Port Elizabeth, Wednesday 05 October, 2016 – The Minister of Human Settlements, Lindiwe Sisulu, will tomorrow launch the National Human Settlements conference in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape. Themed Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements Begin Today, the conference will bring together various international and local experts and role players to discuss ways in which to tackle the country’s housing crisis and consider solutions to human settlements in Africa.

Top of the agenda will be the development of sustainable and environmentally friendly cities and neighbourhoods. The event will also tackle issues such as the role of technology in the development of sustainable human settlements, affordable housing, urbanisation among many others.

Executive Mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, Athol Trollip will welcome participants from around the world before the conference gets underway.

The organising partners of the conference include the Departments of Human Settlements, Science and Technology and Higher Education and Training, The National Home Builders Registrations Council and the Nelson Mandela University.

In setting out the purpose fry the event, the partners highlighted the urgent need for new thinking to ensure that settlements and cities are more transformative, self-sustaining and carbon neutral in services they provide and in the way they function.

This includes alternative sanitation technologies, water provision, energy as well as planning and decision support tools and modelling.

For more information, please contact Molebogeng Taunyane on 011 317 0070 or molebot@nhbrc.azurewebsites.net