The issue of sustainable human settlements is a critical factor in South Africa's drive towards ensuring that the challenges of unemployment, poverty, and inequality are addressed. The South African government's medium-term strategic framework for 2014-2019 and the National Development Plan (NDP) regard the provision of sustainable livelihoods as an important priority and highlight the need for human settlement and services to be conducive to small and medium enterprise expansion.
Human Sciences Research Council (Sat,) studied this question.