Financing Cities for All: Towards Sustainable and Inclusive Housing Finance Strategies

Faced with rapid urbanization, the United Nations estimates that 3 billion people will require decent housing by 2030, necessitating the construction of 96,000 units per day. This urgency is fundamentally financial, as the investment deficit for the African continent alone is estimated at $1.4 trillion. The success of SDG 11 depends on our ability to devise inclusive financing mechanisms that transform housing from a social cost into a lever for economic resilience. Designed as an interactive solutions-oriented roundtable, this networking event aims to foster knowledge sharing and the exchange of best practices among policymakers, financial institutions, and practitioners. It seeks to identify replicable institutional financing models (national housing funds, mortgage systems, blended finance) capable of addressing housing affordability, establishing collaborative frameworks, and creating an expert network to promote sustainable and inclusive financial solutions for habitat. In this perspective, the Moroccan experience illustrates a successful strategic transition in two phases: a decade (2010-2020) based on tax exemptions, guarantee funds, and the Housing Solidarity Fund, which benefited 721,000 households, followed by a turning point in 2024 with the "Direct Housing Assistance Program." This model, which prioritizes demand-side solvency through a digital platform, already counts over 68,000 beneficiaries, the majority of whom are youth and women. By comparing this model with international practices and Public-Private Partnerships, the debate will focus on key questions: - How can financial engineering and new credit levers sustainably transform access to housing? - Which Public-Private Partnerships models effectively balance investor profitability with financial accessibility for the most vulnerable? - What "green" financing mechanisms can integrate sustainability without increasing the overall cost of production?