The World Bank approves $512 million for housing and infrastructure in Turkey

The World Bank said on Wednesday it had approved $512.2 million in financing for Turkey to boost the resilience of the housing and infrastructure sectors to climate change and natural hazards.

The bank said in a statement that $338.5 million of the financing would be used to develop new affordable financing mechanisms to enable families to modify or rebuild their homes to increase their resilience to earthquake and climate change risks.

Iller Bank, a state-owned investment and development bank, will use the remaining $173.6 million to finance municipalities to build infrastructure more resilient to natural hazards.

The project will focus on urban areas in Istanbul, Izmir, Kahramanmaras, Manisa and Tekirdag provinces, the World Bank said, adding that an estimated 1 million people will benefit from the developed infrastructure and 32,000 people will benefit from loans to rebuild or rehabilitate vulnerable housing units.