The World Bank approved $512.2 million in financing for Türkiye to expand access to housing and infrastructure that is resilient to climate and natural hazards, it announced on Wednesday.

In a statement, the World Bank said $338.5 million of the financing will be used for developing new, affordable financing mechanisms to enable households to retrofit or reconstruct their housing to increase resilience to seismic and climate hazards.

The remaining $173.6 million will be used by Iller Bankası to provide financing to municipalities to build more resilient infrastructure.

The project will focus on urban areas in the provinces of Istanbul, Izmir, Kahramanmaraş, Manisa and Tekirdağ, the bank said, adding that an estimated 1 million people will benefit from upgraded infrastructure and 32,000 people will benefit from loans to reconstruct or retrofit their risky housing units.

These provinces are highly vulnerable to seismic and climate hazards and include Türkiye’s largest urban areas where 76% of the country’s 85 million people live and where much of the country’s economic activity is concentrated.

"Türkiye is singularly vulnerable to both natural and climate-related hazards, which exact a heavy toll on people and the country’s economy. With this project, the World Bank is pleased to make an important contribution to safeguard Türkiye’s development progress and underpin its transition to a resilient and climate-proof future," said Carolina Sanchez-Paramo, the World Bank’s acting country director for Türkiye.

Sitting on multiple active fault lines, Türkiye is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. Earthquakes have caused the greatest human and economic losses in the last 20 years, largely due to damage and collapse of buildings.

Meanwhile, extreme weather events and flooding have increased in frequency and intensity. Last year alone, floods resulted in at least 81 deaths, about 2,500 evacuees and significant damage to more than 450 buildings.

An estimated 6.7 million residential buildings across the country require seismic retrofitting or reconstruction. These structures were built prior to the introduction, in 2000, of modern construction codes for seismic resistance. Most fatalities from earthquakes are attributed to the structural failure of these older residential buildings.

Climate-proofing housing and infrastructure is also critical for Türkiye to sustain its economic growth while meeting its commitments to climate change and environmental sustainability. The building sector in Türkiye accounts for about 12% of the country’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

"Urban transformation against seismic and climate hazards will require significant investments at all levels of government and in the private sector, including households. This project addresses the key challenges of greater affordability of retrofitting or demolishing and reconstructing risk-prone housing and leveraging available resources and mobilizing finance for municipalities to increase investments in resilient infrastructure," said Zoe Trohanis, one of the World Bank's project team leaders.