At the request of the Secretariat ofEconomic Policy (SPE) at the Brazilian Ministry of Finance(Fazenda), the World Bankcarried out a second phase of theNon-Lending Technical Assistance (NLTA) aimed at supportingthe Government's ongoing housing sector reform efforts.Work provided under Phase II of the NLTA focused on twointerrelated issues : Proposing the introduction of newinstruments which will allow lenders to raise long-termfunds from the capital markets; and Identifying options toensure a better alignment of the Sistema Financeiro deHabitação (SFH), with its two pillars SBPE and FGTS, withthe introduction of new capital market instruments.