Urbanisation-in-Namibia

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Urbanisation in NamibiaFigure 12: Service rating3.3 Consequences of UrbanisationAs urban areas grow and develop, the process is accompanied by a large number of activitiesand increasing demand of services by an increasing population. Some of these activitiesare among others provision and servicing of land; housing, education; health; creation ofemployment opportunities; expansion and maintenance of roads infrastructure; as well asprovision of water and electricity. These issues are closely linked to the process of urbanisationand effective and efficient delivery of these services is depended on the effective managementthereof. In this study, the respondents view urbanisation as a good process for development,as it increases access to modern facilities and services and good for business and economicgrowth as it increases the purchasing power. Consequently it attracts investors resulting in jobcreation. Some of the respondents felt that urbanisation is good only if services are taken careof and the influx into urban brings people with new ideas and skills. Nevertheless, respondentsfurther outlined some positive and negative consequences in both rural and urban areas whichare as a result of urbanisation. They are outlined as follow:Land: In many developing countries, Namibia included, effective and efficient land useplanning and management is not well established. Rapid rates of urbanisation have resulted inunauthorised developments for residential purposes. Building new affordable houses in urbanareas becomes difficult as land prices escalate and land fall in short supply. Also because of theincreasing number of people in the urban areas municipalities are forced to expand into nearbyvillages, thereby requiring them to substantially invest in acquiring land and compensatehouseholds in those villages for re-location purposes. The latter was especially prominent inOshakati and Ongwediva towns.14
Urbanisation in NamibiaHousing: Providing shelter to a big population is indeed a big challenge posed by urbanisation.Whereas housing was reported not to be a major problem yet for Ongwediva town; forWindhoek, Oshakati and Karibib the challenge is visible. Prices for houses have been increasingover the years and have caused a high demand. Although the government has intervenedthrough the introduction of low- income housing through National Housing Enterprise (NHE)and other programmes to ensure acquisition of houses for low- income citizens, the demandis still high due to the high volume of people migrating to the urban areas. On the other hand,financial institutions are reluctant to finance housing loans for low-income because of the riskinvolved on the return on capital and the cost of administering small loans. This scenario hasled to an increase in the expansion of the informal settlements.On the positive side, some urban centres (i.e. Ongwediva and Windhoek) have attractedskilled migrants who are able to access housing loans through financial institutions, and thishas resulted in an increase of building activities, while at the same time contributing to theeconomic growth and development of these urban centres. Ongwediva town has put in placestrict measures to discourage the development of informal settlements, hence the absence ofthese.Urban services (water, electricity etc.): The provision of water, electricity, sanitation,sewage and other municipal services such as street cleaning has significantly improved sinceindependence. The 2011 population and housing census results indicate that about 98% ofurban households have access to safe water for cooking and drinking. The percentage ofhouseholds using electricity for cooking in urban areas has also increased from 56.1% in 2001to 59% in 2011; while those using electricity for lighting increased from 67.6% in 2001 to 70.1in 2011. Despite these improvements, most of the services are concentrated in the formalsettlements and have not been widely distributed to the informal settlements in most towns.Town councils and municipalities are then faced with tremendous challenges in providingthese services due to the following:• The rapid expansion of the informal settlements with a high number of people whoare unemployed and thus unable to afford these services.• The capacity of the existing infrastructures, i.e. sewerage system, roads, water supplyamong others and;• Illegal occupation of unserviced land15
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Page 27 and 28: Urbanisation in Namibia5. Reference
Page 29 and 30: Urbanisation in NamibiaUNDP (2010).
Page 32: Contact DetailsTel.: 061 206 3004Pr

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