Promoting Access to Affordable Housing Finance: Morocco’s Fogarim Guarantee Fund and U.S. Housing Finance

Alven Lam
Christopher Feather
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Foreign Exchange

Foreign Exchange, a department of Cityscape, reports on what the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office for International and Philanthropic Innovation has learned about new departures in housing and development policy in cities and suburbs throughout the world that might have value if applied in U.S. communities. If you have a recent research report or article of fewer than 2,000 words to share in a forthcoming issue of Cityscape, please send a one-paragraph abstract to matthew.l.hennessy@hud.gov.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not represent the official positions or policies of the Office of Policy Development and Research, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or the U.S. government.

Affordable housing is a pervasive challenge throughout the world. In response, governments have formulated housing policies and executed strategies and programs to promote inclusive access to affordable housing for all, including the poor and most vulnerable. The Kingdom of Morocco began adapting its housing finance market in 2004 with the creation of the Fogarim Guarantee Fund program. The Fogarim program facilitates access to housing credit for Moroccans with modest and irregular incomes. Although the circumstances related to accessing affordable housing are different in Morocco, the Fogarim guarantee is not all too dissimilar from guarantees in the United States. Through innovative guarantee mechanisms, Fogarim has accomplished measured success in expanding lending to borrowers with low and intermittent incomes. More than a decade later, the Moroccan experience presents an important opportunity to exchange practices on sovereign guarantee mechanisms and to evaluate their role in promoting access to affordable housing, especially as the United States continues to assess reforms to its own housing finance system.