The report arises out of special session on the global financial crisis organised by UN-HABITAT in 2008. The report discusses the current housing finance crisis and its impacts on the housing sector, affordable housing and the global economy. It examines the underlying factors and evolution of the global financial crisis and its preceding sub-prime crisis and its spreading, and the major players in the crisis, particularly the role of government, government-sponsored enterprises and specialised housing finance institutions and innovative funding instruments. It reexamines the effectiveness, efficiency and fairness of the current global financial governance system. It discusses lessons and options under the crisis and implications of extended government intervention in the housing finance market. It also looks at the impats of the global financial crisis.

Other titles in Global Urban Economic dialogue series:

• Community Land Trusts 2012
• Economic Development and Housing Markets in Hong Kong and Singapore 2011
• Economic Role of Cities 2011
• Fiscal Decentralisation in Japan 2012
• Fiscal Decentralisation in Philippines 2011
• Gender and Economic Development 2011
• Impact of Global Financial Crisis on Housing Finance 2011
• Infrastructure for Poverty Reduction and Economic Development in Africa 2011
• Microfinance, Poverty Reduction and Millennium Development Goals 2011
• Organisation, Management and Evaluation of Housing Cooperatives in Kenya 2010
• Public-Private Partnership in Housing and Urban Development 2011
• The Sub Prime Crisis: The Crisis of Over-Spending 2011