The Eastern Cape Premier, Mr Phumulo Masualle
Members of the Executive Councils for Human Settlements,
The Executive Mayor of the Nelson Mandela Metro, Mr Athol Trollip,
Dr. Sibongile Muthwa Acting Vice-Chancellor of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 
Mayors and Councilors present
Senior Government Officials
International Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen
All protocol observed.

As we gather here today, the higher education landscape in South Africa is the subject of much animated and concerned discussion, debate and mobilisation. This conference takes place at a time of the heightened struggles of students for free education.  Most institutions of higher learning have been closed for two weeks now and a national Education Imbizo that was held this past Monday could not reach an amicable solution, while the Commission of Inquiry into Higher Education and Training, headed Justice Heher was established to investigate the matter of university fees and will table its report in 2017. These events have impressed upon us the importance of access to higher education opportunities.

As the debate rages on, we would like to borrow from our own experience, some of the concepts that we in human settlements have adopted in order to deal with our housing matters. These are the concept of a:

• Qualifying criteria
• Progressive realisation of a goal
• Respect for the rights of others

It is necessary for me to contextualize this conference against the backdrop of education, because we are gathered here in the pursuit of knowledge. The determination to professionalise this sector was sown at about the time we ourselves were busy with reconceptualising our own position in 2004, shifting our paradigm from housing to integrated settlements.  We struggled to find the academic support to take us to where we needed to be.  We were carried through by the town planning discipline which, as you will know was not human settlements. But as we forged ahead, we found that it was necessary that we create this new discipline if we are to sustain ourselves and grow.

We sold this new idea to several universities and I will never know what was more attractive: the idea itself or the money that it brought with it. Whatever it was, we are the winners in these partnerships. With a view to creating and strengthening our professional crop of staff in the housing sector, we have partnered with various universities with the view to produce these professionals. The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University has produced a 4 year curriculum in the field of Human Settlement Studies. The university will also host the Chair for Human Settlements in the discipline of Education. The University of Fort Hare established a new Bachelor of Social Science in Human Settlement for the first time in 2015.  The University of Witwatersrand is offering a course that will lead to a Master of Built Environment degree. The Human Settlement Post Graduate Certificate that is offered at Wits is accredited at NQF Level 7. This course has been enrolled by 350 officials from all the three spheres of government.

The University of South Africa is offering a degree of Bachelor of Human Settlement in Public Administration. The method of tuition in the course is distance learning that will entail online learning. This course has the capacity to train about 1 000 officials who started in January 2016. The University of Stellenbosch is offering a Human Settlement Post Graduate Diploma which is pitched at SAQO level 8. The Mangosuthu University of Technology established a Research Chair that is promoting research in the housing studies.     

At these universities our pioneering new discipline, we hope, will create a cadre of globally competitive, socially conscious, technically competent and knowledgeable graduates to help us address the complex challenges that will continue to face us for the better part of this century. These degree programmes must therefore continue to be supported so that the art and science of human settlements education is proliferated in a consistent academically taught body of knowledge with consistency of standards being paramount.

The global crisis on housing continues with the issue of shortage of housing, especially affordable housing, seeming to have been the main platform on which election of the Mayor of London was contested in 2016. That London, being one of the oldest cities in the modern world, is still in the grip of a housing crisis and when considering that housing remains a global crisis, then you will understand the enormity of the problem still ahead of us. And the need for well thought through solutions, scientifically tested and executed by competent people.

However, on a global scale, the African continent is very determined to find solutions specific to them. This is the reason that we as South Africa hosted the Habitat III Thematic Meeting on Informal Settlements in April 2016 to consolidate the African solution, specifically for informal shelter, to ensure that the world does not lose focus on our specific problem. We adopted the Pretoria Declaration and we need the intellectual rigour that we find at universities to test and research our position.

The degree programmes must therefore be supported in their interdisciplinary approach so that the art and science of Human Settlements education is proliferated as a consistent academic body of knowledge. It is through these institutions that we will continue to refine our thinking and infuse new thinking into an otherwise rigid public service. Doing the same thing day in and day out is the surest way of killing creativity and innovation. These short courses offered by some of our partner universities will help us ensure that our methods and solutions are continuously sharpened.

This is where, together with the CSIR and in collaboration with other departments we can find solutions to our problems around the, for instance, escalating costs of building, using traditional methods. This will be where we can test the viability of our catalytic projects methods, conduct studies of new methods of dealing with old problems of how do we plan for an increasingly urbanising future, the list of possibilities is endless. We would also want to ensure that anyone wishing to do their postgraduate studies in Human Settlements can find a home here. Perhaps even invite visiting scholars to share ideas.

A few years ago a colleague of mine, with whom I served on the UN Eminent Persons Panel, The Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, Hernando  De Soto came to South Africa as a visiting scholar and because his ideas were so unorthodox for South African scholarship, he was not warmly received and he went away somewhat deflated. Today he will find a place to discuss his ideas however violently we may disagree with his ideas. He can only leave us richer for having debated them.

The possibilities are endless and I look forward to a time when South Africa can be an oasis of knowledge in this sector. I may go on to brag at this point that we are indeed at the cutting edge of this area in the developing world. We have played a leading role in the crafting of the African Position for Habitat III and we regard ourselves as thought leaders in this area. But what do we do with all that knowledge? Now we can stop wondering. We have institutions of higher learning to impart that knowledge to.

