Secure land and property rights for all are essential to reducing poverty because they underpin economic development and social inclusion. Secure land tenure and property rights enable people in urban and rural areas to invest in improved homes and livelihoods. Although many countries have completely restructured their legal and regulatory framework related to land and they have tried to harmonize modern statutory law with customary ones, millions of people around the world still have insecure land tenure and property rights.

This report addresses and assesses the issue of tenure security  in several countries where government, civil society, the private sector and development cooperation initiatives have been implemented for decades. The selected case studies from fifteen (15) countries (Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, The Philippines, Thailand, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala) ensure not only ageographic balance but they also represent countries with different socio-economic and land-related histories and that have followed different pathways. The studies’ key findings underline the still precariousstate of tenure security in many countries.

This publication evaluates the housing finance mechanism in Chile, with special attention to the issues of affordability, efficiency, effectiveness, and stability. Over the past three decades, the impact of the Chilean government’s social housing policy on the availability and affordability of housing has been substantial, drastically improving access to low and middle-income level households. During the same period there has been a consolidation of the market economy in the country, accompanied by a deep reform of the financial markets, together with more affordable access to long-term credit by households. All this has resulted in the substantial erosion of the historically large housing deficit.  

A much more dynamic construction sector has contributed - complementing an aggressive social housing policy receiving large fiscal support - to a robust supply of new housing in the marketplace. As reflected in available statistics, gains in income levels, combined with easier family access to reasonably priced housing finance in recent decades, has resulted in much improved living conditions for large segments of the population, benefiting households across the income spectrum. One of the objectives of this report is to share the Chilean experience and some of the lessons learned, particularly those that may be replicable in other countries in the developing world.