By: Nghinnomenwa-vali Erastus

In its just released 2022 annual report, the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia (SDFN) said securing land for low-income earners is the most difficult thing in Windhoek.

“Windhoek remains the greatest challenge for Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia/Namibia Housing Action Group (SDFN/ NHAG) to secure land for almost 80% of its members,” the report said.

However, the SDFN/NHAG are optimistic that the cooperation with the City of Windhoek is moving in a positive direction.

The latest statistics on building completions in the city have also shown a decrease of 70.2% year on year.

The SDFN/NHAG have revealed that around 80% of Namibia’s current urban population lives in informal settlements or backyard shacks.

The two organisations have pursued building ultra-low-cost houses for the urban poor, however for this to materialise, affordable land should be available, the report stated.

Windhoek, they observed, is the slowest in land allocation.

The main challenge that members of the SDFN encounter is the ability to secure land tenure, even though tenure has improved in the last years with the implementation of the Flexible Land Tenure Act.

The Khomas region has the second largest saving groups at 145 with 6,640 members with a saving value of N$4,02 million by the end of June 2022, which highlights the people’s commitment and demand for low-cost housing.

Between July 2021 – June 2022, five local authorities have allocated 450 plots to the SDFN for low cost housing.

These are Gobabis  with 138 plots, Otjiwarongo (104), Okongo (100), Aranos (70) and Nkurenkuru (42).

Namibia has two land tenure systems: Free hold and land hold titles.

Free hold title being a single residential plot, and land hold title offer land title to a group/association which makes the land more affordable.

The federation indicated that the lack of security of tenure in urban areas is causing the continued increase of informal settlements.

The Community Land Information Programme (CLIP), being implemented since 2007 by SDFN with the support of the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development (MURD), revealed the alarming reality that the majority of the urban population in need of land and housing are already living in informal settlements or backyard shacks.

Furthermore, it has been established that 89% of the Namibian population does not qualify for conventional home loans.

Different from conventional loan repayment schemes the SDFN members are cognizant that the poor and low-income people cannot be bound to strict repayment plans.

However, federation members also take into account that the Twahangana Fund needs to be sustained for future generations and closely monitor the revolving of funds among the members.

SDFN members have 11, 15 or 20 years to return the housing loans and 2 to 5 years for the business, land, and service financing.

On a monthly basis saving groups monitor the repayments transparently.

From November 2021 onwards SDFN/NHAG collaborated with GIZ-ISUD in four towns: Rehoboth, Helao Nafidi, Rundu and Windhoek.

As part of the Inclusive Sustainable Urban Development, Project SDFN/NHAG are busy engaging not only SDFN members but communities in a participatory approach to upgrade their informal settlements in partnership with local authorities and GIZ.

In Windhoek, the federation has reported that it has successfully mapped Okahandja Park informal settlements.

The responsible youth teams do host monthly Mapathon, in collaboration with NUST.

The university avails its computers labs to polish the skills of the mapper and they are analysing the collected data in the lab.

The Federation has also reported that by June 2022 Informal Settlement Upgrading by SDFN/ NHAG and its partners has scaled up to 10 of Namibia’s 14 regions, in 31 informal settlements in 20 urban areas, making it the largest informal settlement upgrading project in Namibia.

The community-led informal settlement upgrading is the process of data collection, planning and the delivery of basic services to informal settlements. Email: erastus@thevillager.com.na