World Bank experiments in housing: microfinance for self-organised housing in Mexico in the era of financial inclusion

Abstract

Framed by an agenda of financial inclusion, housing for and by the poor has become a field of experimentation. These experiments have included the introduction of small, non-mortgage loans dedicated to the construction and improvement of self-organised housing. This paper provides a close reading of how such housing microfinance schemes have been introduced in Mexico with the support of the World Bank since the early 2000s. We highlight how the roll-out of the new schemes has been facilitated through several loans aimed at structural reforms of the Mexican housing sector. Yet while wrapped in a pro-poor discourse, it ultimately served the goal of expanding housing finance to low and middle-income groups. The ensuing implementation, however, was a complex and protracted process. We argue that it was characterised by experimentation, negotiations, and failures, both within state institutions as well as between state actors, World Bank representatives, and civil society. The conclusion presents Mexico’s housing agendas as a field of finance-induced experimentation, in which institutional ruptures resulting from the changes in government rub against the long-term engagement of local housing associations and activists. The latter have played an important role in setting noteworthy limits to financially driven interests.