Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi: Opening of WEF Urban Transformation Summit

It gives me great pleasure to participate in this year's Urban Transformation Summit, under the theme "Mobilising global action for more inclusive and sustainable cities".

In my Country South Africa, inclusivity has a deeper meaning than what is usually attributed to this notion.

The history of South Africa, before democracy, is characterised by a political system, which illegally promoted and enforced the notion of separate development, which over time produced what we now refer to as the Apartheid spatial development.

Our big cities in South Africa were designed to accommodate the minority to the exclusion of the majority of indigenous South Africans.

It is for this reason that our cities were not only segregated in terms of class, a phenomenon we find in many other countries, but they were also segregated in terms of race and gender.

With the rapid urbanisation that is happening in our continent and our country, we have been compelled not only to expand our urban spaces but also to reconfigure them to be more inclusive and sustainable.

Africa's population is projected to double between now and 2050 and two-thirds of this growth will be absorbed by urban areas.

South Africa, just like other parts of the African continent is experiencing rapid urbanization. As the most industrialized economy in the African continent, South Africa gets also migrants from other African countries who migrate to South Africa and reside in urban centers in search of better economic opportunities.

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and Statistics South Africa estimate that by 2030, 71.3% of the South African population will live in urban areas, reaching nearly 80% by 2050.

With rising urbanization, the previously excluded majority are migrating into our cities in large numbers, which has given rise to a rapid increase of informal settlements and urban slums.

These informal settlements lack basic necessities: safe drinking water, adequate sanitation services and access to health services amongst others. The effects of climate change that include floods, heavy rains and other extreme temperature events also exacerbate the precarious conditions in which these desperate communities find themselves in.

This means that in expanding and reconfiguring the urban centres, adopting innovative building technologies is unavoidable and necessary for us to successfully tackle the effects of climate change with affordable and accessible technologies.

True inclusivity in our cities or urban spaces will require us to find ways to increase access to housing and shelter in places that are closer to economic opportunities. Necessarily this will require us to place affordability at the centre of our interventions.

It has become very clear that governments without the private sector will not be able to meet the needs of their people. It is vital for governments to create a conducive environment for the private sector to participate.

We are also mindful that there are certain market failures in the housing market, which leaves certain segments of the market unable to access housing.

Working closely with the private sector there is a need to find innovative ways of serving these market segments. Government in some cases can intervene by way of de-risking a particular market so that the private sector can extend its services and capital more widely.

Social housing is an important dimension of social welfare policy and affordable housing provision and in our country, it is also a critical element of spatial and social transformation. One of the objectives of social housing is to achieve social integration between high- and low-income earners.

In our country, and because of the historical development of our cities that was centred on exclusion, the lack of availability of land has led to a phenomenon referred to as urban drift. What this means is that increasingly many social housing projects are drifting far away from the urban centres.

As a result of this development people in the low end of the market end spending most of their income on social amenities such as transport, education and health. If this phenomenon continues, it will defeat the very purpose of social housing which is to bring low-income earners to places of work, closer to social amenities and social integration.

For sustainability, the upgrading of slums and informal settlements will have to be coupled with the creation of economic opportunities for the affected population.

Speaking at the launch of the "Cities Without Slums Action Plan" at the inaugural meeting of the Cities Alliance in Berlin, Germany in 1999, former president Nelson Mandela said that "Poverty reduction and upgrading of informal settlements will not be possible unless cities are productive and efficient, and capable of providing the poor with economic opportunities to build their assets and incomes."

This means that cities must not only be spatially integrated and inclusive but they should increase their role as engines of growth for the economy.

The UN sustainable development goal 11 calls on all of us to work towards making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable by 2030.

Last year South Africa hosted the launch of the joint Global Action Plan Framework, which was later adopted by UN-habitat assembly in Kenya for Transforming Informal Settlements and Slums globally.

The intention of the Global Action Plan Framework is to take coordination, collaboration, commitments and partnerships to the next level.

It consolidates and amplifies efforts for accelerating the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the New Urban Agenda (NUA) in the Decade of Action.

It provides a joint vision to inform actions framed by partnerships.

In the next two day that we are gathered in this summit, we have an opportunity to advance conversations about creating inclusive and sustainable urban centres.

We have an opportunity to forge partnerships that will lead to practical action in implementing the Global Action Plan and achieving SDG goal 11 by 2030.

Let us work together to create inclusive, affordable and sustainable cities for all.

I wish you well in your deliberations, and I look forward to enriching and fruitful discussions and interactions with many of you in this summit.

I thank you.

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