This paper provides a critical assessment of the Bank’s housing policies, against the backdrop of far-reaching transformations of the financial sector across the world and a persistently dire shelter situation in developing countries. It situates the Bank’s housing stance historically since its initial involvement in the sector
in the early 1970s. This allows to shed light on systemic and analytical tendencies bearing on Bank housing policy with significant implications for the Bank’s current policy
stance, including its response (or lack thereof) to the dramatic experience with housing finance laid
bare through the global financial and economic crisis
