* First book to link housing and microfinance * Presents international and US experience As the premier book to provide a comprehensive overview of housing microfinance worldwide, Housing Microfinance sets the standard for future work in the field. The expert contributors combine wisdom from the separate fields of housing policy and microfinance, demonstrating what each can learn from the other. With solid guidance for practitioners and policymakers, the book reviews important issues for international and domestic microfinance institutions that are considering expanding into housing and for providers of conventional housing loans who seek to offer their services to poor clients who lack collateral or regular income.

This report provides a comprehensive review of the challenges for low and moderate income housing. It focuses on the issues of affordability, accessibility and sustainability in resolving the housing problem. It looks at both formal and informal instruments and how experiences in developed countries and instruments in addressing middle income households can help inspire solutions for low and moderate income housing. The report examines a whole range of major instruments and experiences across the developing and developed worlds.

* First book to link housing and microfinance * Presents international and US experience As the premier book to provide a comprehensive overview of housing microfinance worldwide, Housing Microfinance sets the standard for future work in the field. The expert contributors combine wisdom from the separate fields of housing policy and microfinance, demonstrating what each can learn from the other. With solid guidance for practitioners and policymakers, the book reviews important issues for international and domestic microfinance institutions that are considering expanding into housing and for providers of conventional housing loans who seek to offer their services to poor clients who lack collateral or regular income.

"This book is an exhaustive handbook on microfinance covering more than 600 concepts and ideas .Since poverty alleviation remains a top agenda for development programs and microfinance has proved the most effective approach for combating it, there was a growing demand among students, academics, journalists, bankers and general readers for a handy companion on microfinance. The text examines what has become a vast global industry employing hundreds of thousands of people and attracting the attention of large numbers of governments, banks, aid agencies, non-governmental organizations and consultancy firms. In this book the authors try to help students, who are relatively new to microfinance, practitioners looking for an entry point into the vast academic literature, and policy makers to become acquainted with the main ideas and debates about microfinance. The main objective of the book is to equip the reader with sound understanding of the various concepts in microfinance and their relevance to contemporary financial programmes so that the user is in a position to process business proposals in microfinance. "

Available online via SciVerse ScienceDirect, or in print for a limited time only, The International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home, Seven Volume Set is the first international reference work for housing scholars and professionals, that uses studies in economics and finance, psychology, social policy, sociology, anthropology, geography, architecture, law, and other disciplines to create an international portrait of housing in all its facets: from meanings of home at the microscale, to impacts on macro-economy. This comprehensive work is edited by distinguished housing expert Susan J. Smith, together with Marja Elsinga, Ong Seow Eng, Lorna Fox O'Mahony and Susan Wachter, and a multi-disciplinary editorial team of 20 world-class scholars in all. Working at the cutting edge of their subject, liaising with an expert editorial advisory board, and engaging with policy-makers and professionals, the editors have worked for almost five years to secure the quality, reach, relevance and coherence of this work. A broad and inclusive table of contents signals (or tesitifes to) detailed investigation of historical and theoretical material as well as in-depth analysis of current issues. This seven-volume set contains over 500 entries, listed alphabetically, but grouped into seven thematic sections including methods and approaches; economics and finance; environments; home and homelessness; institutions; policy; and welfare and well-being. Housing professionals, both academics and practitioners, will find The International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home useful for teaching, discovery, and research needs. International in scope, engaging with trends in every world region The editorial board and contributors are drawn from a wide constituency, collating expertise from academics, policy makers, professionals and practitioners, and from every key center for housing research Every entry stands alone on its merits and is accessed alphabetically, yet each is fully cross-referenced, and attached to one of seven thematic categories whose ‘wholes' far exceed the sum of their parts

'Achieving the goals set by world leaders in the United Nations Millennium Declaration will be difficult without a significant improvement in the lives of slum dwellers, and the lives of slum dwellers cannot be improved without the sound and sustainable economic development that is conducive to the establishment of a strong shelter sector. As Financing Urban Shelter: Global Report on Human Settlements 2005 emphasizes, one of the key challenges in meeting the Millennium Declaration Goal on slums is mobilization of the financial resources necessary for both slum upgrading and slum prevention by supplying new housing affordable to lower income groups on a large scale. . . . It is my hope that, by highlighting the impacts of current shelter financing systems on low-income households and by identifying the types of financing mechanisms that appear to have worked for them, this report will contribute to the efforts of the wide range of actors involved in improving the lives of slum dwellers, including governments at the central and local levels, as well as non-governmental and international organizations.' From the Foreword by KOFI ANNAN, Secretary-General, United Nations Financing Urban Shelter presents the first global assessment of housing finance systems, placing shelter and urban development challenges within the overall context of macroeconomic policies. The report describes and analyses housing finance conditions and trends in all regions of the world, including formal housing finance mechanisms, microfinance and community funding, highlighting their relevance to the upgrading of slums. Recent shelter finance policy development is discussed at the international and national levels, and the directions that could be taken to strengthen shelter finance systems are examined. The Global Report on Human Settlements is the most authoritative and up-to-date assessment of conditions and trends in the world's cities. It is an essential tool and reference for researchers, academics, public authorities and civil society organizations around the world. The preceding issues of the Global Report on Human Settlements have addressed such topics as An Urbanizing World, Cities in a Globalizing World and The Challenge of Slums. Published with UN-HABITAT

Financing Urban Shelter presents the first global assessment of housing finance systems, placing shelter and urban development challenges within the overall context of macroeconomic policies and the Millennium Development Goals target on slums - "a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020". The report describes and analyses housing finance conditions and trends in all regions of the world, including formal housing finance mechanisms, microfinance and community funding, highlighting their relevance to the upgrading of slums. Recent shelter finance policy development is discussed at the international and national levels, and directions that could be taken to strengthen shelter finance systems ere examined.