Pasiwe, Lwandile2022-06-032022-06-032021https://hdl.handle.net/10539/32984A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, in Partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science in Building, 2021Housing, especially for the urban poor and low-income households, remains a huge problem in South Africa. Despite the South African government instituting various programs aimed at delivering to those in need, housing backlog in South Africa still prevails-with an estimated 2.1 million household slacking housing currently. In an effort to fast track the reduction of the housing backlog, the government announced a shift in housing policy from small public housing projects to megaprojects that would deliver thousands of housing units that include social and economic amenities. Proponents of the human settlements mega projects (HSMP) contend that they will address the imparities of the government’s housing provision programmes experienced during the first 15 years of democratic South Africa by delivering more housing units, whilst using fewer projects, reducing governance challenges, improving government’s capacity and ensuring budget spending. Though the phenomena of mass housing is not new to South Africa, there appears to be a paucity of published literature on the factors that lead to their successful implementation. This research sought to determine which factors may lead to the successful implementation of HSMPs. It uses the Gauteng province as a case study and evaluate implementation performance, implementation methods used and identify challenges experienced during the implementation of HSMPs. To achieve above objectives, a literature review was conducted and data was collected using interviews with senior officials from the Gauteng Department of Human Settlements (GDHS), the Gauteng Partnership Fund (GPF) as well as with the senior executives from two private property development companies involved in the implementation of these Gauteng HSMPs. An evaluation of the performance to date of HSMPs reveals that the implementation of these projects is not as per initial targets setout by the GDHS. The turnkey development project delivery strategy used to deliver these projects is found to be beneficial when compared to the traditional method previously used to deliver housing. However, the financial sustainability of the government’s provision of free subsidised housing remains questionable. Eight challenges with implementation of the Gauteng HSMPs were identified key of which are; inadequate planning by government prior to the implementation of the projects, poor coordination between government departments, lack of bulk infrastructure funding and capacity and the poor performance by developers. This research proposes solutions to these challenges as factors that may lead to the successful implementation of HSMPsenThesis