Housing Delivery in Nthutukoville, South Africa: Successes and Problems for Women By Catherine Ndinda Abstract This paper examines the notion of empowerment and what it entails in housing development. Through a critical analysis if the different phases in one particular housing project analyzed by the author, the paper highlights the areas of empowerment and emphasizes that it is a process, which in the case of Nthutukoville in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa began with securing land tenure. Access to resources and acquisition of skills are important. Both external and internal factors may be responsible for women’s inability to take charge of their lives. External factors include political violence, unsupportive local authorities, and a hostile environment as well as lack of resources and skills. There is, however, often an internalized problem of the failure to challenge the prevailing gender ideology that reinforces women’s subordination and male dominance in power. Although state policies may be favourable, women, through mobilizing resources, negotiating with authorities, and strategizing must be responsible for their own empowerment. Key Words: Women’s empowerment, housing policy, South Africa Introduction In 1994 South Africa crossed into a new era that saw the end of the nefarious apartheid regime and the beginning of a new democratic era. The end of apartheid marked an end to the state policies that supported racial discrimination and segregation. In line with the new dispensation the democratic government formulated a White Paper on housing, entitled, “A new Housing policy and Strategy for Housing”. This policy is based on the principle of capital subsidy. A strong targeting mechanism is used, in which subsidy allocations are based on household income, with the lowest earners accessing the full grant and those earning close to R3500 accessing a lesser grant (Adler and Oelofse 1996:116). Current policy suggests that communities will be supported to mobilise and participate in meeting their housing needs "in a way that maximises the involvement of the community and the private sector and leads to the transfer of skills to and economic empowerment of members of the community” (emphasis added). Given the low proportion (6%) of women relative to men in the construction sector it is likely that at present women comprise a lower proportion of the actors in the material supplies sector (CSS, 1998:20). The Housing White paper is vague concerning matters of gender and provides no coherent strategy for dealing with this area. It is difficult to assess the extent of empowerment unless this notion is unpacked in terms of what it would imply in housing delivery. ‘Empowerment’ has many meanings and is used in a wide range of contexts. It is a term that has been embraced by conflicting schools of thought; it has been used by neo- liberals, neo-Marxists, and Third World grassroots groups to denote whatever the user Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol 5 #1 Nov 2003 29