A/67/286 community-based organizations such as Slum Dwellers International and the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres in India. 108 60. Some community funds, such as Baan Mankong in Thailand and the Community Mortgage Programme in the Philippines, have demonstrated a great capacity to expand their coverage and to execute complex housing and infrastructure projects that involve national and local Governments, landowners and several communities. The Baan Mankong programme, introduced in 2003 by the Government of Thailand and implemented by an independent Government agency, the Community Organizations Development Institute, aimed to improve living conditions for 300,000 families by 2008. Its strategy for delivering low-income housing is to channel funds to community-based organizations that plan and carry out projects themselves. 109 The programme became an exemplar for communitysupported slum upgrading, although it has been implemented on a smaller scale than originally envisaged. 110 61. While such programmes developed in tandem with the evolution of housing microfinance, they have a significantly different approach, emphasizing community ownership and broader aspects of adequate housing such as location, access to infrastructure and services, and security of tenure. 111 Community funds are less finance oriented and therefore interest rates on loans are usually lower than housing microfinance rates and loan periods are often longer, up to 25 years. 112 Community funds require Government budgetary assistance and intense involvement by local and national Government in the planning and execution stages, in order to achieve the necessary scale, sustainability and technical assistance. It is still too early to assess the impact of community funds on the access to adequate housing for the poor, and more systemic and long-term research is required. However, the financial sustainability of community funds has already emerged as a problem. Owing to their large scale and reliance on multi-stakeholders, community funds depend largely on donor financial and technical support, which can prove erratic, and research indicates that community funds suffer from low repayment rates and high arrears. Additional concerns have been raised that the communal loans lead to internal conflicts and power imbalances within the borrower communities, owing to differences in repayment capabilities. IV. Conclusions and recommendations 62. Housing policies have increasingly been reduced to housing finance systems. The current predominant paradigm of housing policies holds that housing financial markets, if well designed and regulated, can provide access to adequate housing for all segments of society. Housing finance has also become a __________________ 108 109 110 111 112 20 UN-Habitat, Financing Urban Shelter, p. 99. Ferguson and Smets, p. 293-294; UN-Habitat, Housing for All, p. 88-89; S. Boonyabancha, “Baan Mankong: going to scale with ‘slum’ and squatter upgrading in Thailand”, Environment and Urbanization, vol. 17, No. 1 (April 2005). As of January 2011, 1,546 communities and 90,000 households had been involved in Baan Mankong projects. UN-Habitat, Affordable Land and Housing in Asia (Nairobi, 2011). UN-Habitat, Financing Urban Shelter, p. 120. In the case of the Community Mortgage Programme in the Philippines. 12-45918