Innovations in Housing Finance: Community-driven financial processes for equitable urban development

Somsook Boonyabancha is the Secretary General of the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR), a coalition of organizations working on housing development for the urban poor in Asia. Currently, she is working on ACHR’s new regional program, the Asian Coalition for Community Action, which aims to bring about city-wide development change in 200 Asian cities in 15 countries by 2011. Formerly, she was the Director of the Community Organizations Development Institute (CODI) in Thailand.

For the past 30 years, Somsook has worked on housing development for the urban poor and slum upgrading in Thailand and other Asian countries. Her expertise is in orienting the development of community driven development to improve urban community housing, including developing innovative approaches to housing finance, land management, community welfare, and disaster rehabilitation.  She also has experience in community-led processes in rural community land and housing development. During her years at CODI, she carried out a national urban community upgrade plan that has been implemented in almost 300 cities in Thailand today.

Speaker: 
Somsoook Boonyabancha, Secretary General, Asian Coalition for Housing Rights