From Global Housing Finance to Local Affordable Housing Action: Leveraging Global Development and Subnational Finance

From Global Housing Finance to Local Affordable Housing Action: Leveraging Global Development and Subnational Finance will discuss how International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and the UN system can better collaborate to close the global housing investment gap, estimated at over USD 4 trillion annually, and translate global development finance into tangible, affordable housing outcomes at the city and community level.

Convened by the World Bank Group and UN-Habitat on the sidelines of the Thirteenth Session of the WUF 13, this session brings together senior representatives from major multilateral and regional development banks, UN agencies, and subnational finance experts to advance a practical, operational agenda for scaling up housing delivery

The session will examine concrete evidence from IFI-supported housing operations, with a focus on informal settlement upgrading, post-conflict reconstruction, and national programmes with strong subnational delivery components. It will explore what financing instruments, delivery models, and institutional approaches are working, and where critical bottlenecks remain across the project cycle, from preparation and design through to implementation and monitoring.

A forward-looking second panel will address how cities can be better prepared to access and absorb development finance, including through strengthening municipal creditworthiness, developing bankable project pipelines, and aligning IFI instruments with incremental and community-based housing delivery realities on the ground.

The session directly builds on the IFIs Working Group on Sustainable Urbanization, launched jointly by UN-Habitat and the World Bank at WUF12, and links to commitments made at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4).