Bright lights, dim prospects

Jo-Maré Duddy – An estimated 440 000 people were condemned to living in shacks in urban Namibia last year, nearly double the number of people who had to survive in impoverished housing in 2011.Calculations with the latest data released by the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) this week show that about 19% of the entire population spent their lives in shacks in 2016. Five years ago it was 11%.According to the Namibia Inter-censal Demograhic Survey (NIDS) 2016, 39.7% of all households in urban areas last year lived in shacks compared to 27.2% in 2011 and 17.6% in 2001. Crunching the numbers indicate that an estimated 129 158 households in urban Namibia called shacks home last year, nearly 67 000 or 107% more than 2011. Compared to 2001, urban households living in shacks increased more than five times.Social welfareThe growing number of urban residents living in impoverished housing impacts on various other social welfare issues.Last year, 26% of urban households had no access to any kind of sanitation. An estimated 288 000 people therefore had to use the bush, field or riverbeds as their toilets. That is nearly 93 000 more people than in 2011.About 32 859 households (or more than 111 700 people) in urban areas dumped their garbage next to the road in 2016. This is nearly double the number of households who resorted to roadside dumping five years ago.A total of 2 615 households in urban areas were headed by children in 2016, down from 2 761 in 2011. Households headed by orphans also decreased – from 984 in 2011 to 406 last year.Nearly 31 000 urban households – or 9.5% of total urban households – in 2016 were headed by people 60 years and older. In 2011 the number was 21 612 or 9.4%.UrbanisationNamibia’s urban population is increasingly rapidly, the NIDS shows. Whereas the country’s total population grew by 64.9% from 1991 to 2016, its urban population bulged by nearly 183%.A total of 1 115 706 people – or 48% of the total population – lived in urban Namibia in 2016. In 2011, 43% of the total population was urbanites. In 2001 it was 33% and in 1991 a mere 28%.Females are increasingly heading urban households. Last year, 44.5% of all urban households had a woman as head, compared to 41.9% in 2011 and 40% in 2001.Only 70.2% of urban households named salaries or wages as their main source of income in 2016. That leaves an estimated 97 000 urban households relying on business and farming or pensions, cash remittances or disability or state child maintenance grants.According to the NIDS, 4.7% of all urban households depended on state old age pension as their main source of income in 2016. That calculates to about 15 290 households, taking care of an estimated 52 000 people.Other major sources of income for the poor were: cash remittances (5.1% of all urban households), disability grants (0.6%), state child maintenance grants (0.5%), and in-kind receipts (3.3%).

Bright lights, dim prospects

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Republikein 2026-09-18

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Bright lights, dim prospects

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