Yes, the Department has together with the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) facilitated partnerships with stakeholders in the private sector. This was not only with regards to prefabricated modular housing in the programme upgrading informal settlements but with regards to different types of innovative technology housing solutions such as light steel, heavy steel, hybrid material and water-wise devices in all types of settlements. This was done to fulfill the research and policy agenda with the ultimate objective of ensuring the inclusion of sustainable innovative technologies in housing and human settlements policies and programmes.
The partnership has been done in many ways including amongst others; allowing the private sector to showcase their technologies at Eric Molobi Innovation Hub in Soshanguve and creating an enabling environment for the NHBRC to undertake the testing of innovative building technologies. The Department has through these partnerships hosted several stakeholder engagements with the private sector role players, and institutions of higher learning such as the University of Free State and the University of Johannesburg who have shown keen interest in sustainable innovative building technology to develop accredited training programmes. The Department working with these role-players agreed to establish an Innovation Building Technology Task Team comprised of both private and public sector players and even advised the private sector players to form an Innovative Building Technologies (IBT) Association.
These partnership engagements focused on creating an information-sharing platform to improve knowledge and understanding regarding the advantages, disadvantages, cost implications; demand, and supply elements of various technologies that are available.
The engagements yielded inputs into the policy guidelines on IBTs, revision of norms and standards, and the development of a Dynamic IBT Database which currently has more than 40 approved IBT Systems Developers. These partnerships also contributed to streamlined processes between the NHBRC and Agrément South Africa where roles and responsibilities are solidified in a form of a memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to be signed between the NHBRC and Agrément South Africa.
More partnership engagements are still required with the private sector and the National Treasury. The Department plans to continuously engage stakeholders regarding supply chain processes and competitive bidding processes so there could be a clear understanding of business processes, policies, institutional arrangements, and interventions for the ease of doing business and there would be seamless processes of registering innovative technologies that could be used by Provinces and municipalities in the housing subsidy programme.
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