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The government of Bulgaria requested the World Bank's support in assessing the housing and living conditions of marginalized communities in the Northwestern (NW) region of the country, with an explicit but not exclusive focus on the Roma population. The objective of this assessment was to support the government to develop a program by providing a baseline assessment of housing and living conditions of marginalized communities in three districts. The report presents the synthesized findings from these assessments (combining the various data sources) to identify policy bottlenecks and opportunities for two types of dwellers in the selected neighborhoods: 1) dwellers of marginalized housing units; and 2) dwellers of the government-subsidized social housing units.

Housing --- Municipal Housing and Land --- Urban Development --- Urban Governance and Management --- Urban Housing --- Urban Poverty

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Although increased global demand for land has led to renewed interest in African land tenure, few models to address these issues quickly and at the required scale have been identified or evaluated. The case of Rwanda's nation-wide and relatively low-cost land tenure regularization program is thus of great interest. This paper evaluates the short-term impact (some 2.5 years after completion) of the pilots undertaken to fine-tune the approach using a geographic discontinuity design with spatial fixed effects. Three key findings emerge from the analysis. First, the program improved land access for legally married women (about 76 percent of married couples) and prompted better recordation of inheritance rights without gender bias. Second, the analysis finds a very large impact on investment and maintenance of soil conservation measures. This effect was particularly pronounced for female headed households, suggesting that this group had suffered from high levels of tenure insecurity, which the program managed to reduce. Third, land market activity declined, allowing rejection of the hypothesis that the program caused a wave of distress sales or widespread landlessness by vulnerable people. Implications for program design and policy are discussed.

Agricultural investment --- Agriculture --- Banks & Banking Reform --- Common Property Resource Development --- Gender --- Land administration --- Municipal Housing and Land --- Rural Development --- Rural Land Policies for Poverty Reduction --- Urban Housing --- Rwanda

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The availability and affordability of decent housing has become an important economic and social concern in the European Union (EU), as housing price increases in metropolitan regions have often outpaced wage increases. Housing is at the heart of growing economic divides in Europe. This is because productivity growth, which comes with higher wages and better jobs, is concentrated in cities and industrial clusters. Housing is unaffordable in metropolitan centers because the construction of new homes has not kept up with demand, reducing the standard of living of low-income households, and dissuading workers from moving to the most productive regions. While policy incentives have favored homeowners since the 1970s, less attention and resources have been devoted to easing the potential barriers and market restrictions that would allow housing supply to respond to increases in demand. Across EU member states, policymakers should focus on ensuring that land use, rental and other regulations are consistent with incentives to spur residential construction. The report highlights three key recommendations for EU policymakers: earmark unused public land for housing development and speed up approval processes; invest in greenfield projects with improved transportation links from suburban areas, to ensure cities cast a wider economic net; and create public registries to improve transparency of house sale prices to help greater competition between areas.

Affordability --- Housing --- Labor markets --- Living standards --- Mobility --- Municipal housing and land --- Poverty reduction --- Social protections and labor --- Tax policy --- Urban development --- Urban governance and management --- Urban housing --- Wages

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In September 2017, Hurricane Irma devastated housing on the island of Sint Maarten. Between January and March of 2019, a World Bank team carried out this Rapid Housing Sector Diagnostic. The Diagnostic is based on information gathered during a one-week mission to Sint Maarten, desktop research, and analysis of drone- and street-view imagery gathered by the World Bank's Global Program for Resilient Housing. In the field, the team met with representatives of the government departments responsible for housing, as well as private sector players (developers, builders, engineers, banks, union representatives). The team also visited several social housing developments and informal settlements. Because this is the first assessment undertaken in Sint Maarten since the hurricane, housing data remains scarce. The Diagnostic's findings are therefore more qualitative than quantitative. They do, however, present a broad picture of the current state of the island's housing sector, which should be viewed as the start of a dialogue on housing with the Sint Maarten government, and as a foundation for the Bank to develop a longer-term engagement in the sector.

Environment --- Hazard Risk Management --- Housing Finance --- Land Management --- Municipal Housing and Land --- Natural Disasters --- Urban Development --- Urban Governance and Management --- Urban Housing

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The Government of Uzbekistan has adopted an important series of initiatives to create a market-based housing finance system, yet recognizes that there remains much work to be done. This note provides guidance on the themes that were discussed with authorities and industry participants during mission to Uzbekistan on November 6-16, 2006 and February 22 to March 2, 2007. The note is based on missions conducted in 2006 and 2007 by Britt Gwinner, FPDSF, and Michael Borish, a review of government documents, and a review of studies conducted by other multilateral institutions. It benefits from cooperative research and analytical work done by the local staff of IFC Central Asia Primary Mortgage Market Development Project in identifying the legal and regulatory gaps in the county's housing finance system, as well as their additional background research under the TOR for developing this note. The World Bank would like to thank the officials of the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economy, Ipoteka Bank, and others for their generous cooperation.

Access to Finance --- Demographics --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Housing Finance --- Municipal Housing and Land --- Rural Development --- Urban Development --- Urban Housing