Department of Development Studies
Sustainable Settlements Research Group
Findings of 2011 research projects
One of the research focus areas of the Department of Development Studies at NMMU is Sustainable Human Settlements. We are cooperating with our partners
- NMMU Department of Building and Human Settlement
- Development Department of Human Settlements, Eastern Cape Province
- Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality
- Nelson Mandela Bay Transition Network
in evaluating existing housing projects and exploring new and innovative models of human settlements.
To this end, we established a Sustainable Settlements Research Group in January 2011, under the supervision of Dr Janet Cherry (Development Studies) and Mr Tim Froise (Construction Management). Eight Masters students and two Doctoral students joined this research group. Four of the Masters students completed their research in 2011 and submitted their research reports/treatises for examination. The reports were examined by external examiners and all were passed as of April 2012. In the spirit of making the findings of such research available to our partners and to other interested parties, we have obtained permission from the students to publish their research reports in the form of a cd which is available from the Department of Development Studies.
The Research Reports
Three of the completed studies were Guided Research Reports conducted by the ‘Buffalo City group’ who conducted research in Buffalo City Municipality with the assistance of the Department of Human Settlements:
- Thandeka Mlaza: “Evaluating Sustainable Human Settlement Programme aimed at Low Income Groups within the Buffalo City Municipality”
- Tandeka April: “Assessing the ‘Breaking New Ground in Housing’ Policy of South Africa in meeting objectives of community participation”
- Ayanda Makhanya: “Livelihood Strategies and Service Delivery in Informal Settlements in Buffalo City Municipality since 1994”.
One of the ‘Nelson Mandela Bay group’ submitted a treatise:
- Juliet Kakembo: “A Household Survey of Livelihood Strategies in Helenvale Township, Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality”
All the above students were supervised by Janet Cherry (Development Studies Department) and Tim Froise (Department of Construction Management) at NMMU.