South Africa has joined forces with the Netherlands, sharing ideas and knowledge in order to eradicate informal settlements and build sustainable human settlements.

In this regard, the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) and the Netherlands' Vereeniging van Gemeenten (VNG) International are holding a two-day workshop here, which started yesterday.

Cooperation between the two in the field of social housing is part of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) both parties signed in 2003. The cooperation seeks to build capacity among South African municipalities in the field of social housing and to support SALGA with this objective.

Social housing is a housing option for low-to-medium income persons and that excludes immediate individual ownership. In this regard, the Netherlands is assisting municipalities in the country with both technical and financial resources.

The partnership has since resulted in, among others, the development and publishing of the "Municipal Social Housing Policy Toolkit ", an instrument for municipalities to develop their own social housing policy. The cooperation has also resulted in the LOGO South Municipal Twinning Programme being implemented in the country.

Thus far 13 Dutch-South Africa municipal twinning relations have been established to share expertise. The LOGO South is a Dutch programme aimed at facilitating capacity building of local governments with a long-term aim to strengthen good local government as a condition for poverty reduction.

The programme is being implemented in 17 other countries including Ghana, Suriname and Nicaragua. Meanwhile, the Netherlands' housing minister Sybilla Dekker and her delegation earlier yesterday held discussions with SALGA officials led by Chairperson Amos Masondo.

Addressing the media following the discussions, both expressed satisfaction with progress in this regard and reiterated their commitment to ensuring the partnership was successful.

Mr Masondo emphasised that all three spheres of government were required to cooperate in the delivery of housing to realise their collective goal of providing adequate housing for all. He said municipalities were finding the social housing toolkit "useful" and that it "remains one of the important products" of the partnership.

"Municipalities such as Johannesburg are now directly grappling with the issue of housing at a local level. Housing is one of the critical issues that require attention," he said, further calling on municipalities to ensure that they were ready to perform their tasks such as the delivery of social housing.

In her address Ms Dekker highlighted her country's continued commitment to build this capacity in South Africa. "Our country is involved in more joint ventures in social housing in South Africa than in any other country. South Africa faces common problems we faced especially in big cities where we need to restructure the inner city by renovating old buildings and ensuring that people with low income have their own houses," she said.

Source: BuaNews / April 11, 2006

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• R30 million investment in Khayelitsha township

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