Enabling housing markets or increasing low incomes access to land. Lessons from Iran

World Bank policy plays a significant role in shaping international housing and urban policy including that of UNCHS, development arms of western governments and international consultants (Keivani and Werna, 2001a and Baken and van der Lindern, 1993). In addition while the degree to which national governments actually adopt the Bankís policy recommendations may be open to question (Harris and Giles, 2003) they have for the past three decades set the agenda for the international housing debate and influenced national policies of many countries in at least a partial form if not in their entirety. The Bankís influence can be seen in the international propagation and national adoption of supported self help and sites and services schemes, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, and has continued to the current emphasis on market efficiency and enabling housing markets (Keivani and Werna, 2001a). The latest example of this is the post apartheid housing policy in South Africa selectively but largely drawing on the Bankís enabling market strategy particularly in respect of formal finance delivery and the housing subsidy programme (Jones and Datta, 2000) and recent policy proposals by researchers on India and Nigeria (Sivam, 2002 and Ogu and Ogbuzobe, 2001).