The economics of exclusion
Domestic workers, gardeners, casual labourers excluded from all forms of formal housing finance - report
Many Batswana living in urban areas struggle to make ends meet and have poor access to resources and amenities according to the 2020 Common Country Analysis report. About 60 percent of the population of
Botswana live in urban areas. The report indicates that Botswana’s urbanisation has grown from a rate of 45.7 percent in 1991 to 61.8 percent in 2011, and is expected to rise to over 70 percent by the end of 2021. While this urbanisation rate is high, it has not resulted in large informal settlements. Recognised and documented informal settlements are Old Naledi ( Gaborone), Monarch ( Francistown) and Peleng ( Lobatse) with 19, 000, 14, 000 and 7, 000 people respectively, many of whom are low- income workers, rural– urban migrants and international migrants.
The report further indicates that urbanisation is often accompanied by several challenges, pointing out that low- income residential settlements are often characterised by overcrowding and inadequate access to infrastructure and social amenities, including under- served waste management systems.
“In Gaborone and Francistown, most migrants from rural villages moved to degraded housing areas which present at least one of the five ( 5) deprivations as defined by UN- Habitat with regard to permanent structures, living space, easy access to safe water and adequate sanitation, and security of tenure from forced evictions,” the report states.
The report also notes that forced evictions in the context of absence of alternatives for shelter provision constitute violations of several internationally recognised Human Rights. It also indicates that Government reports show that Botswana’s urbanisation has partly contributed to the country’s rural- urban inequalities due to prioritisation in national development planning and policy processes, the emergence of gated residential estates and up- market shopping malls alongside burgeoning low- income and inadequately serviced urban spaces where the informal sector has become a dominant activity.
The report states that rental costs are comparatively high and most in the lowest income group spend appreciably more than the UN standard of 30 per cent of their income on housing.
“Other basic needs such as food, schooling, transport, utilities/ energy, clothing, etc. consume the rest of their earnings, resulting in little or no disposable income. “The very poor ( those with household incomes below Pula 367 [$ 50] per month) are excluded from all forms of formal housing finance”. This group includes domestic workers, gardeners, casual labourers and others earning below the minimum wage, as well as hawkers and new rural– urban migrants. For most of these people, rented accommodation in Self Help Housing Agency ( SHHA) areas or the informal settlements are the only alternatives. SHHA is a government housing programme which helps low and middle lower income households with provision of housing and construction on a subsidised basis. Recent data on Botswana’s access to safe water in urban areas depict a slightly falling trend, registering about 83 per cent coverage in 2017. According to the United Nations Botswana office, most of the UN Sustainable Development Goals are aimed at ensuring financial security and social protection for all. “As for legally binding obligations, as indicated in the previous sections Botswana has not yet ratified the International Covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, which would impose an obligation on the country to ensure the financial security and social protection of its citizens”. Botswana has ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which has several provisions relating to financial security and social protection, such as the right to property, the right to work under equitable and satisfactory conditions, the right to receive equal pay for equal work, and the right to development, including economic and social development. The report also notes that inequalities in social protection may be driven by dependence on subsistence agriculture amid land degradation, desertification, drought and climate change, as well as the rapid changes created by urbanisation. “The intersection of disadvantages including geographic location, poverty, minority status and gender increase the hardship faced by certain disadvantaged groups”.