Pretoria — Gauteng Housing MEC Paul Mashatile has called on African cities to cooperate in order to succeed in dealing with urban housing challenges.

He was addressing the media in Johannesburg today on the fringes of the housing conference on urbanisation affecting cities in Africa.

He said it was important that African cities worked together to ensure they dealt with the challenges rather than operating as islands.

'We might sit as the department of housing and say this is how we manage urbanisation, but surely there may have been much better plans in Nairobi,' he elaborated.

He added that the aim of the conference was for African cities to share ideas and learn from each other.

This, he said, would give impetus to the ideals of Nepad and would ensure that Africans did things their way.

Speaking at the event UN Habitat representative for Africa Alioune Badiane said as an organisation they were offering policy advice to more than 35 African cities they were based in on the issue of urban housing.

He said they were looking forward to learning from South Africa, as it was a leader in the field of housing provision.

South Africa has in the past nine years provided 1.4 million houses thus providing shelter to more than 6 million beneficiaries.

The three-day conference, which ends today, is taking place against the backdrop of World Habitat Day, which was celebrated on Monday. -