Progress towards Millennium Development Goals? Strategies for housing and informal settlement in Gauteng, South Africa

Abstract

The housing delivery plans of the South African province of Gauteng and two of its metropolitan municipalities broadly respond to Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for improving the lives of slum dwellers and eradicating poverty. This paper evaluates some South African responses to the MDGs by considering the housing delivery and settlement upgrading plans of the provincial and local authorities for two major cities in Gauteng. In the face of pressure to demonstrate progress in meeting the MDGs, public servants have resorted to devising strategies that will present a positive picture. These include semantic changes such as subscribing to a narrow definition of informality as illegality and shifting responsibility away from particular organs of the state and onto residents, the private sector and other spheres of state. These strategies are unlikely to bring significant improvement to the lives of poor people living in informal settlements.

Keywords:

• local state
• local government
• municipality
• provincial government
• performance management
• Millennium Development Goals