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21 July 2008

South Africa, Pretoria: Nigeria is to host the second conference of African Ministers of Housing and Urban Development in Abuja from 28 July to 30 July 2008.

South Africa's Housing Minister and outgoing chairperson of the African Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development (AMCHUD) Lindiwe Sisulu, today said the conference in Nigeria will focus on overcoming the finance and resource challenges for sustainable housing and urban development.

AMCHUD was formed in 2005 in Durban and its focus is on finding sustainable solutions to Africa's rising urbanisation and human settlements challenges. Minister Sisulu was elected chairperson and mandated to host the secretariat of this organisation at this inaugural session. During her opening address, Minister Sisulu will be reporting back to plenary on what AMCHUD has been able to achieve in its first four years of existence.

AMCHUD I, as the first conference is known, agreed that there was a need for an enhanced framework that will seek to overcome the challenges of shelter and urbanisation, taking into account the Millennium Development Goals, New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) and the World Summit on Sustainable Development's Plan of Implementation.

The previous conference also identified strategies for turning the urbanization challenge into an opportunity for development, particularly by consolidating integrated approaches to urban development and outlining ways of managing the consequences of urbanisation. These would include among others the urbanisation of poverty through slums and informal settlements throughout Africa's urban centres.

Speaking of the coming AMCHUD II, outgoing Head of the Conference Secretariat and Director-General of Housing in South Africa, Itumeleng Kotsoane, said South Africa has worked with all African countries and other multi lateral organisations to find simple but effective solutions to Africa's human settlements and urbanisation problems since the last conference.

"Millions of the continent's poor people are looking for better opportunities in cities and this creates a serious human settlement problem as cities are not coping with the influx from rural areas" said Kotsoane.

"We have been working with our African partners, the United Nations (UN) Habitat and the African Union to find simple solutions and also share our experiences on how cities can respond to this challenge of the 21st century," he said.

At the coming AMCHUD II, African Ministers of Housing and Urban Development and experts will come together to discuss measures to overcome finance and resource challenges for sustainable housing and urban development.

Experiences will also be shared on how best to overcome these finance and resource challenges for housing and urban development, how to strengthen the forum and secretariat to provide assistance as decisions of AMCHUD II are being implemented.

Enquiries:
Xolani Xundu
Department of Housing
Cell: 082 885 3378
E-mail: xolanix@housing.gov.za

Ndivhuwo Mabaya
Director: Media Services
Cell: 083 645 7838
E-mail: ndivhuwo@housing.gov.za

Issued by: Department of Housing
21 July 2008