On April 27, 1994, Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) won the first multiracial democratic election in South Africa’s history, bringing an official end to 46 years of apartheid. While the policies of deeply institutionalized racism were overturned 25 years ago, the economic and social impacts of apartheid are still very much present in South African society, and have contributed to ever-widening gaps between black and white South Africans in multiple ways.
It is broadly recognized that apartheid was the ultimate form of structural violence that forced hundreds of thousands of black South Africans into informal housing on land that they had no legal claim to. The core of apartheid policy and power revolved around land.
Officially beginning in 1948, black South Africans were stripped of their land and relocated to racially segregated developments far outside the city, where homeownership was practically impossible. Between 1960 and 1980, 3.5 million people were forcibly removed by police officers from city centers to rural townships.
In District Six, an inner-city residential neighborhood in Cape Town, over 60,000 people were relocated by the national government to townships 20 miles away after the area was declared “whites only” by apartheid government authorities. Such townships became extremely overcrowded and were distinctly cut off from infrastructure and urban utilities and services such as water and electricity, leaving people to fend for themselves.
In the aftermath of apartheid, most land was left in the hands of the white elite due to the ANC’s resistance to large-scale land transfers. The party had originally promised better housing, schools, and other services for the poor and underserved black communities, but then, once elected, party leaders pursued policies to attract and maintain international investment, in response to a large decline in economic investment and support from major Western powers during the apartheid years.
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ANC leadership were apparently unwilling to pursue any policy that might be considered radical by international investors, including those that might privilege coloured and black communities. In the years before the new millennium, international investors pursued neoliberal economic policies with the stated intent of helping less affluent countries gain a foothold in the global economy.
People in these settlements do not legally own the land they live on, have little access to public services and utilities, and often endure high costs and travel times to commute to the city for jobs that pay less than $15 a day. In 1994, there were around 300 townships and informal slums in the country; today, there are nearly 2,700.
Stark inequality remains between coastal neighborhoods in cities like Cape Town and Durban and the townships further inland. In Cape Town, the sixth-most segregated city in South Africa, 60 percent of the population lives in townships where public services are limited, schools and health care are severely underfunded, and jobs are scarce.
The majority of black South Africans still live in townships and informal housing throughout the country, and most work multiple jobs earning very little money, have little access to higher quality schools or health care for themselves and their children, and have few opportunities to move out of the townships. Gentrification in cities like Cape Town is also contributing to and exacerbating these gross inequalities.
In the Woodstock neighborhood, the development of The Old Biscuit Mill - a workshop and market space home to high-end stores, art galleries, and food stalls catering to upper-class South Africans and tourists - has resulted in the displacement of many of Woodstock’s black residents who can no longer afford to live in the area.
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The legacies and impacts of apartheid remain strong in South Africa, affecting the economic and social mobility of black South Africans and ensuring that apartheid-era land and housing policies are still very much present in the lives of the vast majority of the population.
Illegal disposal of solid waste is a significant issue in many parts of the world, particularly in urban areas. Because of unprecedented urbanization, these areas are crowded, putting pressure on the already inadequate municipal services such as waste management.
As municipalities fail to provide adequate and effective waste management services, the expansion and proliferation of informal settlements contribute to the problem of illegal dumping. Apartheid spatial planning produced environmentally unsustainable cities characterized by glaring disparities in municipal resource allocation, disturbingly inefficient transportation systems, and widespread urban insecurity.
South Africa’s inequality is a major contributor to environmental degradation. The situation was exacerbated by efforts to prevent urban migration and forcefully remove black people from cities; apartheid ideology justified the dormitory-like nature of urban townships.
The ‘cultural effervescence’ that accompanied South Africa’s transition to a new democracy was sparked by several significant environmental issues, including the importation and disposal of toxic waste, air and water pollution, the negative effects of mining on the environment and human health, and calls for land restitution and redistribution.
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The emergence of an environmental movement in post-apartheid South Africa required redefining the environment, articulating the discourse of social and environmental justice, and developing a rights-based understanding of democracy. Beginning in the 1990s, an alternative environmentalism has emerged in South Africa.
It emphasises the importance of linking the struggle against social injustice and the exploitation of people with the struggle against environmental abuse by drawing on the ideologies of ‘environmental justice’ and green policies. Prior to the 1990s, the prevailing view of environmental issues in South Africa was an authoritarian conservation viewpoint.
The South African government has adopted rendering waste management services as a reactive mechanism to counter present and foreseeable improper waste management issues. However, despite the adoption and application of these waste management services; the current government is still confronted with significant environmental management issues of illegal dumping, especially in the urban areas.
Research has discovered that waste management solutions adopted from well-developed countries are often not suitable for developing countries. Therefore, the issue of illegal dumping in developing countries has been prevalent for decades despite adopting waste management services.
