Securing inclusion: strategies for community empowerment and state redistribution

This study draws together the experiences of the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia (SDFN) in using finance to secure access to land and infrastructure. Thefederation uses strategies of collective solidarity, political presence and financial capacity to encourage local authorities to reconsider traditional approaches to urban development, and to date they have assisted about 5 per cent of urban dwellers in need in Namibia with housing improvements. The federation believes that local groups must define solutions that work for them, seeking to draw on the resources of the local authority to ensure affordability for all. These solutions need to build the power of the collective, enabling successive community actions to achieve additional development aspirations for the community. The community-driven process incorporates self-help as one of a number of strategies to achieve affordability but, more importantly, also to embed a social process across the community. Social movements strongly rooted in local neighbourhoods can secure the political advancement of the poor through effective political pressure on political decision makers. The grassroots location of the movement allows the shelter process to develop relevant tools and methods, which in turn are embedded within the negotiation processes towards the more egalitarian redistribution of state resources.(1)