Focus on: Freedom Square Housing in Namibia
UpdatedA partnership between federation, government and other actors to upgrade a slum
Every week, the CoHabitat Network introduces you to a collaborative housing project documented on the cohabitat.io database.
Gobabis is the regional capital of Omaheke region (Namibia). More than 47% (9,200) of the towns inhabitants live in informal settlements. The residents have limited access to water, no sanitation and no security of tenure.
Namibia is considered as one of the driest countries in the world, which makes living in informal settlements particularly challenging. Even those who are able to access services find themselves challenged by the high costs of utilities. Community-led development, which is fundamentally collective, can help to mitigate these costs by relieving pressure in the individual household by spreading some of the risk throughout the group.
This is what happened with the Gobabis Freedom Square project, with the cooperation between the Municipality of Gobabis and the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia, the Namibia Housing Action Group, the Namibia University of Science and Technology, and other international parties.
This project is the first big scale informal settlement upgrading project of the country, using finances channelled through the Twahangana Fund.
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