As the Housing Crisis and Climate Crisis Collide, New Build Change Partnerships Finance and Fuel Climate Optimism

In Indonesia, a new microloan product will finance extreme heat adaptation for 2,000+ women homeowners making under $5 per day.
In Urabá, Colombia, which faces conflict and climate change, community organizations will integrate racial equity into national housing policies.

DENVER, Sept. 19, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Build Change, the global expert on disaster-resilient housing in informal markets, announces two new partnerships that shift power to women and people of color to tackle the major barriers to climate-resilient housing.

“As the housing crisis and climate crisis collide, we need more homes that are comfortable, affordable, resilient, and sustainable. The barriers we face – people, policy, money, and technology – are not new. These partnerships finance and fuel new ways to overcome them,” says Build Change founder and CEO Dr. Elizabeth Hausler.

In Indonesia, 2,000+ women who make less than $5 per day will finance improvements to reduce indoor temperatures in their homes with a new microloan product, the Incremental Climate Adaptation Loan (ICAL). This product will combine homeowner financing through microfinance savings and loan cooperative KOMIDA with builder technical assistance through the Build Change technology platform, BCtap.

This new 18-month partnership will improve up to 20 homes in 2024. This phase builds on initial work done by Build Change and long-time partner KOMIDA in 2023 and will test the efficacy of the approach, refine the product, and develop training and marketing materials for scale. The project will continue in 2025 with training for 350 loan officers in 50 KOMIDA branches across Indonesia who will reach out to 25,000 low-income women at risk from extreme heat to offer them the ICAL product.

In Colombia’s Urabá region, homeowners on the frontier of the treacherous Darien Gap live with historical marginalization, mass migration, and lingering violence and conflict. They also face increased risk of drought, flooding, deforestation, and rising sea levels as a result of climate change. This new partnership will build the capacity of five Afro-Colombian community organizations in four municipalities to promote demand for climate-resilient housing. Technical assistance and capacity building from Build Change will prepare these organizations to implement the “Cambia mi Casa” program run by Colombia’s Ministry of Housing. This national program, a long-time Build Change partner, aims to strengthen and improve 400,000 homes across Colombia.

The five new partner community organizations are:

Corporación Para El Nuevo Desarrollo Étnico de Nueva Colonia
Junta de Acción Comunal de Río Grande
Asociación de Emprendedores y Productores Afro del Pacífico
Asociación de Víctimas para la Paz Todos por el Campo
Asociación para la Mujer Cabeza de Hogar

By the end of 2024, the project will strengthen five houses and deepen understanding of the cultural and social practices these largely Afro-Colombian communities use to adapt their homes to local conditions. The partnership, funded by Echoing Green, Build Change’s first donor in its founding year 2004, will advance racial justice and equity by enhancing access to housing improvement programs and transforming national housing policies.

“Resilient housing is our past, present, and future,” says Hausler. “As we celebrate 20 years of impact this year, we look ahead with renewed optimism that climate resilience is possible.”

For information on Build Change’s climate-resilient housing solutions in Honduras, Mexico, Comoros, Mozambique, the Maldives, and the Philippines visit www.buildchange.org/climate.

Explore the Climate-Resilient Housing initiative, a United Nations Race to Resilience campaign program powered by Build Change, at

Build Change is the global leader in systems change for resilient housing. Our engineers, builders, coders, policy advocates, and lending partners are providing urgently needed housing solutions in the world’s most disaster-prone countries. Shifting power to families since 2004, Build Change has safeguarded over $5 billion in housing infrastructure assets across Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia-Pacific, improving the lives of over 1.3 million people by building new or retrofitting more than 270,000 buildings, at a cost of $51 per safer person.

Learn more at www.buildchange.org or follow us on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, and Instagram.

Photos and video available upon request.

Media Contact:
Angie Moncada
angie@buildchange.org
609-937-6296

SOURCE Build Change