A/HRC/10/7 page 19 creation of property rights in land and housing merely as a new re-colonization leading to the repossession of land and property through formal legal means, with companies and banks from developed countries gaining control over the territories of developing countries.65 58. In his 2003 mission to Peru, the former Special Rapporteur observed the functioning of titling programmes. In his mission report he concluded that the practice of granting titles by the Commission for the Formalization of Informal Properties (COFOPRI), inspired by the work of Hernando de Soto and supported by the World Bank, was flawed when viewed in the context of Peru’s obligations to the human rights instruments. He called for a review of the policy and of the functioning of institutions such as COFOPRI to ensure compliance with human rights obligations. He also noted that the policy provided titles to families without ensuring access to water, sanitation and electricity and security of home and person, or ensuring equal rights for women. He argued that this could only lead to a false sense of security and that it only approached the right to housing as a narrow and individualistic property right.66 59. Several evaluation studies of massive titling programmes, especially in Latin America, have shown that titling without urbanization and socio-economic integration enables markets to work but does not ameliorate the lives of slum dwellers.67 The main issue in regard to financial services is that “the design of such services needs to take into account the difficult choices faced by low-income households in generating savings, as they struggle to balance potential income gains (microenterprise borrowing), expenditure savings, investments in capacities and relationships (education, marriage) and investments in assets (including housing)”. Rather than discouraging credits targeting low-income sectors, more “flexibility to support this complexity” should be provided by financial services; moreover, they should be based on the specific needs of the people concerned.68 G. Discrimination in access to housing 60. Discrimination related to adequate housing may be the result of discriminatory laws, policies, and measures; inadequate zoning regulations; exclusionary policy development; exclusion from housing benefits; denial of tenure security; lack of access to credit; limited 65 S. Andreasson, “Stand and deliver: private property and the politics of global dispossession”, Political Studies, vol. 54. No. 1 (March 2006), p. 3. 66 E/CN.4/2004/48/Add.1, box 3. 67 G. Riofrio, “Why have families mortgaged so little?”, paper presented at Lincoln Institute of Land Policy workshop on Comparative Policy Perspectives on Urban Land Market Reform in Latin America, Southern Africa and Eastern Europe, July 1998; J. Calderón Cockburn, Analisis comparativo de la poblacion beneficiada y la no beneficiada por el Plan Nacional de Formalización, Informe de investigación, Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Informática, Peru, 2001. 68 See footnote 61 above.