In order to curb illegal dumping, it is necessary to comprehend the patterns and trends of indiscriminate illegal waste dumping. Understanding the complex distribution patterns of illegally disposed waste and the range of economic, environmental, and social factors influencing this occurrence is of paramount importance in trying to address this issue.
This is attributable in part to the geographical challenges of servicing low-income communities, where road access can be limited, settlement density is high with poor spatial planning and layout, and illegal land tenure complicates or prohibits the delivery of waste collection services. Numerous African nations are currently grappling with the predicament of inadequate waste collection services, primarily impacting the waste management system in informal settlements.
The majority of solid waste produced in informal settlements remains uncollected, accumulating in significant quantities along roadsides and open areas due to the absence of waste management services. The disparity in service delivery between regions is another factor contributing to the problem.
Upgrading Lives: In Cape Town Informal Settlements
Waste management is crucial for sustainable environmental control, with Agenda 21 stating that inadequate handling can have immediate and enduring consequences for the environment and human well-being. However, developing nations’ responses to these hazards remain contradictory.
Townships are congested neighbourhoods in or around urban areas, particularly in South Africa. To understand why illegal dumping occurs and/or why waste management services may be challenged in these areas, it is important to consider the estimated and actual population size of townships.
The number of townships in South Africa has experienced a substantial increase, reaching an estimated total of 532, as compared to the previous count of 76 major townships. These townships are home to approximately one-quarter of the country’s population. The World Bank estimates that up to 50% of South Africa’s urban population resides in townships and informal settlements, which house 38% of the country’s working-age population but nearly 60% of it is unemployed.
Environmental Justice is frequently presented as a relatively new concept worldwide. Organisations, environmental activists, and leaders continue to call for environmental justice for communities living under squalid conditions, against mining and other industrial companies that pollute the air and fresh waters, and against the general living conditions of the poor. In South Africa, the term “Environmental Justice” found its first concrete expression in 1992 at a conference organised by Earthlife Africa.
The conference brought together leading South African Environmentalists and academics from around the world to map out the future of the environmental justice movement in South Africa. This conference, and many others around the world, prioritised environmental challenges faced by the poor and exposed inequalities in the distribution of services especially water and sanitation.
In the South African context, environmental justice means social transformation directed at meeting basic human needs and rights, and a central idea in a nascent grassroots movement which is fuelled by the growing contradiction between the discourse of rights and the experience of unmet needs. Environmental justice (EJ) has been a central concern in a range of disciplines, and both the concept and its coverage have expanded substantially in the past two decades.
According to Khosravaninezhad and Akbari (2014), Environmental Justice (EJ) concept consists of multifaceted movements, community struggles, and discourses in contemporary societies that seek to reduce environmental risks, increase environmental protections, and generally reduce environmental inequalities suffered by the minority and poor communities. The writer further maintains that the term incorporates ‘environmental racism’ and ‘environmental classism,’ which captures the idea that different racial and socioeconomic groups experience differential access to environmental quality.
Holifield (2013), defined the term environmental justice as geographic associations between pollution or waste sites and low-income or minority communities. The author also acknowledges that the researchers’ discourse continues observed patterns, with no consensus on what constitutes inequality and injustice.
Many grassroots activists insist that environmental justice demands the prevention of all forms of toxic pollution (Holifield, 2013). For some, environmental justice means access to water (McDonald & Jones, 2018), sanitation (Winter, 2017), and housing. Schlosberg (2013) mentioned four dimensions of EJ as distribution, recognition, procedure, and capability.
Global climate change threatens where and how people live (Siders & Ajibade, 2021). Mohtat and Khirfan (2021) talks about ‘climate justice’ as both a social equity concept and practical process for action research. Climate change and rapid urbanization have amplified risks for the urban poor living in informal settlements (Williams et al., 2019).
South Africa is already experiencing climate change effects such as prolonged dry spells, extreme heatwaves, and increased rainfall intensity (Republic of South Africa [RSA], 2019). The reality is that the global temperature rise overlaps with the expected rapid urbanisation, where there is increased pressure on land and housing.
This means that informal settlements will continue to grow, spiralling into unsafe locations, where residents are more exposed to environmental hazards. These can be in the form of rising sea levels, flooding, and intensified storms that further threaten already vulnerable communities.
Informal settlements are defined as areas where housing is built without legal approval and does not meet the planning, building, health, and safety regulations (Satterthwaite et al., 2018). In South Africa, these settlements have grown due to urbanization, housing shortages, poverty, and the lingering effects of apartheid among others.
