The Moba Accelerator - Building the Missing Piece in Cooperative Housing Financeba

This networking event introduces the MOBA Accelerator as a response to a structural gap in global housing systems: while cooperative and community-led housing models are widely recognised for their social value, in pioneering contexts they consistently lack access to appropriate, non-speculative financing. Existing housing finance mechanisms are largely designed for either state-led provision or market-driven development, leaving cooperative initiatives—especially in emerging and post-socialist contexts—without viable pathways to implementation. Developed by MOBA Housing SCE, a European Cooperative Society and cooperative of cooperatives, the MOBA Accelerator is designed to build this missing piece. It functions as a translocal, cooperative financing instrument that pools capital, knowledge, and risk across borders to provide early-stage loans to cooperative housing projects, enabling them to launch flagship initiatives and unlock access to longer-term financing. Through collective governance, the Accelerator strengthens inter-local ecosystems and supports long-term affordability. The event is conceived as a curated networking and matchmaking space, rather than a presentation or fundraising pitch. Through short, playful prompts grounded in financing, implementation, and governance experience and facilitated exchanges, participants will explore how the Accelerator works, why such instruments are urgently needed beyond the MOBA region, and what roles different actors can play in supporting and adapting similar mechanisms. The session brings together cooperative housing initiatives, municipalities, foundations, development actors, and potential institutional partners interested in advancing housing models beyond speculative markets. Drawing on experiences from Central and South-Eastern Europe, the discussion positions the Accelerator not as a regional peculiarity but as a transferable approach to financing cooperative housing in contexts where public systems are weak and markets dominate. The event aims to initiate concrete partnerships and collaborations around new forms of housing finance that contribute to safe, inclusive, and resilient cities.