Study of Inclusive Urban Campus, Okahandja, Namibia: An Integrated Developmental Approach

Abstract

The growth of cities has become a major concern for governments due to the unregulated high rate of urbanisation, the inevitable rise in housing demand, and the proliferation of informal settlements in sub-Saharan African nations like Namibia. Given the obvious socioeconomic and environmental difficulties that affect infrastructure and services, quality of life, health, and well-being of the populace, as mentioned in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (UN SDG) Number 11, unchecked urbanisation is recognised as a threat to sustainable and equitable development. Although governments are aware of these enormous problems, they are yet unable to identify long-term, comprehensive remedies. The result is the growth of unauthorised settlements, a lack of available housing, strain on the infrastructure and services, unemployment, and urban poverty. A key objective is to investigate the feasibility of inclusive urban campus (IUC) integrated infrastructure development using Okahandja town. The specific objective is to investigate sustainable solutions to housing, education, community health facilities, co-creation of job opportunities, all in one land-use platform. In order to strengthen the bottom-up development approach, the research adopted an innovative multi-focused workshop methodology for data collecting with interactive participation from stakeholders and the community. The goals were to pinpoint Okahandja's town planning and integrated development dynamics, the policy bottlenecks, and disclose viable strategies for formal housing delivery and socio-cultural integration. The viability of Dololo as a platform for the IUC effort was ultimately established. The IUC idea identifies infrastructure development and community needs to accommodate informal trade, housing, health, youth centres, cooperatives, roads, and transportation as well as education, Small and Medium Enterprise (SME), Vocational Training Center (VTC), and informal trade.