Microfinance institution partnerships

Microfinance is any financial service product that:

Is not a traditional mortgage.
Aspires to cover costs of service delivery.
May be provided by a bank, non-bank financial institution, cooperative, non-government organization or other legal-regulated entities.

Habitat’s role in microfinance institution partnerships:

Program design assistance: Assists in establishing a housing loan product.
Technical assistance: Assists in construction services. Helps link families or clients financed by a microfinance institute to government land, infrastructure or subsidy provided by a Habitat national program.
Direct investing: Transfers grants (for research) or loans (for product rollout) to microfinance institutes.
Investment brokering: Involved in negotiations that encourage public and private investment in microfinance institute s to expand housing finance.
Credit service outsourcing: Extends loans that are managed by microfinance institutes to serve Habitat partner families, clients and beneficiaries.

Microfinance institutions partnerships:

[1]	For joint research and pilot projects focused on scaling housing microfinance in Latin America and Caribbean.
[2]	Affiliates include Haiti’s largest microfinance institution, Fonkoze [3], and CEP [4], the largest microfinance institution in Vietnam.
[5]	In partnership with their local affiliate in Macedonia and the Philippines, and through a joint project aimed at AIDS orphans in three African countries.
[6]	With emerging partnerships in Afghanistan and Uganda.
[7]	With URWEGO [8], the largest microfinance institution in Rwanda and CREDIT [9] in Cambodia.
[10]	Through their local Vision Finance affiliates in Mongolia and Peru.

Government housing agency partnerships:

Habitat organizations in Thailand, Brazil, the Philippines, Vietnam, Chile, Costa Rica and South Africa are partnering with government housing agencies.
These partnerships target subsidies and construction technical assistance toward low-income housing solutions.

SEEP Network member:

In addition to programmatic collaboration, the SEEP Network [11] seeks to influence the microfinance industry so that housing becomes a standard loan product among microfinance institutions.
Habitat documents research and case studies, disseminates best practices and stimulates investment in housing finance for the poor.