Affordable Housing Finance Policy and Regulatory Review Consultant

Project Period: 28 February 2024 to 30 June, 2024

BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT

Almost a quarter of the world’s population lives in substandard shelter, impacting their health and livelihoods and their children’s education. Since 1976, Habitat for Humanity has helped more than 35 million people worldwide improve their shelter conditions. Yet, Habitat’s construction efforts alone cannot keep pace with the massive and growing need. In fact, no response by governments or private philanthropy alone can meet the shelter needs of 1.6 billion people. Habitat for Humanity International thus established the Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter to explore strategies for making housing systems work more inclusively for people in need of decent, affordable housing. Habitat for Humanity is one of the few housing-focused, international, non-governmental organizations, and is recognized globally for its effective approach and positive impact in addressing housing needs of low-income individuals and families.

Habitat’s Terwilliger Center has focused on housing market participants: low-income homeowners and the firms that provide them with goods and services. In terms of financial services, this focus has led to a large body of engagement with retail financial institutions, including the establishment of the MicroBuild fund.

Recognizing the critical role an enabling environment plays in allowing finance at scale, the Terwilliger Center seeks to hire an experienced consultancy firm to research examples of policy and regulation in developing and emerging market countries whose objective is to improve the enabling environment for affordable housing finance (we already have a database of over 175 such examples), analyse the impact of these policies and regulations (positive, neutral or negative), and their economic impact. The results of this research will inform the Housing Finance Systems Policy Priorities – a framework of promising policy measures to improve affordable housing finance and a roadmap to demonstrate the path to its realization.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

There are four objectives of this analysis:

• Identify, categorize and present relevant examples of policies and regulations designed to enable finance of affordable housing in emerging market and developing countries.
• Analyse the policies and present common factors leading to success, or lack thereof, and any unintended consequences (including implementing agency, affordability, etc…).
• Conduct a cost-benefit economic analysis of select successful policies/regulations
• Present up to 5 scenarios with pathways from immediate, short-term, medium-term and long-term measures to reach systemic impact

LEVEL OF ANALYSIS

Given the objectives of the study outlined above, the specificities of the deliverables described below, and the data and resources (money and time) available, the Consultant should propose the appropriate level of analysis based on their best professional judgement. For example, institution level analysis may be necessary for a national subsidy scheme delivered through specialized financial institutions, whereas a central bank lending window may not require that level of analysis. The Consultant should determine and propose pragmatic approaches and budget accordingly.

DELIVERABLES

• Methodology and outline of the envisaged final product (i.e., table of contents and brief description for each section).
• Presentation of identified policies and regulations in a searchable format.
• Presentation of a range of policy and regulatory options organized in a logical manner across a variety of described underlying conditions (e.g. macro-economic environment, policy focus, PPP arrangements, geographic focus…)
• Mapping of policy options for up to five different scenarios, leading to the same goal

TIMING
The timeframe for the project is expected to be 4 months from the date of contracting with the final deliverable expected at 15 June 2024 at the latest.

BUDGET
This contract should be delivered for under $50,000, all expenses included.

PAYMENT SCHEDULE

• Deliverables, Timeline, and payment (% of value)
• Inception Report
• Timeline: T + 2 Weeks
• Payment (% of value): 20 %
• Presentation of identified policies and regulations
• Timeline: T + 2 months
• Payment (% of value): 30 %
• Presentation of a range of policy and regulatory options
• Timeline: T + 3.5 months
• Payment (% of value): 20 %
• Mapping of policy options
• Timeline: T + 4 months
• Payment (% of value): 30 %

KEY PERSONNEL

• The Consultant should describe the key individuals that are available to work on the study. At a minimum the Consultant should include one or more experts with the following experience (not necessarily separate individuals):
• Project lead – A recognized consultant with at least 10 years’ experience in emerging market and developing country housing finance
• Policy specialist – Senior expert in development of policy with experience across a range of emerging market and developing countries
• Economist – Housing or Urban economist with experience modeling economic impact of financial policies and regulations
• Communications – Experience in visual communication of complex ideas

CONTACT
Please contact Patrick McAllister at HFH’s Terwilliger Center, with any questions that you may have related to this Terms of Reference: [email protected]

ONLY CANDIDATES WHO FOLLOW APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS WILL BE CONSIDERED FOR THE ROLE.