and practices across the world. Aid fragmentation is now widely recognized as a very serious structural issue. How does such fragmentation affect the transfer of housing policies? What might be solutions? Can international networks be a new structure for the transfer of policies and the diffusion of institutional experiences?

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Conference proceedings

conference paper

(c) 2010 Renaud, B.