A/HRC/34/51 42. As noted by the Institute for Human Rights and Business, global financial institutions with representations from central bank governors and ministers of finance, “seem generally remote from stakeholder engagement. These institutions are independent self-governing bodies with their own rules of procedure and are not directly accountable to the public.”47 Governments relying on the financial system and financialized housing assets to service their own debt are not encouraged by global financial institutions to manage housing systems for compliance with human rights. They are more likely to be urged to cut housing programmes and social protection programmes to comply with the demands and economic theories of financial corporations and credit agencies. IV. Financialization of housing in developing and emerging economies 43. Research into the financialization of housing has focused on Australia, Europe and North America, where access to credit extends to a large portion of the population and where the majority of the “global cities” attracting capital in unprecedented quantity are located. Caution is needed, therefore, when examining the diverse experiences of financialization, in order to avoid generalizations about global patterns based on the particular circumstances in those cities. 44. The housing sector in the global South has not been subject to extensive financing of homeownership. Only about 17 per cent of the population in Botswana, Kenya, Namibia and Zambia, for example, would be eligible for mortgage finance based on existing criteria. 48 Low-income, informal and indigenous communities have nevertheless experienced, first-hand, the power of financial corporations to appropriate land and real estate and to generate vast disparities in wealth by treating housing and land as commodities. The displacement of Garifuna communities by model cities containing luxury developments for tourists and wealthy residents in Honduras is an example of the kinds of displacements of communities and forced evictions that are occurring in many countries (see A/HRC/33/42/Add.2, para. 56). Many local and national governments looking for capital investment have opted to sell land to major developers at the expense of indigenous and impoverished communities and those living in precarious housing. 45. Informal settlements in Southern cities are regularly demolished for luxury housing and commercial development such as shopping malls and other high-end services intended for those with expendable incomes. In Lagos, Nigeria, for example, 30,000 residents of the Otodo Gbame community were forcibly removed after their waterfront homes were set alight, allegedly related to luxury developments. Many were left homeless. 49 Elsewhere, when informal settlements are upgraded with infrastructure development and the granting of formal title and credit, they become subject to speculation and rising costs that force existing residents, particularly informal renters, out of the community. The real estate market in Mumbai, India, is now actively engaged in promoting speculative investment in 47 48 49 See Institute for Human Rights and Business, “Human rights and sustainable finance: exploring the relationship”, 11 February 2016. Available from www.ihrb.org/focus-areas/finance/report-humanrights-and-sustainable-finance-exploring-the-relationship. See Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa, “Housing Microfinance”. Available from www.housingfinanceafrica.org/projects/housing-microfinance. Information on the relevant communication is to be made public in the joint communications report for the thirty-fourth session of the Human Rights Council. 13