Housing finance and affordable housing delivery: evidence from Punjab, Pakistan

Purpose This study aims to evaluate the Punjab Affordable Housing Program (Apni Chhat Apna Ghar, ACAG) as a finance-enabled affordable housing initiative in Punjab, Pakistan, examining its operational performance, financial sustainability and inclusion across districts. Design/methodology/approach This study analyses administrative data from all 36 districts of Punjab using descriptive statistics, operational performance indicators, Pearson correlation analysis, district rankings, exploratory ordinary least squares regression and k-means cluster analysis. Findings The programme recorded 114,316 approved applications, 102,029 loan disbursements and 78,693 completed houses. Mean district disbursement, completion and recovery rates were 89.50%, 77.39% and 6.35%, respectively. Programme scale was strongly associated with approvals, disbursements and completions. Recovery performance was positively associated with disbursement efficiency and female participation but negatively associated with programme scale. The recovery model showed strong explanatory power, whereas completion outcomes were only weakly explained by district-level administrative variables, indicating that post-disbursement implementation factors influence housing completion. Research limitations/implications The analysis relies on district-level administrative data and cannot identify household-level causal relationships. Future research should incorporate household and implementation-level variables. Practical implications The findings highlight the importance of strengthening post-disbursement support, repayment management and gender-responsive outreach while adopting differentiated district-level implementation strategies to improve programme performance and long-term financial sustainability. Originality/value This study provides one of the first empirical district-level evaluations of a provincial finance-led affordable housing programme in Pakistan, offering evidence on how operational efficiency, financial recovery and inclusion interact to shape affordable housing delivery in the Global South.