Human Settlements Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi says improving rural human settlements, both in terms of the rural ecological environment and the creation of a healthy rural human settlements environment, are areas that require intensive research.
"Not only will this help us to reinvigorate rural development, but it will also assist us with mitigating climate change and its effects," Kubayi said.
Kubayi was speaking at the launch of the Human Settlements Research Strategy held in Kempton Park, Gauteng, on Monday.
The research strategy launch, which coincided with World Habitat Day celebrated around the world on the first Monday of October, provided direction and identified the long, medium, and short-term timelines of research activities.
The launch aimed to set up partnerships with research institutions within the built environment and the human settlements sector. It also aims to outline collaborative arrangements and roles and responsibilities of partnering stakeholders.
In her address, Kubayi said the human settlements sector is faced with many challenges, including climate change, population growth, low economic growth, urbanisation, slow spatial transformation, and governance instability at local government level.
In the world that is undergoing rapid urbanisation, Kubayi said many villages are facing a series of problems such as depopulation, population ageing, insufficient infrastructure, and public service facilities.
She said while most of government's work has been focused on responding to the challenges of accessing urban land for human settlement, including the sprouting of informal settlements and the rise of inner-city slums, the challenges of unsustainable human settlements in rural areas have received little or no attention.
"Well-researched solutions are required as an antidote to these challenges so that we can be able to create a peaceful, economically sustainable, and stable country. It, therefore, stands to reason that we would like to place more emphasis on applied research, which will help us to provide solutions to an existing problem," Kubayi said.
The Minister highlighted that the research agenda launched has been developed to do to inform planning, policy development and review, as well as implementation processes within the human settlement sector.
"The Research Agenda will assist to uniformly identify problematic areas that need to be resolved within the policy and implementation space," Kubayi said.
The research has also been developed to signal to funders and development partners what research areas require investment; assist the department to guide resource allocation for research; encourage research collaboration in dealing with common problematic areas; and to drive capacity building by encouraging students to participate in the human settlements sector research, amongst others.
Kubayi also noted that the nexus between policy, research and practice is not linear but highly complex.
Influencing long-term policy and practice
She said the department is of the view that research cannot be expected to serve only current policies, but it is also expected to influence policy and practice in the long-term.
"The scope of the human settlements research agenda is therefore broad, so that the selection of certain areas and topics for priority will not be exhaustive. However, it marks the focus in the next three financial years.
"There is extensive research in human settlements that has already conducted across many institutions. We plan to leverage on this existing research and invest in further research in the sector," Kubayi said.
The Minister added that research collaboration, where different organisations will work together to fund specific research of common interest will be encouraged, and the department will pursue various collaborative approaches.
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Research chairs to support higher learning institutions
The Minister also announced that the department intends to establish research chairs, where institutions of higher learning will support research based on their expertise.
The Minister explained that through research chairs, post graduate students will be encouraged to select their academic topics from the research agenda or have a topic within the thematic areas established in the research agenda.
"The departmental research committee will approve the topical issue that the student selected for funding. Part of the research will be funded directly by the department though the commissioning of research, call for papers as well as providing part of the funding to students' academic programme," Kubayi explained.
