No toilets for 68% of marginalised Namibians

Nearly seven in 10 households (68.4%) in Namibia's marginalised communities have no toilet facilities and rely on open defecation, a new Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) report has found.

The findings paint a stark picture of basic service delivery: while almost 88% of households have access to safe drinking water, fewer than a third (32.4%) are connected to electricity for lighting, with 30.1% relying on battery-powered lamps or torches.

The study, which analysed data from the 2023 Population and Housing Census, focuses on three historically excluded ethnic groups: the San, the Ovatue and the OvaTjimba. Together, they number 75 569 people, making up 2.5% of the national population.

The population is split nearly evenly by gender, with women accounting for 50.7% and men for 49.3%.

Children under the age of 18 make up 48.2% of these communities. Geographically, the population is heavily concentrated in the Otjozondjupa region, which hosts 31.3% of the total marginalised population, followed by the Omaheke region with 23.1%.

The average household size across these groups is 4.6 people. 

Education and jobs

The report highlights severe gaps in education and literacy.

The literacy rate among these communities is 54.8%. For school-aged children and youth between six and 24 years old, the school enrolment rate is 53.6%.

Some 30.9% of the population aged six and older has never attended school, and among those who have left school, only 9.1% completed secondary education or higher.

Economic indicators show low labour market participation, which stands at 37.2% for individuals aged 15 and above. Of this labour force, the employment rate is 59.4%, leaving an unemployment rate of 40.6%.

As of September 2023, there were 14 137 private households headed by a marginalised person, with 9 294 located in rural areas and 4 843 in urban areas.

Salaries and wages are the main income source for 42.4% of these households, while 15.6% depend on old-age pensions.