Simon van Heck
The Project: The Issue
Zambia has to deal with a huge population growth and a major migration to cities in the last few years. One of the consequences is a shortage of housing units in Zambia and this has led to the development of slums that accommodate approximately 70 percent of urban dwellers. The majority of Lusaka's residents will start their lives in an informal settlement with poor access to water, sanitation, health care facilities and employment. The government has not been able to address these problems and the informal settlements are still growing. For this reason PPHPZ and other companies try to develop these informal settlements. They also try to make these informal settlements formal and give them the same rights as other settlements in Lusaka.
Our project was focussed in Chazanga, this is an informal settlement between Lusaka and Chief Mungule’s traditional area. This results in difficulties with the legal development of the area, because the land is partly owned by the Lusaka City Council and is partly held by customary land titles. Chazanga consist of 2.846 households that correspond to a population of 17.755 people, according to enumerations done by PPHPZ and ZHPPF (Zambian Homeless and Poor People Federation). Like many unplanned settlements in Lusaka, Chazanga is facing many socio-economic challenges. Due to the major population growth in Chazanga, this informal settlement faces challenges in terms of goods supply and basic services in the area.
One of these problems is water supply. Since Chazanga is not fully controlled by the Lusaka City Council, they also have no access to the Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company. At the moment there are 43 water kiosks in Chazanga, which serve on average 410 households. These kiosks work only six hours a day and are subjects to massive interruptions. Other problems are the absence of public secondary schools, a lack of employment and long traveling distances to DStv and Airtime pay points.
The current situation in Chazanga shows a good example of the problems, which Zambia faces at the moment. We also saw these problems when we were in the field. In the rest of the report you can read how we tried to tackle some of these problems in Chazanga.