I was invited some years ago to India as chairperson of the Fund for the International Slum Dwellers, an organisation I have great admiration for. And I would sit and chair this organisation of Slum Dwellers and be amazed at the depth of analysis and understanding, supported by serious intellectual rigor and I knew with every passing hour that I would need to sharpen my own analysis and understanding because I literally drowned in the depth of knowledge of the slum dwellers.

This inaugural 2016 National Human Settlements Conference represents another step forward in our journey to professionalise and elevate the human settlements research, education and practice. The Conference theme is an interdisciplinary effort that is investigating antecedents for transformation towards sustainable and environmentally-friendly cities and neighbourhoods. It straddles across the social, economic, built and natural environments, calling for immediate action by all role-players in providing tangible solutions to pressing questions that face all government spheres, cities and neighbourhoods.

The Conference will, also, explore research capacity opportunities that remain untapped. These include the local and international resources for augmenting institutional research capacity that requires collaboration across and between sectors and countries. 

This Conference is therefore expected to:
1.  Generate pragmatic solutions to challenges facing human settlements in both urban and rural settings.
2.  Demonstrate best practice science,  technology and building innovations  to expedite housing delivery and sustainable human  settlements development.
3.  Consolidate the key priority research areas for the human settlements sector  that should be pursued by all the role-players.
4. Foster inter-sectoral and inter-disciplinary strategic partnerships in pursuit of sustainable human settlements development across all scales.

This Conference therefore is intended to be a catalyst in the realisation of the country’s ambitious vision of the development of a capable state.  In this respect, the capacity of the state will require to be enhanced at individual, institutional and intra organizational level. This is central to the efficient functioning of the state.

The need to radically scale up and augment the existing capacity of the sector is without question a common focus for partners and stakeholders of the sector. Much of the capacity challenges in South Africa relate to historical underinvestment in education, the lasting impact which the apartheid education has had on the education and economic landscape; and challenges throughout the skills pipeline. It is vital that these challenges are confronted and overcome in the short to medium term. The implications of the current substantial shortage of skilled professionals in the built environment and human settlements sector will severely impede South Africa’s ability to plan and deliver infrastructure which will in turn have a constraining influence on economic performance.

The big question that therefore confronts stakeholders active in the human settlements space in South Africa is how do we go about strengthening capacity at a sector wide level? How are these initiatives to be implemented and what role can universities play?

Historically and currently universities play a vital role in any country’s development. Universities are key institutions or engines of skills, capacity and knowledge generation.

The change from Housing to Human Settlements demands a systemic response by all actors involved in the sector. The current state of play in South Africa is to ensure processes are in place to support professionalisation and that these culminate in the passing of legislation governing and regulating human settlements practice in the country.

Thus there is also the need to establish professional standards that are globally benchmarked and that have the potential to introduce uniformity in business practices and with it increased investor confidence. This will require the training of professionals to these standards across the range of built environment professions, providing huge potential in Africa in terms of conducting training courses, maintaining and standardizing quality and norms.

The academic sector has a crucial role to play in the formal training of students and professionals as well as increasing the attractiveness of and hence the numbers of professionals involved in the industry. In this regard, there is vast opportunity for the private sector to work alongside academic institutions to ensure that students are being trained to the latest standards and receive mentorship or internship opportunities.

There is a general lack of sufficiently trained and appropriately skilled professionals operating at full capacity in the sector. This is supported by a recent survey that was conducted by the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University on behalf of my department, which reveals that there is a serious need for structured Continued Professional Development through short courses. The Department remains committed to facilitating a framework to create opportunities, incentives and rewards for those professionals who attain predefined professional standards.

It is imperative that our end goal is to establish a locally adapted professionalisation process which is interlinked, integrated and harmonised with efforts at attaining regional and globally benchmarked business practices. Not only will this raise and unify standards, it will increase prestige, mobility and status of human settlements practitioners. This will in turn have the effect of boosting consumer and investor confidence in the state and its functionaries operating in the human settlements sector.

Crucial to any process of meaningful social and economic change is the issue of the scientific basis for action. This refers to the systems of data collection, research methods, techniques of data analysis and dissemination of these results to a wide range of audiences (including audience of peers for scientific review and critique).

This Conference is responding in a practical and meaningful way to the current need for further research into sustainable human settlements development and management.

The selection and configuration of themes and sub themes all operationalise a multi and trans-disciplinary research agenda. This approach provides opportunities to a number of academic Departments and disciplines to contribute to the creation of knowledge.

This operationalises a core element of the Department of Human Settlements’ four-pronged capacity enhancement strategy.

The main elements include:
1. Focused multidisciplinary education in the area of human settlements education
2. Development of a trans disciplinary Research Agenda which responds with an evidence based approach to challenges facing the human settlement sector in South Africa
3. Development of a menu of short courses to support Continued Professional Development of especially mid-career professionals.
4. Codification and development of the body of knowledge relevant to Human Settlements Development and Management.

To the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, thank you for agreeing to this partnership. I offer my service one week of every semester to lecture here at no cost to the university. This will help me to think through some of the impediments as scholarship meets practitionership.

To the delegates, mat your deliberations be fruitful. May you feel that you have enriched your knowledge at the end of the conference. For those engaged in government activities, I wish you come back more energised to tackle the problems we face. To our funders, especially the Nelson Mandela Metro, from where I stand, your invaluable support is an extremely worthwhile investment.

I wish you all a successful inaugural 2016 National Human Settlements Conference.

I thank you