INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICE INTERVENTIONS IN SOUTH AFRICAN INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW OF CHALLENGES, APPROACHES, AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Informal settlements in South Africa continue to experience major inequalities in access to reliable, safe, affordable, and sustainable infrastructure services. Despite national policy commitments to informal-settlement upgrading and the progressive realisation of socio-economic rights, many residents still depend on inadequate, intermittent, shared, unsafe, or poorly maintained services. Key service-delivery challenges include limited access to potable water, appropriate sanitation, electricity, stormwater drainage, solid-waste collection, internal roads, pedestrian access, and other essential forms of settlement infrastructure. These deficiencies can negatively affect public health, safety, dignity, environmental quality, household livelihoods, and residents’ capacity to withstand climate-related and other urban risks. This paper presents a systematic literature review of infrastructure-service interventions in South African informal settlements. The review synthesises peer-reviewed research and relevant policy documents to identify the types of interventions implemented, the challenges affecting their delivery and sustainability, the approaches proposed to improve outcomes, and priorities for future research and practice. A structured search and screening process was used to identify relevant literature addressing water supply, sanitation, energy, waste management, drainage, access infrastructure, and broader informal-settlement-upgrading initiatives. The selected literature was analysed thematically to identify recurring intervention models, implementation constraints, reported outcomes, and evidence gaps. The findings show that infrastructure service delivery in informal settlements is shaped by interconnected technical, financial, institutional, environmental, spatial, legal, and social challenges. Technical difficulties include high settlement densities, constrained site layouts, insecure land tenure, difficult terrain, inadequate bulk infrastructure, and limited provision for operation and maintenance. Financial constraints, fragmented institutional responsibilities, weak intergovernmental coordination, insufficient municipal capacity, limited community participation, and uncertainty regarding upgrading pathways further undermine the effectiveness of interventions. The review finds that isolated, short-term, or standardised service-delivery responses are often inadequate because they do not sufficiently account for the diverse physical conditions, tenure arrangements, livelihood practices, and priorities of informal-settlement residents. The review concludes that sustainable infrastructure service delivery in South African informal settlements requires integrated, adaptive, and equity-oriented intervention frameworks. Future research should assess the long-term performance, affordability, maintenance requirements, environmental impacts, and social outcomes of different infrastructure interventions. Policymakers and practitioners should prioritise collaborative governance, reliable funding, improved municipal capacity, inclusive participation, and flexible policy instruments that enable progressive and context-responsive upgrading.
Community Participation; Informal Settlements; Infrastructure Services; Service Delivery; Upgrading Strategies, South Africa.