Partnerships between government and slum/shack dwellers’ federations

Abstract

The text below is the keynote address by Lindiwe Sisulu, the South African Minister of Housing, to a conference organized by Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI) and the government of South Africa’s Department of Housing in Cape Town, 19–21 May 2006. This conference was organized to highlight the achievements of partnerships between governments and slum/shack dwellers’ federations. The text is taken from the official text released by the Department of Housing, however at the conference, Ms Sisulu’s speech went further, and she committed the equivalent of US$ 40 million from national and provincial governments to support the house construction and upgrading work of this South African Federation of the Urban Poor in the coming years. Ms Sisulu also committed herself to promoting comparable partnerships between government and slum/shack dwellers federations throughout Africa through the Special Ministerial Conference of the African Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development (AMCHUD). After the text of the keynote address, we include a paragraph from a subsequent speech by Ms Sisulu, which gives more details of the support her government will provide to the South African Federation of the Urban Poor. The conference was attended by representatives from slum/shack/ urban poor federations from 11 nations and the local NGOs that work with them.(1) It comprised many joint presentations by federation members and government staff of the work they were undertaking together, including: