Namibia: Henties Bay Town Striving forth in Provision of Land

Shack Dweller Federation of Henties Bay currently consists of eight (8) groups as a network of housing saving scheme established by Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia in association with Namibian Housing Action Group (NHAG), a memorandum of understanding was signed between SDFN and Municipality. SDFN members have been saving on a daily or weekly basis to date to secure land for low-incomers and to leverage additional government contributions. Meetings take place every Sunday at 15h00 for Information Sharing Sessions and Updates as well as for savings so members can also go through their savings books and bank deposit receipts for assurance on savings.

The vast majority of urban households reside in informal settlements without secure tenure due to unemployment rate; in our settlement of 33.7% alone, to lack of land, poor sanitation services and the potential to improve their shelter, combined with households living in overcrowded rentals and backyard shacks. Informal Settlement residents alone are 1018 with 444(increasing on a weekly basis) household structures whilst the plots can only accommodate 183 households as was shown on the layout in a recent meeting with community members.

To undertake Informal Settlement Upgrading through incremental ,bottom-up processes of planning, implementation and capacity building the proposed alliance will increase the capacity of communities in need of security of tenure, basic services and shelter solutions as well as for Central, Regional and Local Government, academics, professionals, students(in relevant fields)to do participatory planning and upgrading. This will result in in inclusive city-wide plans and the implementation of incremental development, this can be achieved through a process of on-site learning learning-while-doing and developing the necessary curricula and capabilities to upscale. Preliminary calculations based on Namibian Statistic Agency(NSA) estimates that to clear the current housing backlog and cater for future needs until 2030 about 30 000 households will be improved annually in Namibia ,this includes upgraded and tenure-secure and housing on existing tenure-secure plots.

Key Actions

Planning of the informal settlements is preceded by three very important rituals that were critical to building bridges for the community and Local Authorities to reach a common understanding of the way forward, these included; consulting communities and Local, Regional, National authorities to start with profiling of the communities, identifying the demand-driven location, establishing a team from the Local Authority and community to facilitate the process.

Enumerations were done in order to know your settlement; undertaking Community Land Informal Program (CLIP) based on the boundaries of the settlement determined by the LA and community as well as backyard shacks, tenants and second households (overcrowded extended families) in existing formal housing. Registering households in the informal settlement and saving groups at relevant LA property division, assess of bulk infrastructure services, identifying potential for investments based on LA budget, central government finance and local community contributions.

Feedback was given on settlement data/information with discussing forms to identify priority needs and future planning with all stakeholders, drawing up settlement layouts agreed upon by community and LA, developing service plans and submitting plans to LA for approval for development rights and flexible land tenure registration.

Establishing an enabling body/technical team between Local and Regional Authorities, NHAG or relevant technical supporters, community for the installation of basic services (water, sanitation). After verification that is currently in process re-blocking process will start than installing basic service reticulation with community as part of learning-by-doing-approach. Facilitating households to access own financial resources such as saving schemes of SDFN to construct permanent housing. Develop useful knowledge during formal and informal training modules, including work inter-grated learning, community planning studios and practical training, sharing learning experiences continually amongst stakeholders regionally and nationally during implementations, document and disseminate processes and outcomes through popular media, reports, research.

Reviewing lessons learned, sharpen approaches for future strategy and curriculum development, consolidate ten (10) year implementation strategy for up-scaling through continuous refinement of the two (2) year learning-while-doing-approach and to achieve 2030 targets.

Partners              

Communities in need of security of tenure, basic services and improved shelter were the core implementation agents associated by Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia, Community development committees, trade unions and other Nationals(to be identified),Overseeing the process are Ministry of Urban and Rural Development, Ministry of Land Reform, National Planning Commission, Ministry of Health & Social Services, Ministry of Works & Transport and the coordination of learning exchanges and implementation of agents are done by LA by forthcoming for phase 1 of implementation, Association of local Authorities of Namibia(ALAN),Namibia Association of Local Authority(NALAO) for the overall coordination and the NGO’s support was done by Namibian Housing Action Group(NHAG),Development workshops and others (to be identified).

Monitoring & Evaluation, policy development, technical support(students) by Integrated Land Management Institute (ILMI), Namibian University of Science & Technology (NUST), University of Namibia (UNAM), Community Skills Development Centers (COSDEC’s), Katutura Youth Enterprise Centre (KAYEC) and students’ organizations (to be identified).

Professional bodies and private sectors coordinate the private sector and support technically including Namibia Institute of Architects (NIA), Namibia Institute of Town and Regional Planning (NITRP), Association of Consulting Engineers of Namibia (ACEN), Namibia Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS), Green Building Canal of Namibia (GBCNA) and others (to be identified).

International partners provide best practice and technical support towards the project as such are Slum Dwellers International (SDI), UN Habitat, City Alliance, Gesellschaft fur International Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and others (to be identified).

