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

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.