Efficacy of innovative technologies in subsidised housing in South Africa: A case study

Abstract

The Millennium Development Goals are the world’s targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions – income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion – while promoting gender equality, education and environmental sustainability. Regrettably the number of people living in slums and slum-like conditions in the world’s cities is growing, and in many instances, the quality of existing shelters is “deteriorating” (UNDP 2005:2). Progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals has been slow in sub-Saharan Africa: one of the reasons for this is the “very slow diffusion of technology from abroad” (UNDP 2005:148). An essential priority for African economic development therefore is to mobilise science and technology targeted at Africa’s specific ecological challenges, i.e., food, disease, nutrition, construction, and energy (UNDP 2005:156).