Patricia Scotland: Housing sector needs to be seen as economic asset

The housing sector should be viewed not as a social expense, but as an economic asset capable of attracting significant private capital, Patricia Scotland, a member of the British House of Lords and former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, said at an event at WUF13 in Baku, Report informs.

She stated that there is a huge amount of capital and a pressing need for real estate globally, but the current system of interaction between them is broken.

She noted that investors lack projects with clear land titles and predictable returns.

According to Scotland, technical support for land registration in Rwanda and Sierra Leone has halved the time it takes to prepare documents.

She added that local governments are a crucial link in this chain, as they issue permits and develop infrastructure. She noted that most municipalities are unable to secure loans for construction due to low creditworthiness.

"When a city can issue bonds to finance water and road infrastructure, housing development typically follows," she noted.