Successes and struggles of loan finance in supporting housing and infrastructure development in low-income communities.

News from three corners of Africa illustrates some of the successes and struggles of loan finance in supporting housing and infrastructure development in low income communities. Despite their optimism and evident success, the examples also point to one of the difficulties that these programmes face. How can the poorest families be included in programmes that require financial payments, however small or flexible? As evidence mounts that micro finance programmes exclude the poorest and most vulnerable families, finding approaches that are inclusive rather than exclusive is surely the greatest challenge facing savings and loan programmes.