How can urban development be improved to meet the needs of poor people? Experience from Namibia shows how a strong people’s movement can address the needs of poor people without depending on property rights or state welfare.

Research from the Namibia Action Group and the International Institute for Environment and Development, in the UK, considers the experience of the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia (SDFN) and the Namibia Housing Action Group (NHAG) in accessing land and infrastructure for poor people.

The two organisations use strategies of collective solidarity, political presence and financial capacity to encourage local authorities to reconsider traditional approaches to urban development. So far, they have assisted about five percent of urban dwellers with housing improvements.

The core community organising structure is women-led savings schemes. The federation provides a framework in which savings schemes work together at a city and national level. This local organising process is the heart of the federation.

The federation helps to prevent isolation among urban poor people and supports organisational capacity development to improve relations between the community and city councils. NHAG assists the groups to develop their land. NHAG also assists these communities with a primary emphasis on supporting their efforts to gain access to formal institutions that provide resources to low-income communities.

SDFN and NHAG have a distinctive strategy to address landlessness and homelessness. Although the Federation recognises the right of poor people to be supported by the state in their development aspirations, it acknowledges the state’s lack of capacity to design strategies that work for them. Their strategy is based on various factors, including:

• understanding the political nature of development and the need for urban poor people to keep negotiating with the state for resources
• the recognition that professionally designed interventions for poverty reduction may transfer material assets but do not allow poor people to participate in the development process
• an effort to decentralise decision-making to empowered communities working in collaboration with the state
• the belief that autonomous community networks are essential to maintain the process of community management and secure state cooperation
• a focus on preparing poor people to continue to argue for their needs and interests, irrespective of the specific group in power.

SDFN and NHAG are not anti-state but they are cautious about what the state can deliver to poor people. State functions need to be redistributed in favour of collective citizen action. A strong relationship between community organisations and the state also needs to be developed. Several factors can strengthen this relationship:

• It is important to adopt a non-confrontational approach that emphasises the potential benefits for all.
• Governments and communities need information in order to turn self-help community development into a political process of redistribution.
• Poor people should control the information gathering in order to increase their credibility.
• Loan funds are important since governments are likely to make alliances with groups that can contribute to costs. It also proves the group’s commitment and organisational capacity.
• Funding institutions can mediate the financial relationship between politicians and community processes, enabling collective community organisations to maintain their autonomy.
• Transactions are public and transparent, and loans should enable the community to make a contribution to their own development.

Source(s):
‘Securing inclusion: strategies for community empowerment and state redistribution’, by Anna Muller and Diana Mitlin, pages 425-439, in ‘Environment and Urbanization’, Volume 19, Number 22, October, 2007 (PDF) Full document.

Funded by: Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, UK Big Lottery Fund

id21 Research Highlight: 27 April 2008

Further Information:
Anna Muller
Namibia Action Group
11 Mozart Street
Windhoek West
Nambia

Tel: + 264 61 239398
Fax: + 264 61 239397
Contact the contributor: nhag@iway.na

Namibia Action Group, Windhoek West, Namibia

Diana Mitlin
International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
3 Endsleigh Street
London, WC1H 0DD
UK

Tel: +44 20 73882117
Fax: +44 20 73882826
Contact the contributor: Diana.Mitlin@iied.org

International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), UK

Other related links:
'Grassroots federations bring development to slums'

'Bridging the finance gap in housing and infrastructure'

'Innovation for land rights in Africa'

'Decentralisation and poverty reduction: the reality in Africa'

'Supporting the poor: sustainable safety nets for the new millennium'

'Can social safety nets contribute to poverty reduction in Africa?'