The Khomas Region has been identified as an area with the highest number of shacks by the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA).
The report, which was released on Wednesday, revealed that shacks made up 25% of dwelling units in Namibia translating to 126,812 units.
“The mapping exercise indicated that there were 507,249 dwelling units in Namibia, of which 36.6% were detached houses, while a significant proportion of about 25% were improvised housing units (Shacks/Kambashu). Khomas Region had the highest number of dwelling units with 90,834 and relatively with the highest number of improvised housing units/shacks (41.1 %),” NSA Statistician General and CEO Alex Shimuafeni said.
“About 47.2% of the households were owner-occupied without a mortgage, while 29.6% were rent-free.”
The 2019/2021 Census Mapping report, which mapped 965,265 structures throughout the country (representing households and all other structures) found 529,734 of the structures were situated in urban areas while 435,474 were located in rural areas.
“In terms of regional distribution, Khomas Region recorded the highest number of structures (140,193 structures), followed by Oshana Region with 108,996 structures. The least number of structures (28,451) were mapped in the Kavango West Region,” Shimuafeni said.
In terms of water supply points mapped in Namibia, the number stood at 14,402 of which 88.8% were in rural areas compared to 11.2% in urban areas.
“At the regional level, Zambezi Region recorded the highest proportion of water points with 14.8%, followed by Omaheke (11.6%) and Ohangwena Region (10.1%) while Oshana and Kavango East recorded the lowest 2.9% and 2.8% respectively,” he said.
The NSA survey found most households were found in rural areas at 52.5%, while urban areas recorded 47.5%.
“In terms of regions, Khomas recorded the highest number of 90,834 households (17.9%) followed by 55,438 households in the Omusati Region (10.9%). Kavango West (3.1%) and Kunene (3.2%) recorded the lowest proportion of households,” Shimuafeni said.
“In addition, most households in the country (52.8%) were headed by men, compared to women-headed households (47.2%). In addition, there were about 94 households headed by persons aged 11 years old and below.”
Corrugated iron sheets (84.1%) were common material used for roofing, while results on the main material used for outer walls, the results show that cement/blocks/bricks/stones (37.2%) and corrugated iron sheets (28.7%) were mostly used.
About 53% of households in Namibia use firewood as the main source of energy for cooking, and only 31% of the households use electricity from mains.
“Electricity from mains as the main source of energy used for lighting stood at 45.6% for all households in Namibia. However, about 62% of rural households used battery lamps and torch cell phones for lighting,” he said.
The report found a significant number of households used piped water for cooking (i.e. Piped water outside (35.6%), piped water inside (31.5%) and public piped water (15.4%).
“Water from boreholes with open tanks covered (24.9%) was a common cooking water source in the Kunene Region while water from the river/dam /stream was significant in Kavango West (15.4%) and Kavango East (11.5%) regions. Furthermore, Ohangwena and Zambezi regions recorded the highest proportion of households that rely on water from unprotected wells for cooking (9.7% and 7.5% respectively),” Shimuafeni said.
“Notable proportion, 42.6% of households countrywide have no toilet facilities (uses bush, riverbeds, and fields), and this is common in rural areas (64.6 %) compared to urban areas (22.6 %).”
