The proportion of South African households living in informal dwellings has decreased to 14.4%, says Statistics Sa, while 74.4% of households now have access to piped water.

While income equality remains high in South Africa, the latest figures from Statistics SA show that black households' share of consumption expenditure has risen, and that the government's social security programmes are having a "significant impact" on inequality in the country.

South Africa is to spend R75-billion on social assistance in 2008/09, with more than 12-million citizens to benefit from increases in disability, old age and child support grants, accompanied by a lowering of the pension qualification age for men and a raising of the grant qualification age for children.

South Africa and Belgium have developed a plan to provide crucial skills and access to resources to the beneficiaries - numbering over 450 000 households - of South Africa's land reform programme.

South Africa is to set up a Housing Delivery Agency to help increase the delivery of housing units to half a million a year, with the aim of eradicating informal settlements around the country by 2014.