Namibia’s Shack Dwellers Federation Passes 11,000 Low-Cost Houses
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The Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia and the Namibia Housing Action Group have built and delivered more than 11,000 low-cost houses countrywide since 1998.
The Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia (SDFN), through its technical partnership with the Namibia Housing Action Group (NHAG), has built and delivered over 11,000 low-cost houses countrywide since 1998, the federation has told Parliament.
NHAG director and SDFN leader Heinrich Amushila shared the figures while briefing the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Urban and Rural Development and Land Reform. He said that since July last year the federation had constructed and delivered 2,354 houses of various types, established more than 1,000 active savings groups with over 33,000 members across all 14 regions, and was running 140 active housing construction projects against a target of 3,168 units.
Amushila said the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development has allocated more than N$272 million to the federation since 2000, during which it has built more than 7,282 houses. Private-sector partners have also contributed: Standard Bank funded 865 houses through its Buy-a-Brick initiative, while FNB Namibia, Ohorongo Cement and the Pupkewitz Foundation together funded 592 houses.
He said the federation had signed 17 memoranda of understanding with various local authorities, including Otjiwarongo and Grootfontein, and two with the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development — one for the upgrading of informal settlements and one for annual funding of house construction. Because SDFN relies on local community labour rather than external contractors, he said, each house creates about five jobs, meaning the 3,168 envisaged units would generate some 15,840 job opportunities.
The SDFN is a community-based network of housing savings schemes that helps low-income and marginalised citizens secure affordable land, decent shelter and infrastructure. Working with NHAG, local members form voluntary savings associations to buy land parcels allocated by town councils and build brick-and-mortar homes complete with water and sanitation at about one-third of the cost of regular commercial housing; in regions such as Hardap and Erongo, over 80% of members are women. The federation has also mapped 282 informal settlements through its Community Land Information Program, providing data to help government integrate them into formal municipal structures.