This paper describes and analyses the characteristics of informal economic enterprises and entrepreneurs in four specific shanty areas in the town of Oshakati in the Oshana (part of former Owambo) region. The upgrading of physical infrastructure and housing in these areas is part of the Oshakati human settlement improvement project (OHSIP) which is financed by the Danish NGO Ibis and scheduled for the period 1993-1995. This paper presents some concrete proposals how Ibis and OHSIP can contribute to income generation and employment, either through its own activities or by facilitating the involvement of others. (DÜI-Hff)
An increasing number of poor Southern Africans live in poverty-stricken urban slums or shantytowns. Focusing on four shantytowns in the northern Namibian town of Oshakati, this book analyses the coping strategies of the poorest sections of such populations. The study is based on fieldwork conducted intermittently during a period of ten years. It combines theories of political, economic and cultural structuration, and of the material and cultural basis for social relations of inclusion and exclusion as practise. The poorest shanty dwellers are marginalised or excluded from vital urban and rural relationships and forced into social relations of poverty amongst themselves. Having experienced long-term processes of impoverishment, the very poorest and most destitute in the shantytowns tend to give up improving their lives and act in ways that further undermine their position.
The book contains 17 chapters with material from 13 African countries, from Egypt to Swaziland and from Senegal to Kenya. Most of the authors are young African academics. The focus of the volume is the multitude of voluntary associations that has emerged in African cities in recent years. In many cases, they are a response to mounting poverty, failing infrastructure and services, and more generally, weak or abdicating urban governments. Some associations are new, in other cases, existing organizations are taking on new tasks. Associations may be neighbourhood-based, others may be city-wide and based on professional groupings or a shared ideology or religion. Still others have an ethnic base. Some of these organizations are engaged in both day-to-day matters of urban management and more long-term urban development. Urban associations challenge the monopoly of local and central government institutions.
Sub-Saharan Africa is urbanizing rapidly, but most countries lack appropriate tools to manage their urban growth. This creates both risks and opportunities for prospective land holders, resulting in a tangle of insecure land rights and claims under multiple tenure systems. Recently, innovative land tools have been proposed and implemented to formalize land tenure. It is envisaged that tenure security for land holders will increase and in turn contribute to poverty reduction. This study evaluates such tools in three peri-urban areas in Lusaka (Zambia), Oshakati (Namibia) and Gaborone (Botswana), with a focus on the perspective of the land holders. The author concludes that the tools are to some extent pro-poor, and makes recommendations for further improvements. These innovative land tools are also considered a necessary addition to conventional and administration tools. This study makes valuable reading for academics, policy makers and practitioners within the land administration domain and related disciplines.
Universally, the production, maintenance and management of housing have been, and continue to be, market-based activities. Nevertheless, since the mid-twentieth century virtually all governments, socialist and liberal alike, have perceived the need to intervene in urban housing markets in support of low-income households who are denied access to the established (private sector) housing market by their lack of financial resources. Housing in Developing Cities examines the range of strategic policy alternatives that have been employed by state housing agencies to this end. They range from public sector entry into the urban housing market through the direct construction of (‘conventional’) ‘public housing’ that is let or transferred to low-income beneficiaries at sub-market rates, to the provision of financial supports (subsidies) and non-financial incentives to private sector producers and consumers of urban housing, and to the administration of (‘non-conventional’) programmes of social, technical and legislative supports that enable the production, maintenance and management of socially acceptable housing at prices and costs that are affordable to low-income urban households and communities. It concludes with a brief review of the direction that public housing policies have been taking at the start of the 21st century and reflects on 'where next', making a distinction between ‘public housing’ and ‘social housing’ strategies and how they can be combined in a ‘partnership’ paradigm for the 21st century.
The book is about the struggle against the apartheid which gained immense worldwide support ensued from a social order that was classified as a crime against humanity.
