Assessing women's participation in planning and construction of their houses : a case study of the Piesang River People's Housing Project, Durban.

Abstract

African women in the past were not given equal opportunities with men in planning and construction of their houses. As a result there is no clear indicative level of participation of women during the planning and construction of their houses. The People’s Housing Process is one of the approaches adopted by government and community organizations to encourage community participation in their housing projects but; women’s involvement is still not clear. Therefore this research is aiming to understand the activities performed by women, their roles in related activities, and the methods that they used to get involved in the planning and construction of their houses.

A Qualitative research has been conducted to identify the level of women’s engagement in planning and construction of their houses in the People’s Housing Process (PHP) project at Piesang River. The findings of the study revealed that the Urban Poor Fund (UPF) savings system, together with the government subsidy for housing, empowered women to participate in planning and construction of their houses at Piesang River. Moreover; the findings indicated that town planning procedures and bylaws were not properly applied during project planning and implementation.

In conclusion this dissertation recommends the formation of Municipal Community Partnership (MCP) for Piesang River FedUP community and EThekwini municipality, in which both stakeholders work together to address the way forward for the project in preference to continuing blaming each other for the shortfalls.