Urbanisation-in-Namibia

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