Ladies and Gentlemen

The sector we are gathered here to discuss is central to economic development. If it is not yet playing this role it is our duty to find ways to ensure that this sector changes our economic trajectory. Access to dignified and healthy shelter is a necessary element of a person's physical, social and economic well-being. Creating new spaces for human settlements drives the creation of new infrastructure which in turn drives the construction sector. This has a direct impact on the Gross Domestic Product, and job creation. A total rethink on how we build new settlements is required to enable the human settlements sector to play this role in the economy.

The Burj Khalifa sky scrapper found in Dubai is currently the tallest building in the world with a total height of 829.8 m. The building with a design that is inspired by Islamic architecture stands out as a tourist attraction in Dubai. It took a combination of very advanced building technologies to make this building a reality. These technologies include high performance concrete with high compressive strength, Structural steel with a diagonally braced lateral system and Special exterior cladding specifically designed to withstand the temperature changes and wind forces. Because of these technologies, the Burj Khalifa is designed and built to withstand extreme weather conditions. The building I am speaking about showcases how far building technologies have advanced over the years. The conditions we live in today, wherein climate change is quickly the defining challenge for humanity requires all us to reflect deeply on how technology can help us to build safe communities. Because of climate, the weather patterns are changing. We are now experiencing more cyclones, floods and heavy rains in areas which had not previously experienced such events before.

These developments have increased the frequency and the geographic spread of disasters in our country. You would have noticed that over the past weekend the Namakwa district in the Northern Cape was affected by severe floods due to extremely heavy rains. This is an example of the unusual events because prior to the floods, communities in Namaqualand experienced several years of drought which led to the deaths of thousands of animals and loss of jobs in the farms and suddenly they experienced heavy rains. There is no doubt that climate change is going to define the future of the human settlements sector. We can no longer continue to plan, design and build human settlements without taking into consideration the impact of the climate change. Building climate change resilient communities, cities and human settlements in general is no longer a luxury but it should become a norm.

I am calling for a total rethink on how we build human settlements going forward. Currently, we have to respond to the devastating impact of these natural disasters which in most cases render families homeless and at worst lead to deaths. Planning, designing and building human settlements with climate change in mind will help us to be
proactive and avoid loss of lives and homelessness. The technology used at the Burj Khalifa building has showed that the technology exists for creating climate resilient cities and communities. Indeed, some of these technologies are not accessible for the poor and there is a need for us to drive and encourage the research and development of innovative, resilient, durable and affordable alternative
building technologies. In the long run, for the survival of our communities, we will have to let go of our attachment to brick and mortar and embrace new technologies that will protect us from unpredictable weather patterns. While looking at the future we need to reflect weather we can use our indigenous knowledge for the future. (An example of old building way of mud houses and why they were sustainable. A month ago, I led a delegation to the United Nations (UN) Habitat assembly in Nairobi Kenya, in which South Africa supported by the member states of the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) initiated a resolution on Accelerating the Transformation of Informal Settlements and Slums, to be considered during the Assembly. The resolution speaks to the core dimensions of the New Urban Agenda with social, economic, environmental and spatial sustainability translated into the reduction of spatial inequality towards spatial justice, fostering social inclusion and integrated governance, reduction of poverty towards economic prosperity, and environmental sustainability and protection. I am pleased to report that the resolution was adopted by the assembly. As the initiators of the resolution we have to be in the forefront of its implementation.

Evidently, for us to be able to achieve the objective of this resolution we will have to place technology at the centre, we have to build our communities differently. Whilst we were in Nairobi, we interacted with the Egyptian delegation led by their Minister of human settlements. The minister was jubilantly telling us about how Egypt has built a huge “New Administrative Capital”, approximately 45km to the east of Cairo, in the middle of desert equal to the size of Singapore. The lesson here is that we can build anywhere we want, the challenge is to redefine the apartheid spatial planning by
building new towns, new communities in the democratic era. In our case, we have cities, towns and communities which were spatially designed to perpetuate apartheid which means they were not designed to accommodate the majority especially the poor and the working class. The cities quickly becoming overpopulated and congested because of rapid urbanization. For this reason, the majority of the people who are flocking into the cities looking for opportunities end up in informal settlements. Through our informal settlements upgrading and affordable housing programmes we will eliminate the informal settlements whilst breaking the apartheid spatial development. We have a programme that is focused on providing rental space for those who work in urban areas but want to return to own their properties in the rural areas. As part of encouraging building in rural areas we reviewed our policy for first home financing include financing for those who carry permission to occupy.

I am encouraged by the participation by traditional leadership at this Indaba. We need to encourage the partnership and collaboration because as government we have capacity to assess the suitability of land for human settlements and for planning while the traditional leaders are the owners of the land. Over and above this, we need to be ambitious and bold and build new cities, new communities and towns. The two cases that I have referred to above, the building in Dubai and the new city in Egypt, have one thing in common, they were built in a dessert. There is nothing that prevents us as South Africans from creating new economic centres. China has built 600 cities since 1949. When Shenzen SEZ was declared in 1980, it was just a collection of poor fishing villages with a population of 100,000 people across the border from Hong Kong.

Today, Shenzhen is one of the wealthiest metropolis with a population of more than 20 million and it is considered the “hardware capital of the world.” This helps with creating local economic development and addresses the migration from rural areas to urban areas. Building new cities will have many economic advantages in addition to creating new inclusive human settlements spaces. Embracing new and innovative building technologies in the human settlements sector will create new opportunities for manufacturing which will boost our industrialization strategy in these new cities. The only way we are going to turn our country into a construction site is by crowding-in investment in building new infrastructure and new cities are the most effective way in which we will be able to do this. The outcomes of our deliberations in this indaba should provide with guidance of the
following matters amongst others:

What is the most efficient way of delivering houses to the poor and the vulnerable?

How best can we utilize alternative building technologies to create sustainable communities?

What is the most effective way of dealing with rapid urbanization?

What is it that we need to do to proactively deal with natural disasters?

What is the most efficient way of building climate resilient infrastructure?

How do we redefine rural housing programs and utilization of indigenous knowledge systems?

 How do we crowed-in public and private investment to build new cities?
 

I am confident that with the brainpower that has gathered in this conference all these matters will be addressed.

I thank you