Practitioners and academics

Global south and global north

US residents and international perspectives

We hand-pick the participants, capitalizing on visits to Boston by those with international experience on a topic relevant to our universe, and then pairing the guest with someone local whose credentials match our visitor’s and whose experience provides a counterpoint of perspective.  Our goal is two articulate experts, each working on the same topic but from widely separated platforms and environments, who together explore what is unique about their respective situations, and what is common.  Via this series, we hope and expect to discover resonances and surprising similarities that will shine a light on deeper structural principles important to affordable housing worldwide.

Attendance is free but space is limited.  Register online at www.affordablehousinginstitute.org/exchange or call Rosabelli Coelho-Keyssar at +1 (617) 502 5917.

We expect the subways to be packed with people clamoring to attend

The Exchange Seminar Series will start off with a bang, with a great topic and a pair of speakers:

Leading from the Pack: Peer-Group Networks as Change Agents

Tom Bledsoe, Housing Partnership Network

Joel Bolnick, Slum Dwellers International

Friday, March 20, 9:00 to 10:30 am

38 Chauncy Street, Suite 600/ Boston, MA   02111

Joel Bolnick, Secretary of Slum/Shack Dwellers International (headquarters in Cape Town), a global network of over 25 national federations of savings cooperatives of the world’s poorest urban dwellers.  Using a $10,000,000, three-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, SDI has created the Urban Poor Fund International, a self-managed revolving facility of risk capital to undertake nation-changing demonstration projects in their countries.

Joel Bolnick, Secretary, Slum Dwellers International

Thomas Bledsoe, Chief Executive Officer of the Housing Partnership Network, a peer network of nearly 100 of the leading non-profit housing enterprises in the US with strong track records in development, financing, and management. Its members have developed or financed more than 500,000 affordable homes and the Network has created pooled structures for insurance, financing and group buying to enhance their performance. 

Tom Bledsoe, executive director, Housing Partnership Network

Why these two speakers?  Because their respective organizations are global (SDI) and national (HPN) leaders in creating networks that then make change – in themselves, in their communities, and in the housing financial ecosystems in which they operate.

As our Exchange Series flyer puts it:

Networks have emerged as among the world’s most promising new approach to making change in affordable housing and urban development globally.  Networks are self-organized, self-managed adaptive clusters of similarly-motivated peer entities each operating in a distinct geographic market but across a similar intellectual and business space.   Rather than a top-down approach that big institutions know best, the network approach emphasizes experimentation and interactive learning that encourages insight, sharing, and rapid evolution, without creating resource competition among members.    

Slum/Shack Dwellers International and the Housing Partnership Network are widely-recognized leaders in this movement: the Housing Partnership Network throughout the United States, and Slum Dwellers International across the global south.  Each of these networks has moved beyond simple idea exchange to provide practical tools and services that help their members address their biggest challenges.  

Among the most striking aspects of SDI and HPN is their parallel evolution from first convenings to exchanges and sharing to the innovation of financial products. 

HPN has created members-only lending and insurance products for its members; SDI is now creating its own Urban Poor Fund International, a transnational revolving facility with the goal, as SDI’s Web site puts it, of:

Monetizing the Social and Political Capital of the Poor

Once Federations begin to negotiate with local governments around secure tenure and basic services, the next step is always to find the finance for the actual implementation and delivery. Very often the lack of access to funds delays projects and results in a loss of morale for the communities involved.

These constraints have prompted many SDI affiliates to build new institutions, called Urban Poor Funds, which monetize the social and political capital of savings groups to leverage additional resources from formal banking institutions, the State, and international donor agencies. By combining the savings of the poor with external contributions, Urban Poor Funds gear up capital for large-scale construction and infrastructure development.

SDI’s Urban Poor Funds are meant to reinforce cooperation between Federations and more powerful players in the development sector. Through the participatory design and implementation process, communities learn to build transparent, accountable finance systems, create responsive allocation mechanisms, and accommodate increases in scale and volume.

It’ll be a great event; the first, we hope and expect, of many.

Are you here for the AHI Exchange Seminar Series?

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