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This final chapter provides a brief recap of the core insights that have been advanced through the book as a whole, and reviews emerging dynamics in the World Bank’s engagement with housing micro-finance, and sanitation and water supply. The growing engagement with housing micro-finance and non-network sanitation services contains clear pro-poor targeting, but these seem likely to remain marginal features of operational practice. In contrast, given the established flow of resources being directed toward water supply, attempts to introduce an enhanced pro-poor focus in the area has the potential to generate widespread improvements. It remains to be seen, however, whether supportive developments inside the Bank and receptive policy frameworks amongst its borrowers will enable this focus to be sustained and expanded.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, national housing systems are typically characterised by high levels of informal housing provision, with the state and market-based mechanisms playing a relatively limited role. Initially, a substantial volume of World Bank lending was channelled into the region, and targeted at improving the standard of shelter in informal settlements. However, over recent decades, the flow of resources has reduced markedly, and come to focus on mortgage market expansion. The Tanzanian case reflects these overall dynamics, with the bulk of recent World Bank lending being used to create a mortgage liquidity facility. The direct impact of this facility is enjoyed by higher-income groups able to access related circuits of capital, with the lower-income population continuing to rely on informal mechanisms for housing supply and improvement.

The World Bank commenced its housing operations in 1972. This chapter identifies three main phases in these operations, which have seen a progressive reduction in the organisation’s pro-poor targeting. The interactions between internal processes of trial-and-error-based learning and personnel shifts, which have driven the evolution of the Bank’s approach to lending for housing, are reviewed.