Editorial: Sanitation requires proper settlements

President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah's call for decent and adequate toilets for every Namibian is necessary, but achieving it requires confronting the conditions in informal settlements.

Sanitation cannot be separated from housing and infrastructure. Many informal settlements have no sewerage, leaving residents dependent on communal toilets, long-drops or open defecation. Communal facilities often serve large populations and cannot always cope. Government and local authorities must therefore look beyond simply providing more communal toilets.

There is also a contradiction that requires attention. Municipalities install communal water points, roads, streetlights and tower lights in informal settlements, effectively acknowledging that these communities are there to stay, while permanent housing and household sanitation remain difficult to establish.

If sanitation is now a national priority, settlement upgrading must become part of that programme.

Proper toilets require serviced land, water, sewerage and houses capable of accommodating them. These cannot be treated as separate challenges.

The President has correctly linked sanitation with housing. The task now is to turn that connection into policy and infrastructure.

Namibia cannot eliminate open defecation without first creating realistic alternatives for the people who currently have nowhere else to go.