Affordable Housing Institute

UNITED KINGDOM

On this page you can find summaries of country-specific AHI activities/ projects, AHI weblogs/blog posts, and other resources.

Actvities - Blogs - Resources

Activities

2008, June, London

WS & H Practitioners' Roundtable

Activities: Key meetings

David Smith was invited to join a number of microfinance institutions, non-governmental organisations, donor agencies and commercial banks in London on June 12-13, 2008, at The WS & H Practitioners' Roundtable to explore the sustainable scaling up of microfinance in the water and sanitation sector. The meeting aimed to:

Develop common principles for assessing the viability of micro- and commercial finance in the WASH sector, from the perspective of achieving operational and financial sustainability over time;
Develop a conceptual framework on what is needed to scale up these market based approaches;
Develop recommendations on the types of activities and approaches different stakeholders (donors, NGOs, banks, etc.) can use to build on the above, in order to further this market.

Participants focused and drew on each other's diverse range of expertise. Although some hoped to take home a ‘finished’ product, the questions that emerged seem more valuable than any ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution. The intensive discussion resulted in several common themes:

Scale means different things to different people, and from different perspectives. For example, whereas ‘scale’ to a local NGO or MFI often refers to expanding activities to ensure greater coverage to poor people, scale to a commercial bank means increasing amounts of funding in a given area.
To scale micro (small scale) finance in water and sanitation, both grants and loans are needed to support viable projects, yet there is need for careful use of subsidies.
There is a range of ‘facilitation’ and enabling support required to bridge demand and supply for using microfinance in water and sanitation.
While aiming for sustainable scaling up of microfinance within the WS&H sector, adequate attention is needed on targeting the poor and low income groups as well as ensuring that original MFI objectives are not lost.
Sector coordination is needed to achieve scale through the choice of local partners, entry points in the value chain and sharing of best practices as well as failures.

Several practical ideas emerged from the workshop, including creating a portal where practitioners from varied fields can discuss their experiences in leveraging microfinance in the water and sanitation sector, share case studies for learning purposes (both successful and not-so-successful) and enhance a glossary of terms as understood by different sectors. Details of the roundtable here.

2006, October, London

Symposium on placemaking

Activities: Presentation

To announce the publication of Incentives for Growth, a new publication by the Smith Institute, a UK think tank on public policy, AHI’s founder, David Smith, was one of three chapter authors invited to speak at a morning symposium held at 11 Downing Street, official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. His presentation, entitled Placemaking: Incentivizing urban regeneration and renewal, Lessons from the US, is available here. In his talk, David emphasized

(1) the US’s vast and varied experience of experiments successful and unsuccessful,
(2) the relative roles of national, regional, and local government,
(3) housing’s integrality to placemaking,
(4) the challenge of matching capital to property,
(5) government’s ability to stimulate and channel rather than dictate,
(6) the utility of piloting and demonstration experiments, and
(7) inclusionary zoning, tax credits, and a Community Reinvestment Act as concepts to consider.

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2005, London

Department for International Development (DFID)

Activities: Program evaluation and review

Participated in four person review team undertaking the mid-term review of FIRST, a major multi-donor syndicate which provides technical assistance for financial sector deepening projects in developing countries. This involved completing the project logframe and benchmarking to other similar approaches to technical assistance in terms of cost, efficiency and output.

2004, July, London

HART Credit Coalition

Activities: Program advocacy

Meetings with senior officials at Housing Corporation and ODPM and presentation of US evidence that tax credit based schemes are 29-32% less costly, in government expenditure per home produced, than grant-based programs. See HART Credit website.

2004, April, London

HART Credit Coalition

Activities: Program advocacy

Meetings with HM Treasury and Mayor of London staff for continued governmental stakeholder education and advocacy on behalf of the HART Credit, especially as a means of delivering 'key worker' housing in Greater London.

2003, November

Maritime Housing

Activities: Program advocacy

Presentation with Maritime Housing to the Barker Review regarding the obstacles to creating affordable housing in Britain and the value of using soft equity generated from the proposed Housing And Regeneration Tax (HART) Credit.

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2002, October

Maritime Housing

Activities: Program design

With a personally selected small group of US and UK experts, conceptualization and comprehensive design of the proposed Housing And Regeneration Tax (HART) Credit, a best-practice synthesis of the US Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), historic tax credit, and (proposed) homeownership tax credit. HART is a proposed new financial tool - capitated, allocated, and competed for - to fund financing gaps in affordable housing and urban regeneration schemes throughout Britain. The overall goal of a HART Credit is to stimulate private investment that engages the local community and is a catalyst for neighborhood renewal throughout the nation, targeting (a) neighborhood renewal areas, and (b) areas of affordable housing shortage.

United Kingdom - 2002, October

Urban Summit

Activities: Stakeholder education, program advocacy

Presentation regarding fiscal initiatives and the HART Credit to the Urban Summit, a convocation of over 1,500 UK professionals, private and public, focused on urban regeneration in the UK.

2002, January

Maritime Housing

Activities: Stakeholder education, stakeholder symposium, national gaps assessment

Along with a half-dozen other US attendees, participation and presentation at a 35-person roundtable symposium on affordable housing in Britain, blockages in the delivery system, and potential fiscal interventions that would stimulate affordable housing production and preservation. In that context, conceptualization of the need for a populated ecosystem and population of a US-UK comparison illustrating similarities and differences between the two countries' systems.