by Caiphas Chimhete
The need to provide decent adequate housing to people is one of the most challenging tasks facing southern African governments, the private sector and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
At a conference on Social Development organised by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Swaziland recently, participants recommended the creation of a housing desk at the SADC Secretariat to facilitate regional cooperation in this area.
A Commissioner in the Zambian Ministry of Local Government and Housing, Dr Glynn Khonje told the conference that “there is need for regional cooperation in the housing sector and attention should be focused on overcoming impediments to sustainable shelter delivery.
The conference noted that the shortage of housing is not only a legacy of former colonial governments which forced blacks out of prime locations, but also a result of insecurity and conflict, high birth rates and lack of effective housing systems — especially on matters pertaining to finance, land availability, appropriate building standards and materials.
Among the worst affected countries are Angola, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia where shanty dwellings continue to grow into vast settlements, and poor sanitary systems expose people to communicable diseases.
In Angola and Mozambique, the destruction and displacement caused by protracted wars has compounded the housing problem. The crisis is more evident in greater, fast-growing urban areas such as Luanda, the Angolan capital. Luanda, built for 500,000 people, now shelters about three million people and has a population density of more than 500 people per square kilometre.
Correia de Semana, an Angola weekly newspaper, reports that Angola’s housing problems are also aggravated by immigrants, mostly the Portuguese who deserted the country soon after independence but are now returning to the country to try to reclaim their houses.
Mozambique’s capital city, Maputo, which was built to accommodate about 600 000 people, is now home to more than two million. Home owners are capitalizing on the shortage of accommodation by charging exorbitant rents for sub-standard houses.
In South African, the Government-of-National-Unity (GNU) inherited an estimated backlog of 3.4 million housing units from the apartheid government and the real demand is actually much higher than that. There are fears that with the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) being phased out, and its activities incorporated into relevant ministries, housing might be side-lined.
On its establishment, the RDP pledged to build one million houses in the first five years. However, not many houses have been built in the past two years. Analysts say about four million units should be built during the next 10 to 15 years to solve the housing shortage. But some people are becoming impatient. They are accusing the government of being insensitive to their housing needs and have illegally occupied land earmarked for small-scale housing projects.
Although other countries such as Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe became independent years ago and did not have protracted civil crises, housing still eludes the majority. Their aims to provide housing was thwarted by the military expenditure as a result of apartheid destabilisation. Lack of sound housing policies, funds and research are the major impediments to the universal goal of “Housing for All by the Year 2 000.”
It is against this background that the SADC conference recommended the creation of a housing fund and a regional centre for training and research to address some of the common challenges being faced on housing in the region.
More than 1.2 million people in Zimbabwe’s urban areas are homeless and cannot afford to buy homes. Homeless Zimbabweans are now pinning their hopes on this year’s budget which will be tabled in July. However, other people are pessimistic, especially in Harare, the capital city, considering that plans for over 8 000 housing units which were to be built this year may be abandoned following the council’s failure to pay the balance for one of the farms earmarked for the scheme.
In Namibia, an estimated 50 000 families are homeless. Rural-urban migration is worsening the housing demand with an estimated 600 people reportedly arriving in the capital city, Windhoek, every month. The Ministry of Regional, Local Government and Housing launched a successful national housing programme code-named “Build Together” in 1993, which covers both urban and rural areas.
Until independence, the provision of houses in Namibia, like in several other SADC countries, was governed by discriminatory laws that favoured whites at the expense of black people. The impact of such housing policies are still evident in some areas, six years after independence.
In Botswana, government statistics estimate 100 000 people to be on the housing waiting list. The housing shortage is most pronounced in Gaborone, Francistown and Lobatse. Gaborone, the capital city, has more than 51 000 homeless people.
A Botswana diplomat in Zimbabwe says it is unlikely that the Botswana Housing Corporation (BHC) will be able to provide houses for the majority of people in the near future. He said, however, that the government is giving serviced land to companies to build homes for their employees.
Khonje says global efforts have commenced to address the housing problem. He cites the “Global Shelter Strategy of the Year 2000” and the “Habitat Agenda” of Habitat II (Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements) on 3-14 June as processes initiated to develop a global perspective of the housing problem.
“SADC would do well to learn from these processes and initiate its own cooperation at the regional level,” he says.
Shelter continues to elude many people in the region and has become a source of discontent which analysts say should be solved now through concerted coordination from all stakeholders. (SARDC)
