Federation Activities Summary
1. Organising communities through saving schemes:
By regular saving the urban poor of Namibia are deriving financial strength from their own resources. By June 2013 the 20400 households involved in over 605 saving schemes have saved N$ 13million.
2. Learning from each other, while doing the work:
Awareness and skills needed to improve the living conditions of the members, are shared during local, national and international exchanges. From these exchanges Namibian communities learned how to save daily, collect information, map and plan settlements, and most importantly the poor people have realized they can do things for themselves.
3. Knowledge for development:
Communities in informal settlements collect and share information about their economic and living conditions. This information is used for the communities’ own development and in negotiating resources needed for development. The Federation embarked in 2007 on a National Community Land Information Program and completed a document with profiles of 235 informal settlements. The second phase of the CLIP started with mapping and socio-economic surveys in 30 urban areas in Namibia. This information empowers the informal settlement communities to participate in development decisions and the process of informal settlement upgrading.
Saving schemes using their savings and collected information, embark on negotiations to obtain affordable land and resources. In total 200 saving groups with 6230 households obtained land on the basis of community land ownership, through negotiations with Local Authorities. These groups are busy to develop their land incrementally, according to their affordability.
5. The Twahangana Loan Fund, provides access to funds for the poor for income generation, houses and services:
Households access loans from this fund through their respective saving schemes. A total of N$48.1 million was spent on 1,556 income generating loans, 2,883 house loans and services for 1,406 households. These funds were obtained from the Build Together Program of the Ministry of Local Government and Housing (22.%), donations to the fund from the Ministry and other agents (48%), as well as repayments (32%). Only 20% of the funds were contributed from the sources outside of Namibia
6. House construction and services:
3488 houses have been completed by the members themselves. Members usually build two room houses, comprising of 34 square meters at a cost of about N$705 per square meter. They also install their own water and sewer services when they get blocks of land. The development is done incrementally, depending on the household’s affordability.
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| House Construction in Tsumeb |
3488 houses have been completed by the members themselves. Members usually build two room houses, comprising of 34 square meters at a cost of about N$705 per square meter. They also install their own water and sewer services when they get blocks of land. The development is done incrementally, depending on the household’s affordability.
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| Excavation and laying of Foundation by members |
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