<%@ LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT" %> <%'Response.expires=0%> Overseas Private Investment Corporation
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Environmental and Social Impact Assessment

for the Affordable Mortgage and Loan Company -
The New City of Rawabi Project

The Affordable Mortgage and Loan Corporation (“AMAL”) is a newly-incorporated Palestinian non-bank housing finance company headquartered in Ramallah.  AMAL was established as a holding company and will own a minimum of four special purpose subsidiaries.  Its mission is to provide long-term, fixed-rate and adjustable-rate housing finance to low- and middle-income households through established banks and eventually Islamic finance companies. AMAL will play an important role in helping to expand homeownership in the Palestinian territories through the provision of fixed- and adjustable-rate financing.  Additionally, because housing finance is a relatively new concept in the market, AMAL will help develop bank mortgage lending capacity by requiring the use of a rigorous underwriting and servicing regime that the Originating Banks will be required to follow, drawing on international best practices whenever possible. As one obstacle to low- and moderate-income families achieving homeownership has been a lack of affordable housing supply, the Palestine Investment Fund and other private sector developers have unveiled plans to construct sizable housing developments, with the first units expected to be available in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Because the construction of the Rawabi development is critically dependant on the availability of the OPIC facility, OPIC has elected to disclose information on the potential environmental and social impacts on the development and consider comments from the interested public before making the mortgage facility available for the purchase of Rawabi homes.

The following are links to various documents related to the environmental and social impact of this project. To open a document, double-click a link. To copy a document, right-click a link and click "Save Target as..." . Note that because of the large size of some of these documents, it is recommended that you download and open them locally rather than attempt to open them online.

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