Thandi Sigodi is a social development specialist who has been involved in community development facilitation, property programme management and development finance for the past twenty years. She has worked community based organisations and NGOs, the private sector, government and internationalagencies. She has experience in both rural and urban development and a special bias towards the previously marginalised.
Ms Sigodi holds a number of honorary and non-executive director’s positions and is a member of the SouthAfrican Construction Project Management Council. She is currently working for Eskom as an Executive Manager responsible for properties and commercials (Supply Chain) Management.Ms Sigodi holds a BA (Hons) in Sociology and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of DurbanWestville. She has completed a course on Project Management of low income Housing at the GraduateSchool of Business, University of Cape Town.
In addition she completed a course on Managing Diversity,Management and Human Resource Development Training for NGOs at the New School for Social Research,New York, USA. Ms Sigodi is the National Convenor of the SA Women’s National Coalition, an umbrella body linking women’s organisations across the social and political spectrum. She was a Trustee of the Transitional National Development Trust and is heavily involved in initiating and co-ordinating development projects in South Africa,with a focus on the development of women.
Managing Director
Lansana Marah
Lansana Marah is a registered professional engineer specialising in the development of urban and rural infrastructure, housing development finance, and project management. He has been Managing Director of Sigodi Marah Martin since its inception some twelve years ago, and has a wealth of project management expertise and experience from his involvement in a wide variety and large number of projects covering infrastructure development, engineering and management support, research, training and community participation and project evaluation.Mr Marah has significant experience in the development sector and in particular in the water services sector in South Africa to the extent that he was appointed in several specialist advisory positions to the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry in South Africa.. For several years he managed all poverty alleviation projects in the Eastern Cape of South Africa for the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, and has been involved in key positions in donor programmes and programme evaluations at a national scale. He has provided strategic guidance on local authority support projects funded by USAID, and has led USAID and government sponsored programmes to provide electricity, water, housing and other infrastructure related services in Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces and elsewhere in South Africa. Mr Marah is the Chief Executive Officer for the Libuyile Community Development Trust, which provides grant and soft loan funding, management and technical support services, to community based organisations where he has provided strategic advice on all aspects of low-income loan financing issues.Mr Marah started his career as an Area Engineer/Hydrologist in the Ministry of Energy and Water in Zimbabwe,through which he acquired significant experience with dams and rural water supplies. He was subsequently City Engineer for Mmabatho City Council, after which he was regional manager in support of urban and rural infrastructure provision at the Rural Advice Centre., Before Sigodi Marah Martin was established, Mr Marah was Technical Manager and later Regional Advisor (Director) in the USAID funded Community and Urban Services Support Project (CUSSP), where his role included technical advice and training in all aspects of the
housing development process.
Richard Martin
Director
Richard Martin has been a specialist in the field of housing, housing policy and housing finance since starting his work in the Zambia Housing Board in Zambia. Mr Martin has also worked very closely with Governments and Local Governments in Africa over many years, and has a wide variety of experience in increasing planning and implementation capacity. He has worked in the public sector throughout his life and has first hand experience of its workings in many countries in Africa. He has been associated with a variety of reform initiatives in public administration.
He was a consultant for the USAID/World Bank six country study in Africa, entitled “Fiscal decentralization and sub-national government finance in relation to infrastructure and service provision in Sub Saharan Africa”.
(Published by the World Bank). This study was an in-depth examination of the economics and governance aspects of decentralization: it examined sources of finance, policy and legislative environment, responsibilities for provision of infrastructure, management issues etc. Mr Martin was responsible for managing the project in Ghana and Zimbabwe, and a participant in the Zambia study. He was a co-presenter of the results at the Afri-Cities conference in Namibia in May 2000. He contributed to a World Bank paper on the macro-economic implications of the study. He has recently completed a study of housing and housing finance in Morocco for USAID. He is manager of a Cities Alliance-funded study of housing finance in four African countries (Swaziland, South Africa, Tanzania and Ghana), on behalf of the African Union for Housing Finance.
In 2007 he undertook a study of housing finance in Ghana, with a view to developing increased participation by the private sector in housing development. He has developed a sophisticated but very accessible housing cost model which models all costs relating to housing, which was published by USAID. He was responsible for leading a team of economists and social experts to design economically sound models for housing development in Zimbabwe. He has recently completed a study – as team leader of 11 consultants into informal settlement upgrading in Swaziland, and the preparation of a financing plan covering cost recovery and pricing of services.
He came to South Africa as Chief of Party of the Community and Urban Services Support Project (CUSSP). This was a support agency for community groups engaged in housing and its efforts resulted, in the long run, in the construction of nearly 100,000 units. CUSSP also gave support to the National Housing Forum and the Department of Housing in the development of housing policy. He is also an advisor to the NEPAD Infrastructure Project Preparation Facility Special Fund at the African Development Bank on the subject of project management systems.
