A/68/289 Mexico, Panama, Peru and Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of). 21 Outside of Latin America, the capital-grant approach has been implemented on a large scale in South Africa since 1994. 22 14. However, in the absence of land planning and regulations, a large amount of subsidies available in the housing market has led to significant increases in land and housing prices, a general problem of affordability for low-income households and long waiting lists. 15. Problems have also emerged with regard to the location of housing units, some exacerbating exclusion and segregation. In countries like Chile, subsidized housing developments were built in the urban periphery where land costs were lowest, but which lacked adequate infrastructure, schools, health facilities, transportation and employment opportunities and were characterized by low habitability. 23 16. Pursuant to articles 2 and 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and from a human rights perspective, Governments are required to make effective use of their available resources to ensure the enjoyment of the right to adequate housing, including by prioritizing the poorest. That obligation implies more than a roof since the right to housing entails access to an array of services and facilities that guarantee an adequate standard of living. Capital-grant subsidies have had a narrow focus on reducing only the quantitative deficits of houses without adequately incorporating a human rights view. In that sense, they have failed to address broader aspects of habitability, location, availability of services and infrastructure and non-discrimination. As one commentator observed, the new stock of subsidized housing often created a greater housing problem: “the problem of those ‘with roofs’”. 24 C. Housing microfinance 17. Until the 1980s, slum dwellers and the urban poor had not been a target for financial services. 25 However, in the 1980s private financial investors came to __________________ 21 22 23 24 25 13-42184 Replies received from El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) to the questionnaire; Inter-American Development Bank, “Sharpening the Bank’s capacity to support the housing sector in Latin America and the Caribbean: background paper for the implementation of the social development strategy” (Washington, D.C., 2006). Financial and Fiscal Commission of South Africa, “Building an inclusionary housing market: shifting the paradigm for housing delivery in South Africa — for an equitable sharing of national revenue” (January 2012). Pablo Trivelli y Companía, “Urban structure, land markets and social housing in Santiago, Chile” (January 2010). See also Alfredo Rodríguez and Ana Sugranyes, eds., Los Con Techo: un Desafio para la Política de Vivienda Social (Santiago, Ediciones SUR, 2005); UN-Habitat, Housing Finance Mechanisms in Mexico (Nairobi, 2011); Fernando Jiménez-Cavieres, “Chilean housing policy: a case of social and spatial exclusion?”, doctoral dissertation prepared for Technical University of Berlin, 2006. See Rodriguez and Sugranyes, Los Con Techo (see footnote 3 above). UN-Habitat, Housing for All: The Challenges of Affordability, Accessibility and Sustainability: The Experiences and Instruments from the Developing and Developed Worlds (Nairobi 2008), p. 11; see also UN-Habitat, Financing Urban Shelter: Global Report on Human Settlements 2005 (Nairobi, Earthscan, 2005), pp. 99-100. 7/24