Challenges to smart settlement development identified

Multiple challenges to the development of smart settlements were identified as the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the science and innovation department launched a roadmap to tackle them earlier this week.

The major challenges identified by the roadmap included a general lack of innovation updating and mainstreaming in the housing sector; a lack of investment in innovation; sector conservatism and a less modernised approach to human settlements.

The scientific council and department partnered to come up with a science transformative and innovation for sustainable settlements roadmap to clarify obstacles that stood in the way of the development of these settlements.

Peta de Jager said the roadmap’s goal was to give a proposed action plan to achieve a brighter future for human settlements.

De Jager, and her team at the smart places cluster of the CSIR, were in charge of drafting the roadmap.

“To put the roadmap into action, a community of practice, a collaborative research centre and project management office will be established following the launch.”

“This will provide information on the existence and progress of relevant initiatives. It will allow learning of good practices, unlearning bad practices and sharing of lessons, as well as identifying potential synergies and matching of interests, to monitor and where possible establish foresight on the international and local trends and support an investment portfolio,” De Jager explained.

The roadmap was expected to form part of a strategic transformation framework that lay the groundwork for planning, coordination and decision-making in the human settlements, water and sanitation department.

These efforts were aimed at transforming human settlements into smart and sustainable ones while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions and harnessing the opportunities of the fourth industrial revolution.