By:Nghiinomenwa-vali Erastus
About 43% of households countrywide have no toilet facilities and use bush, riverbeds, and fields.
This is common in rural areas with 64.6% compared to urban areas at 22.6%.
This is according to the Namibia Census Mapping Reports (2019-2021) by Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) that was released at the end of 2022.
Most of the people with no toilet facilities are from the northeast and far east of the country, the report found.
Kavango West and Zambezi regions show that 78.5% and 77.8%, respectively, have no toilet facilities, said the report.
About 30% of households in Namibia use private flush toilets.
This was commonly observed in urban areas with 45.7% of households using private flush connected to the main sewer and 3.7% using private flush connected to the septic cesspool.
The country has 507,249 households, most of them are found in urban areas 52.5%, while in rural areas recorded at 47.5%.
According to the NSA definition, a household usually consists of one or more persons, related or unrelated, who live together in the same house/compound, but not necessarily in the same dwelling unit and have the same or common catering or eating arrangement (cook and eat together), and are answerable to the same head of household.
In terms of regions, Khomas region recorded the highest number of 90,834 households (17.9%) followed by 55,438 households in Omusati region (10.9%).
Kavango West (3.1%) and Kunene (3.2%) recorded the lowest proportion of households.
Furthermore, 94 households were headed by persons aged below 11 years old, and 5,377 households were headed by people aged between 12-20 years old.
In terms of water supply points mapped in Namibia, the number stood at 14,402 of which 88.8% were in rural areas compared to 11.2% in urban areas.
At the regional level, the Zambezi region recorded the highest proportion of water points with 14.8%, followed by Omaheke region (11.6%) and Ohangwena region (10.1%), while Oshana and Kavango East recorded the lowest 2.9% and 2.8%, respectively.
The Report has also revealed that a significant number of households used piped water for cooking (i.e. piped water outside (35.6%), piped water inside (31.5%) and public piped water (15.4%).
Water from boreholes with open tanks covered 24.9% was a common cooking water source in the Kunene region while water from the river/dam/stream was significant in Kavango West at 15.4% and Kavango East at 11.5%.
Furthermore, Ohangwena and Zambezi regions recorded the highest proportion of households that rely on water from unprotected wells for cooking at 9.7% and 7.5%, respectively.
The Census Mapping Report presents findings of the census mapping exercise undertaken between October 2019 and February 2020 by the NSA.
The mapping covered a wide range of data on the characteristics of buildup structures, characteristics of the households, and housing conditions in the country.
Email: erastus@thevillager.com.na
42% Households Use Bushes, Riverbeds To Relieve Themselves
