Affordable Housing Institute

🇲🇻 Earlier this month, we concluded our close-out mission in the Maldives, marking the culmination of six years of work supporting the Government of Maldives on affordable housing reform.

As part of the mission, we presented a housing reform roadmap to the Ministry of Housing, Land and Urban Development, bringing together findings and recommendations from a series of engagements since 2020. This work has included an initial housing market needs assessment, rent-to-own program reform recommendations, a sustainable housing policy reform study, a market survey assessing the effectiveness of government social housing programs, and the development of a demand-side housing reform roadmap.

The mission also included capacity-building sessions with government officials and housing sector stakeholders. Larry English, Marja Hoek-Smit, and Sanjana Sidhra led discussions on both the supply and demand sides of the housing system - including public-private partnerships, housing delivery models, affordability, and housing finance - designed to support the transition from policy recommendations to practical implementation.

We are grateful to Dao Harrison and the World Bank team for their continued guidance, and to the Ministry of Infrastructure, Housing, and Urban Development and the Government of Maldives for their engagement and partnership throughout this work.

This close-out mission was not just the end of a project cycle, but an opportunity to reflect on the progress made and the reforms still ahead as the Maldives continues to strengthen its housing system.

Learn more: https://ow.ly/J59A50Zhi6Y

Micro, Small, and Medium Sized Enterprises (MSMEs) account for 90% of businesses, 60 to 70% of employment and 50% of GDP worldwide. As the backbone of societies everywhere they contribute to local and national economies and to sustaining livelihoods, in particular among the working poor, women, youth, and groups in vulnerable situations.

However, many of these businesses operate informally, limiting their access to formal financing and legal rights.

In 2011, a housing finance company called Sitara Sewa Grih Rin Limited was created to address this gap.

Learn more: https://ow.ly/C5W750Z15Bo

"These courses provide practical frameworks that can be applied immediately to real projects. They have changed the way I evaluate opportunities, manage risk, and think about creating developments that are both financially viable and socially impactful.”

Two weeks ago, we welcomed 33 professionals from 9 countries to Harvard Graduate School of Design for Real Estate Development and Finance Fundamentals, taught by AHI's David Smith.

🌎 With five real-world case studies from the US, Iceland, and Ghana to discuss over four days, participants were able to workshop together in real-time, sharing insights and acting on lessons learned.

And congratulations to our Stanley Chen Scholarship recipients, Shweta Rajput and Erwin Li, recognized for their motivation to make enduring change for their communities and their countries.

Learn more about our executive education offerings: https://ow.ly/Pxr650ZebFs

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Contact | Affordable Housing Institute With the support of caring individuals like you, AHI is able to provide low-bono advisory services to community-based changemaking entities to invent solutions to some of the most challenging and complex issues in affordable housing today. We do this because, in poor communities around the world, a....