A Multi-Faceted Approach to Improving Public Services in Low-Income Housing in Windhoek, Namibia | Land Portal

Resource information

Date of publication: 
January 2023
Resource Language: 
ISBN / Resource ID: 
LP-midp000354
Copyright details: 
© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article

The characteristics of low-income housing in Namibia include severe inequality in housing standards, heavy reliance on non-office jobs, overcrowding, and poor infrastructure. This study uses a survey and semi-structured interviews to investigate the improved service delivery of this low-income housing. It explores this through the perspectives of community-based facilities management, sustainability, and enterprise development. In particular, the study examines opportunities for enterprise development, the willingness to participate in the production and management of public services, and the current state of public services in selected settlements in Windhoek. The results show that a lack of access to fire safety, disaster prevention, recreation, green spaces and tourist facilities are gaps in service delivery. Residents are willing to participate in both the co-production and management of public services. The study also found that residents have the appropriate skills to enable their engagement in management and production, and suitable governance structures are put in place to foster trust. The study recommends a policy that requires community visioning focused on public service improvement. It also calls for renewed trends in low-income people’s participation in public service development processes. The study’s contribution to existing knowledge on this subject is that it produced a multi-faceted framework for improving public services in low-income housing that is based on principles (and actions) of sustainability and policy (and planning) of land/housing access and has the potential to lead to public service-based community wellbeing.

Authors and Publishers

Author(s), editor(s), contributor(s): 

Adewunmi, Yewande A.Chigbu, Uchendu E.Kahireke, UaurikaSimbanegavi, PriscaMwando, SamIssa, Amin A.Hayford, Samuel

Corporate Author(s): 
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    MDPI AG, a publisher of open-access scientific journals, was spun off from the Molecular Diversity Preservation International organization. It was formally registered by Shu-Kun Lin and Dietrich Rordorf in May 2010 in Basel, Switzerland, and maintains editorial offices in China, Spain and Serbia. MDPI relies primarily on article processing charges to cover the costs of editorial quality control and production of articles. Over 280 universities and institutes have joined the MDPI Institutional Open Access Program; authors from these organizations pay reduced article processing charges.

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