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Box 9 Singapore: importanceof workers’ CentralProvident FundUnder the scheme first instituted in 1955, employeesin Singapore are required by law to save a proportionof their monthly income in a central providentfund (CPF) account. Employers also make monthlycontributions to their employees’ CPF account. Muchof these savings are invested in government securities,providing a cheap and ready source of financeto the government for public housing constructionand national capital formation. They also provide asource of mortgage financing at the individual levelto help home buyers meet their mortgage paymentswithout the need to dip into their cash reserves. Forthe average worker the monthly repayment for thefl at is less than half of the CPF savings deposit.Sources: Yuen 2002, 2005.gies. 192 However, a key limitation of a mortgagebasedfiltering strategy is that it has a long timehorizon at best; and, a market-based filteringstrategy that is not matched with housing policiestargeted to the poor, will result in inequalities andleave the poor behind.Some countries have been extensively involved insetting housing goals and directly financing housing.Singapore, once characterised by vast squattersettlements, established a Housing and DevelopmentBoard (HDB) to finance and subsidisehousing developed by the state but constructedby the private sector and then sold to homebuyers.Over 85 percent of Singaporeans live ingovernment-built housing. Singapore has emphasiseda homeownership strategy that has playeda key part in raising residents’ sense of belongingto the new living environment.There are also many examples of developing nationscommitted to meet their housing challengesand testing and developing a broad variety ofhousing policies. South Africa quickly startedoff with an impressive array of housing policyresponses, such as housing plans, fixed interestloan products, micro-loan financing, a securitisationconduit, and partnerships with financialinstitutions. The country is still in the process ofexperimentation and evaluation, but the commitmentto its housing sector is clear. 193Public Private PartnershipsSeveral forms of public private partnerships(PPPs) were developed in the last two decadeswith built-in provisions of housing for thepoor. This period saw the economies of severaldeveloping countries booming and globalising,with a direct impact on cities like Sao Paolo,Mumbai, Delhi, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Manila andJakarta. Economic opportunities created a hugedemand for space for businesses and housing, inturn creating business opportunities for the realestate sector, for which it needed land in primelocations and land with trunk services in peripheralareas, both of which were scarce. The sameeconomic opportunities meant a growing populationof the poor who could afford only informalaccess to space in the city, with all its legal andenvironmental insecurities. Pressures placedupon city development institutions, therefore,gave birth to public-private partnerships as oneapproach to solving problems affecting both thereal estate sector and the poor.Successful PPPs from which the poor have benefitedhave tended to rely on instruments of thestate for trunk infrastructure that would ensureadequate timing of project development, and forenforcement of new regulations and laws. Thereare several examples where a combination of theseinstruments has been used to ensure legal/formalaccess to land and housing for the poor. GuidedLand Development has been implemented in the108