Decent homes in the city: managing Botswana’s informal settlements

Informal settlements are home to many of the world’s most disadvantaged people. As the growth of these settlements leads to the urbanisation of poverty and pollution, it is important to find ways of managing them. In Botswana, informal settlements result because authorities fail to address the needs of the whole community.

Research from the University of East London, in the UK, shows that most developing countries have informal settlements. They usually grow out of an urgent need for shelter by urban poor people. Their growth is almost always due to rural-urban migration, which may be the result of various factors, including drought, economic difficulties or civil war.

Informal settlements often consist of many small, makeshift shelters built from a wide range of materials. They usually lead to degradation of the local ecosystem and have severe social problems. In most cases, access to basic services such as drinking water and sanitation is limited.

Botswana has experienced rapid urbanisation since independence. The urban population has risen from 4 percent in 1966 to 52 percent in 2001. Today, informal settlements have developed at the edges of formal urban areas, with the following results:

• Informal settlements have caused environmental degradation, including the pollution of underground water in public and private wells due to pit latrines, mine waste dumps and land fills.
• New infrastructures, such as sewer pipelines along riverbanks, have destroyed natural flood barriers and could result in serious water pollution.
• Gold mining has left shafts and tunnels that have never been mapped. These are at risk of collapse, putting the settlements built above them in danger.
• Botswana is still using evictions to stop the growth of informal settlements, despite an official government policy that citizens should be provided with adequate housing without destroying the social and economic fabric of any community.
• In the settlement of Monarch, the design and implementation of infrastructure has been delayed due to the irregular shape of existing plots. Some plots will have to be removed and the people affected given plots elsewhere.

Although informal settlements can be a nuisance, it must be accepted that they are a part of urban growth. In some cases the government and local authorities have started assessing some settlements and finding ways of controlling them through plot rationalisation, upgrading and resettlement. In Francistown, for instance, communities have benefited from upgrading - they secured land tenure over their plots and the government provided funds to build durable houses.

Further measures are needed, however, and greater attention paid to certain aspects of informal settlements:

• Enough serviced land parcels, or housing sites, need to be made available to poorly-paid people at affordable rental rates.
• The success or failure of upgrading informal settlements is particularly dependent on the willingness of all those involved: central and local government, service providers, inhabitants, construction companies and non-governmental organisations.
• The extent to which informal settlements are upgraded depends on the funding available for service and implementation costs.
• Hazardous conditions need to be investigated prior to development.

Source(s):
‘Managing Informal Settlements in Botswana’, by R.W. Dixon-Gough and Otladisane Molobeng, pages 97-113, in ‘The Role of the State and Individual’, International Land Management Series, Ashgate: Hampshire, edited by R.W. Dixon-Gough and Otladisane Molobeng, 2008

id21 Research Highlight: 14 December 2008

Further Information:
R.W. Dixon-Gough
School of Computing and Technology
University of East London
4 - 6 University Way
Beckton
London E16 2RD
UK

Tel: +44 20 82232514
Contact the contributor: r.w.dixon-gough@uel.ac.uk

School of Computing and Technology, University of East London, UK

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'Cities without slums in Kenya'

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