Strategies          

Providing affordable housing to low-incomers was not addressed as a housing crisis but rather a solution to develop the settlement under existing conditions of limited economic resources. Comprehensive and appropriate strategies led to performance of all involved sectors in the informal settlement. The governments intervention and performance in informal settlements is in its substantial phase, although various interventions have been taken most of them ended up into physical upgrading and provision of infrastructure secure tenure. The scope is mainly a project upgrading with long-term vision to change the land use planning and institutional mechanism to deal with cores of the problem to prevent further expansions of the settlement. The process is very simple;300m2 is allocated to one household at N$10 per m2 as the M.O.U signed between local authorities, SDFN and NHAG. Physical upgrading method is performed by various organizations especially by the communities, their main activity is to pave the road after re-blocking and provide the basic drainage system, the material used for the pavement is usually concrete and it is worth to mention that Ohorongo Cement made a donation to SDFN of cement bags for the project. This upgrading strategy has potential to increase reach of beneficiaries and ensure inclusive and efficient urbanization to totally eradicate shacks.

Challenges

With the increased rate of urbanization, a number of challenges such as growth of informal settlements, poor housing conditions, insecurity of tenure, unemployment, poor access to basic services and infrastructure, which give pressure to LA to keep up with demand for basic services and amenities.

Economic, social and environmental challenges face governmental and non-governmental institutions in developing and upgrading the informal settlements; due to the adequate formal response to the growth of housing demand people tend to build their own homes, many of the structures are structurally unsound, lack access to basic services and utilities and therefore are unfit for human habitation. The main obstacle for the provision of housing for the low-income groups is financing, commitment to the security of tenure is needed for residents’ sense of ownership to be incentive and maintained by the owners.

Social challenges have been associated with high levels of poverty, illiteracy, and crime not forgetting the inadequate local services especially health care, education and youth facilities. While this perception holds true in reality to varying degrees it puts a stigma on most informal settlement residents that affects their sense of belonging, citizenship and inclusion in society. Although a number of leading NGO’s have always been invited and actively participated in almost all workshops, with many civil society organizations and community groups the number of organizations that could not participate has always been greater therefore these issues represents an enormous challenge. At a national level there is a lot of support for participatory and more inclusive approach to planning and it’s clear that the current economic situation has created a greater deal of interest in planning.

Majority challenges are related to location where housing or services are inadequate, no access to proper sanitation, exposed to outdoor and indoor polluted air, and water that impact adversely on their health with an overall of 0.006 chloride which risks more outbreaks of infectious diseases like Hepatitis E.

Immediate results and next steps           

At the end of investigation analyses it presents recommendations that can transform all informal settlements into a sustainable community thus improving the environmental, social and economic situations, results from the survey are prepared by the investigation & clip team. The map presents analyses of land use, services, building layouts and structural conditions. This sustainable project generates a permanent improvement in the quality of life for all people affected and involved and hence its social initiative thus reducing its vulnerability key points being; maximize economic growth and reducing unemployment by creating job opportunities with small capital-intensive that will be light industries like ;food processing, small mechanical shops, small clothes workshops, also furniture and carpentry relying on nearby agricultural products ,this will also create job opportunities in the services sector like light transportation and recharging batteries of agricultural equipment. Investing in successful rapidly growing business sectors such as manufacturing and agricultural activities like garments sewing, detergent mixing, simple farming and animal husbandry.

Educating future generations by sequentially a higher level of better environment considering different programs that enhance the growth of activities and thus sustain the levels of employment, building more secondary school’s for girls will help with women empowerment, encouraging a page of “Eradication of Illiteracy” from voluntarily institutes especially for women and young adults, this enables them to compete in the labor market and incorporating civilian society training programs which can be held for different skills according to labor market demands.

All residents are aware of the process as is and understand the procedure as the verification process is still on before re-blocking has to start and thus by doing so we provide them with options of willing to move to additional plots provided by local authorities or remaining so as we know how to plan, our aim is for everyone to be allocated on their plot and to start building as soon as possible with communities.

Long term Impact           

Sustainable efforts permanently to improve living conditions therefore it is very important to identify the locals needs, voice their demands and help them organize themselves to improve their livelihood with the help of the Governments contribution financially, help from stakeholders financially, technical support and human resources offered by development projects such as SDFN as well as their own.

Planning is a multi-disciplinary team work; all relevant stakeholders are included in the development of the sustainable vision and they are granted a voice in the actual design, Implementation and prioritization of urban investments. The role of voluntary and charity associates is also very important to assist people to inter-grate into an urban lifestyle and share development experiences as is currently.

As urban planning is a technical and political process concerned with the control of the use of land and design of the urban environment issues of social participation ,local empowerment and organization voluntary work are found to be fundamental pillars in sustaining the upgrading of any informal settlement, by maintaining and enhancing these capabilities and assets both now and in future while not undermining the natural resource base in order to address the problems that constitute the expansion and densification of the informal settlements.

Learning and how this will be applied

Community participation is key to the process, when the community were given an opportunity to make a choice of how the settlement should look like (participatory planning) it created a sense of ownership of the project and willingness to follow the process through. Women took the leadership; the fast pace of learning mostly among-st women resulted into women taking up leadership roles in the project.

Skills were transferred; community members gained various skills on community organization, data entry, mapping, using of GPS units, planning and using computers. Furthermore they are learning plumbing skills which will enable them to secure affordable services through community driven service installations.

The community have learnt the element of working together in unity through the process and the Municipality have learnt to involve communities into their planning of upgrading. The technical committee established for the installation of the services provided a structure element that can be put forward for future projects.

The engagement with the Ministry of Land Reform needs additional steps as the role of piloting is not commonly agreed upon and the LA although having jurisdiction of land is an important role player but is not the only stakeholder for implementing the process of an informal settlement to be upgraded to sustainable community.