For the past 5 years, Isandla Institute and the Development Action Group (DAG) have partnered to create greater recognition of, and support for, the informal backyard housing sector in South Africa. The Backyard Matters Project engaged in enumeration, research, community engagement, dialogues, learning initiatives and advocacy to augment the collective understanding of backyard housing and its contribution to affordable housing, livelihoods and township economic development and to identify policy and programmatic interventions to support and improve this sector, in all its diversity and complexity. At the conclusion of the project, we asked various stakeholders in government, civil society and local communities to reflect on the project and its impact.