They are characterized by poor-quality housing, lack of basic infrastructure, insecure land tenure, and locations prone to environmental hazards. A major issue in the settlements is the lack of infrastructure and basic services (Banks et al, 2019). Without access to clean water, proper sanitation, and reliable electricity, residents struggle to meet their daily needs, let alone prepare for climate-related disasters.
The level of vulnerability in informal settlements depends on social, spatial, economic, and political conditions (Hambrecht, 2022). Vulnerability is defined as the extent to which a system, person, or group is put at risk, copes, resists, and recovers from a disaster based on their characteristics (Usamah et al, 2014). Williams et al, (2019) describe vulnerability as a function of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity.
A major contributor to this vulnerability is the absence of formal planning (Satterthwaite et al, 2020). Without proper planning, many informal settlements lack access to basic services such as water, electricity, sanitation, waste management, healthcare, and infrastructure to support emergency response (Satterthwaite et al., 2020).
Poverty and the lack of financial security make it difficult for informal settlement communities to relocate or invest in more resilient housing. Informality exists in multiple forms beyond visible and obvious informal settlements (Harris, 2017; Smit et al, 2017). It includes informal rentals, illegal secondary suites, and backyard structures which are less visible, and these can exist in the already visible locations of informality.
Although there may be similarities between informal settlements, their characteristics are not homogenous. The question remains that what does this mean for climate change impacts and vulnerability? Addressing the challenges of informal settlements requires more than just regulation and formalization (Banks et al, 2019). Since informality is a complex phenomenon with entrenched historical, social, economic, and political roots, interventions made for informal settlements should be multifaceted (Banks, 2019).
The impacts of climate change do not distinguish between formal and informal areas (Kekana et al 2022; Ncube et al, 2023), therefore integrating informal settlements into the broader resilience and adaptation strategies is paramount (Ncube et al, 2023). Conventional interventions for climate change can potentially worsen the existing inequalities due to unfair resource distribution, recognition, and actor involvement in decision-making (Kekana et al, 2022).
Addressing challenges in informal settlements is multi-scalar and thus makes it important to know who is involved from all scales so that the complexity of interventions is not undermined. Climate change challenges require coordinated action at all levels, from local communities to international bodies (Fox, 2023). Forced evictions and relocation of informal settlements are not a viable solution, especially in the context of climate justice.
Instead, strategies should focus on reducing risk, improving basic services, and enhancing community resilience (Ncube et al, 2023). Interventions curated for these spaces should be sustainable and long-term because informal settlements are not a temporary phenomenon and in most cases they are permanent spaces that need to be recognized as such.
Addressing climate change vulnerabilities in informal settlements requires holistic, long-term solutions that go beyond formalization. Recognizing these settlements as permanent urban realities enables more inclusive, adaptive, and just climate strategies.
Globally extreme weather events are experienced most acutely in cities. While formal settlements can respond to such events, informal settlements are often vulnerable and ill-prepared. Sub-Saharan Africa is rapidly urbanising with informal settlements that require effective climate change adaptation measures.
The built environment can potentially lower, or exacerbate, exposure to hazards, e.g. higher ambient temperatures, extreme heat days or, in worst cases, extreme heatwaves. This study examines adaptation strategies for heat stress in informal dwellings in Tshwane, South Africa. The use of cool roof paints and insulation is verified with digital simulation models based on indoor thermal data.
These digital simulation models enable these adaptation measures to be tested before their implementation. This can identify and lower the risk of mal-adaptation. This risk assessment framework is defined by the IPCC (2022) as an integrated analysis of (1) the scale of the hazard, (2) the nature and extent of vulnerability and (3) the exposure level.
This study started with an observational analysis and the documentation of 10 selected dwellings in the settlement. The sample selection was drawn from the densest portion of the settlement and focused on uninsulated corrugated iron sheeting homes as the most vulnerable to temperature increases.
Strategies for Improving Informal Settlements, Issue 2 of Global Health Equity Research in Translation Series, explores how inequities in affordable shelter are propelling the prevalence of informal settlements. I. UNMET NEED FOR AFFORDABLE SHELTER PROPELS THE CONTINUING PREVALENCE OF INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS A billion people-one-sixth of the world’s population-live in informal settlements.
This number is forecast to double in the next decade, as increasing numbers of refugees from armed conflict and climate change seek safer environments, and as economic migrants continue to pursue opportunity in urbanizing areas. Though informal settlements offer at least some degree of promise to their residents, they also lack basic infrastructure to support health and wellness, including clean water, adequate sewage systems, durable housing, and public spaces for commerce and recreation.
As a consequence, to ameliorate informal settlements, local governments in LMICs have commissioned remediation plans from architectural and urban planning firms, many of which are from high resource countries. Unfortunately, in developing plans and interventions, many such firms are not mindful of the economic limitations of LMICs, and also do not take into account the lived-experiences of people who reside in informal settlements.
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