TY - JOUR
T1 - City development fund
T2 - A financial mechanism to support housing and livelihood needs of Thailand's urban poor
AU - Sripanich, Bussara
AU - Nitivattananon, Vilas
AU - Perera, Ranjith
N1 - Funding Information:
As shown in Table 1 , in spite of the slight differences in terminology, these organizations and researchers share a common belief in the concept of community funding as well as a central idea of self-sustained, community-led development financing for the urban poor. Community funding is a development mechanism that integrates both financial and social approaches, so that community organizations are able to develop and manage their own resources. The funds are used as an intermediary for mobilizing savings and lending for housing and livelihood improvement. Community funds are established either by the government (usually with state funding and subsidy), or by civil society organizations (normally financially supported by a combination of funds from the state, NGOs, international agencies, as well as community contributions) ( UN-Habitat, 2005 ). The establishment of community funding is based on the common concepts of pooling resources. This is done to network the people and their funds, scaling up from individual community savings groups to city, provincial, or even national level funding ( Archer, 2012 ). Additionally, there is also a common concept of mutual participation or a combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches. Even though the urban poor manage their own funds, assistance from state agencies, professionals, and academics is always useful. There should be alternate ways to establish dialogue between people, state agencies, professionals, and academics, with the ultimate goal of maximizing benefits of the poor ( ACHR, 2002 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd.
PY - 2015/10/1
Y1 - 2015/10/1
N2 - Community funding, or setting up community fund, is an innovative way of financing housing. It is growing fast in many countries, but its mechanisms and managerial practices have received little academic attention. Consequently, this study aims to investigate the mechanisms of city-level community funding known as the city development fund (CDF) which is well established in Thailand. This qualitative research was conducted through multi-source data. The study reveals that the design of CDFs was based on four established concepts in the citywide program. These are networking, collectivity, decentralization, and combination of bottom-up and top-down management. The Thai CDF operates four primary components. These are its members, committees, types of funding, and supporters. They are linked at five levels ranging from the local community level savings to national-level funds. Such linkages make the CDF crucial as a financial and social intermediary in terms of savings mobilization, delivering loans for housing and livelihood improvements, as well as developing the urban poor's management skills. Findings of the current study contribute towards a better understanding of how CDFs operate and the roles of all stakeholders. Lessons learned from the Thai case study can be applied to promote setting up city-based funding and integrated into housing finance policy in other contexts as well.
AB - Community funding, or setting up community fund, is an innovative way of financing housing. It is growing fast in many countries, but its mechanisms and managerial practices have received little academic attention. Consequently, this study aims to investigate the mechanisms of city-level community funding known as the city development fund (CDF) which is well established in Thailand. This qualitative research was conducted through multi-source data. The study reveals that the design of CDFs was based on four established concepts in the citywide program. These are networking, collectivity, decentralization, and combination of bottom-up and top-down management. The Thai CDF operates four primary components. These are its members, committees, types of funding, and supporters. They are linked at five levels ranging from the local community level savings to national-level funds. Such linkages make the CDF crucial as a financial and social intermediary in terms of savings mobilization, delivering loans for housing and livelihood improvements, as well as developing the urban poor's management skills. Findings of the current study contribute towards a better understanding of how CDFs operate and the roles of all stakeholders. Lessons learned from the Thai case study can be applied to promote setting up city-based funding and integrated into housing finance policy in other contexts as well.
KW - City development fund
KW - Community fund
KW - Housing finance
KW - Thailand
KW - Urban poor
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U2 - 10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.05.011
DO - 10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.05.011
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84934920922
SN - 0197-3975
VL - 49
SP - 366
EP - 374
JO - Habitat International
JF - Habitat International
ER -