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| One of the habitable houses in the city of Blantyre |
Do you live in a house full of comfort and that you can proudly point a finger at, to show anyone without shame? Then count yourself lucky.
The United Nations Strategy to Combat Homelessness (UNSCH) says one great challenge worldwide is for every soul on the planet to live in a decent home.
“There are over 100 million people that are homeless across the globe,” says the agency. The homeless figures translates into one in every 60 people in the over 6.5 billion plus global population without a home.
Malawi’s Lands and Housing Minister, professor turned politician Peter Mwanza also said recently in Lilongwe at a site where government is building flats for policemen that is aware that people in the country’s towns and cities are struggling to identify a decent house to live.
He, therefore, said government will do all it can to through its housing agency, Malawi Housing Corporation (MHC) construct more houses in the country for occupation.
Programme Director for UN-Habitat Malawi mission office John Chome said his office would like to in partnership with government and other partners help poor homeless Malawians living in shacks to own homes.
“Life is meaningless not only in Malawi but globally if one does not have a decent place where to live. Therefore, as UN-Habitat- Malawi office we want to work with government and all other partners to enable poor people in Malawi to have a good settlement that is established on best practices,” he said.
Chome further disclosed that only about 10 per every 100 people in Malawi owned decent homes.
“In Malawi nine out of 10 urban dwellers live in slums,” he said.
Chome’s claims are backed by just mentioning a few, the presence of some poorly planned and sub standard structures mixed with decent houses in townships such as Ndirande, Cholomoni, Bangwe, Chilobwe, Naotcha, Mtopwa in Blantyre City, Mchesi, Chilinde, Kaliyeka, Kawale, Areas 22,23,24,36 in Lilongwe City and Mchengautuwa, Zorozoro,Chibabvi, Chiputura in Mzuzu.
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| A typical pit latrine in Lilongwe's Mchesi Area |
To help government transform its reality of helping poor Malawians to own decent houses in the country the Centre for Community Organization and Development (CCODE) and its partners initiated a housing project.
With assistance from CCODE people including women in Area 49 in Lilongwe City are now living in their own houses.
Before owning the houses the beneficiaries lived in shacks that could fall on them and even injure or even kill them.
To own their houses however, the women had to sweat for them by molding 30 cm by 35 cm large bricks for building their 7 m by 7 m houses.
The Area 49 housing story was one of the projects that had put Malawi on the global map as was presented at UN-Habitat symposium in Vancouver, Canada in 2006.
CCODE director Sikhulire Nkhoma said the Area 49 housing project came into reality after Lilongwe City Assembly allocated some plots to the people with the help of her organization.
“Within six weeks after the breaking ceremony was conducted in September 2005 in Area 49 in Lilongwe the women got organized in the process of building their houses. 17 houses were built to roofing level then,” said Nkhoma adding that it was easy for women to realize their dream of owning own houses.
“Some of the women currently owning houses in Area 49 in Lilongwe were discriminated by their husbands. In one case one woman had her husband vowing that he would never step his feet in her house. But later after the woman had moved in the house the husband changed his mind and moved in,” she said.
Nkhoma further disclosed that another case was a sad one as after completing her house one woman died as she was about to move in.
“It was because most of the women showed their interest in the Area 49 pilot project than men that most of the houses are owned by the women,” said Nkhoma adding, “But some houses in this project are also owned by men beneficiaries.”
She also disclosed that some families in the Area 49 project also had ponds and gardens that were beehive of activities for income generation for their own benefit.
Nkhoma requested government to incorporate the housing sector in its programmes of fighting against poverty as Malawi’s poverty face as seen from housing sector is gloomy.
“It’s not easy for government alone to construct a decent house for everyone. But if government can find ways to empower the poor they can easily construct average decent houses for their own occupation,” she said.
Nkhoma further said for example, if government pumped some resources to at least 200,000 houses for the poor Malawi’s economy could get a boost.
She disclosed that at least 200 families in the Area 49 housing project during the pilot phase constructed their houses with K70,000 each house.
Nkhoma disclosed that apart from the Area 49 housing project Blantyre’s suburb, Angelogoveya also benefited 450 pilot plots where people were to construct their own houses for occupation.
In a report, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Mission office in Lilongwe says at a rate of 5.22 per cent, Malawi has the fourth highest urbanization rates in Africa; the top three countries are those emerging from conflict.
“The 2008/2009 State of the world’s cities Report shows that 1,468,000 Malawians lived under slum conditions in 2005, representing 66.4 percent of the total urban population. The cities of Blantyre, Lilongwe, Mzuzu and Zomba and towns near these cities have increasing slum dwellers and increasing urban poverty,” says the report.
The report adds that these settlements are characterized by poor access to physical infrastructure such as roads, electricity and poor access to social services such as health, education, water and sanitation, insecure tenure and poor housing conditions.
UNDP Resident Coordinator Richard Dictus says Malawi’s urbanization trend will not be reversed.
“We therefore, must reform our planning processes so that cities can cater for the increasing population in the cities and arriving from the rural areas. It’s imperative that we pay serious attention to slum upgrading, improving basic urban services, good urban governance structures,” Dictus also UNDP Resident Representative in Malawi said adding that this would ensure that Malawi’s population lives in quality of life.
The UN-Habitat concurs with Dictus says Malawi should indeed prepare for an urban population boom in four decades time.
The agency projects that the country’s new urban population will be 22 times the current size of Lilongwe whose population is 674,448.
In a statement released for the World Habitat Day commemorated on October 5, the organization says while the current urban centres will continue growing, the highest rate of urban growth will be experienced in the current market centres, small urban centres and the bomas.
The agency, however, expresses concern that most of these centres are neglected in terms of urban planning and development.
“These are the centres that do not receive much attention and resources. They continue to grow haphazardly with little or no planning and little investment in public services,” says the agency.
The organization also says the future of Malawi is basically urban with projections showing that by 2050 about half of the country’s people will be concentrated in towns.
The agency discloses that in 1950 there were 101,000 people living in urban areas in Malawi translating to 3 percent of the population.
In the year 2000 on the other hand, 15 per every 100 or 1,764,000 people were living in urban areas in Malawi.
The agency further projects that by next year there will be 3 million Malawians living in urban areas representing 20 percent while by 2050 there will be 15.5 million Malawians living in urban areas, almost 49 percent of the population.
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| A bathroom in Masasa Township in Mzuzu |
“In the next 40 years Malawi will have to plan and provide for new urban population 22 times the current size of Lilongwe in terms of land, housing, water, sanitation, energy, health, education, roads, transport, jobs, food,” says the agency.
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