Pretoria: Housing finance and urban development will form the thrust of a paper Human Settlements Minister Connie September will deliver at a meeting with her SADC (Southern African Development Community) counterparts in Zambia.

The minister is currently attending a meeting with her SADC housing counterparts in Lusaka in Zambia where she is expected to table the White Paper on South African Human Settlements Financing Framework.

This comes against the backdrop of significant urban growth in Africa where housing financial markets continue to thrive, however these markets serve the high income earners, leaving out the majority of the people, the poor.

She said due to challenging income levels in Africa, this has had an effect on the choices available to the poor in what is otherwise a rapidly growing market.

“Hence Habitat’s (the United Nations Human Settlements Programme) agenda calls for innovations in the regulatory and legal framework to enable markets to work and overcome market failure for the poor by coming up with unique ways in dealing with housing finance.

“As we reflect on the twenty years of freedom and democracy in South Africa, we are taking stock of our achievements in providing shelter and access to basic services, as well as the remaining challenges particularly in overcoming spatial fragmentation, inequality, poverty and providing social and economic redress.”