Sofia Viguri

This technical note explores the relationship between housing design and household wellbeing, with a specific focus on Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The research on the economic and social impacts of adequate access to housing is well established. However, the various impacts of housing design the architectural, engineering, and site-planning features present at the unit and neighborhood scales are comparatively less well understood. To address this gap, first, we present a literature review of more than 200 articles on the topic, with a special focus on references (both theoretical and empirical) that explore links between at least one design element and at least one aspect of wellbeing. Second, we include an analysis of how questions of design are resolved in existing housing programs. Specifically, we present a critical assessment of a sample of 26 public sector projects funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in various LAC countries from 2009 through 2019. Overall, by highlighting key methodological challenges and potential avenues for future research, this paper serves as a reference for practitioners seeking to assess why and how best to incorporate design into social housing programs and maximize positive impacts on wellbeing.

In response to the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the IDB Group Board of Governors endorsed the target of increasing climate-related financing in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) from 15% in 2015 to 30% of the IDB Groups combined total approvals by 2020. Currently, the IDB Group is on track to meet this commitment, as in 2018, it financed nearly US$5 billion in climate-change-related activities benefiting LAC, which accounted for 27% of total IDB Groups annual approvals. In 2019, the overall volume and proportion of climate finance in new IDBG approvals have increased to 29%. As the IDB continues to strive towards this goal by using its funds to ramp-up climate action, it also acknowledges that tackling climate change is an objective shared with the rest of the international community. For the past ten years, strategic partnerships have been forged with external sources of finance that are also looking to invest in low-carbon and climate-resilient development. Doing this has contributed to the Banks objective of mobilizing additional resources for climate action while also strengthening its position as a leading partner to accelerate climate innovation in many fields. From climate-smart technologies and resilient infrastructure to institutional reform and financial mechanisms, IDB's use of external sources of finance is helping countries in LAC advance toward meeting their international climate change commitments. This report collects a series of insights and lessons learned by the IDB in the preparation and implementation of projects with climate finance from four external sources: the Climate Investment Funds (CIF), the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). It includes a systematic revision of their design and their progress on delivery, an assessment of broader impacts (scale-up, replication, and contributions to transformational change/paradigm shift), and a set of recommendations to optimize the access and use of these funds in future rounds of climate investment. The insights and lessons learned collected in this publication can inform the design of short and medium-term actions that support “green recovery” through the mobilization of investments that promote decarbonization.

La Estrategia Integral de Vivienda Adecuada y Urbanización Sostenible para el Estado de Coahuila reúne orientaciones de política pública que alinearán el desarrollo territorial de la entidad con la Nueva Agenda Urbana, trazando una senda de sostenibilidad al 2030.

This document is a guidance for practitioners seeking to design climate change interventions with greater potential to exert transformational change (TrC). It has a series of guiding sheets with recommendations on how to introduce insights of TrC in the tools, methods, and approaches (TMAs) used for climate programming. These TMA guiding sheets cover: theory of change, market, economic and gender analyses, feasibility studies, among others. Each uses real-world examples of investments in renewable energies, sustainable forest management, climate resilience and clean technologies.

The rapid expansion of urban land cover in Mexican cities, and its lack of proportion with population growth, has been source of concern and analysis in the aftermath of the federal housing crisis of 2006-2012. The present geospatial analysis seeks to clarify the relationship between (failed) housing policy and urban expansion in the metropolitan area of Oaxaca, accounting as well for other policy factors related to land and transportation policy. Urban land cover expansion is mapped and measured using remote sensing imagery classification; an ordinary least square regression model is performed and regionally analyzed by means of a geographically weighted regression. Results for variables of interest are inconclusive, but the output of the model does stress the importance of manufacturing jobs as determinants of urban expansion in Oaxaca. The implication being, land and economic policy must be better coordinated in order to influence urban land expansion in Mexican cities.

Document developed while in IADB which summarizes the application of the Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. It provides an assessment of 120 sustainability indicators (see: urbandashboard.org), a GHG inventory, a vulnerability assessment and an analysis of the city's urban development patterns. It also includes the results of a public opinion survey and expert consultation, and finalizes with a roadmap of recommended policies and programs in order to foster the city's sustainable growth towards 2030 and 2050.

Connect Chelsea is a project of the Spring 2014 Core Urban Planning Studio at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.  It was the winner of the 2015 National AICP Student Project Award from American Planning Association. This plan proposes a series of new internal and regional networks stemming from the expansion of the Silver Line BRT; it also envisions new economic development opportunities that hinge on the racial diversity of the city. Finally, it also lays out a plan to preserve innate aspects of the workforce while also opening the community to change.

Como parte de la evaluación del Programa de Acción Climática 2008-2012 del Gobierno del Distrito Federal, el Centro Mario Molina desarrolló la Guía Metodológica para la Evaluación de los Programas de Acción Climática de Gobiernos Locales. La herramienta se dirige a todos aquellos miembros de los sectores público, privado y sociedad civil encargados de evaluar y retroalimentar las estrategias de mitigación y adaptación al cambio climático, ya sea nivel municipal o estatal. La Guía contiene una serie de directrices para orientar el análisis sobre la calidad estructural y metodológica de los procesos de diseño,  instrumentación y seguimiento de los Programas de Acción Climática en México.

Analytical study performed while in Centro Mario Molina, which provides evidence on the environmental, economic and social connections among the 8 metropolitan regions in the Central region of Mexico, and advised the creation of a Megalopolitan Commission in order to jointly tackle issues of air quality, integral water management, concerted land management, among others.

Analytical study performed while in Centro Mario Molina, which developed a sustainability index in order to grade the performance of government-subsidized social housing vis-a-vis housing units in more traditional intra-urban neighborhoods in Mexico City, Chihuahua, Monterrey and Mérida.

This white paper proposes a framework through which land policy analysis and design can be revisited in the context of sustainable development, laying out considerations to be held by the Commission for the Regularization of Land Tenure (CORETT) as it transitions towards becoming the National Institute of Sustainable Land (INSUS).