On Thursday, March 14, 2024, Ginnie Mae hosted its inaugural U.S.-Latin America Investor Roundtable at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development headquarters in Washington, D.C. With support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the event brought together more than 150 in-person and virtual participants from throughout Latin America and the Caribbean to discuss housing finance in a social impact and sustainability framework.
The daylong program drew senior government officials and industry leaders from Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Guatemala, Chile, Panama, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Korea, and Japan together for panel discussions focused on:
- The expansion of housing finance availability through the use of portfolio lending or capital markets funding.
- A government’s role in promoting social and sustainable lending.
- Innovation in housing finance.
- Sustainable housing and climate risk.
The wide-ranging discussions identified shared challenges and opportunities across the region while reaffirming commitments to best practices and knowledge-sharing in the collective pursuit of solutions for more affordable and environmentally friendly housing and housing finance options.
“Ginnie Mae’s work is instrumental to efforts to expand access to housing finance in the United States and around the world,” said HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge. “This roundtable brought a historic assembly of global leaders together to tackle the biggest issues in housing, including social and sustainable lending, and innovation in housing finance.”
“Housing affordability and community development is a central part of the many policy and economic priorities we share across the Americas,” said Ginnie Mae President Alanna McCargo. “Our collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank and the organizations that participated in the roundtable is a start of collective work to pursue avenues to increase the affordable housing supply and help more households access safe and affordable rental and homeownership opportunities.”
“Despite differences in the structure of our housing finance systems, we all face similar challenges, such as natural disasters, affordability, and reaching underserved populations,” said Assistant Secretary for Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner Julia Gordon. “Sharing ideas and approaches is a way to highlight successful innovations and to enrich all our programs, underscoring the importance of our role as a global partner.”
Recordings of the sessions will be provided on the Ginnie Mae website in the coming weeks. More information about Ginnie Mae is available at www.ginniemae.gov and on X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
About Ginnie Mae
Ginnie Mae is a wholly owned government corporation that attracts global capital into the housing finance system to support homeownership for veterans and millions of homeowners throughout the country. Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities (MBS) programs directly support housing finance programs administered by the Federal Housing Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Public and Indian Housing and the Department of Agriculture Rural Housing Service. Ginnie Mae is the only MBS to carry the explicit full faith and credit of the U.S. Government.