The fortune we keep calling a slum

JASON KASUTO

Namibia is transfixed by the oil beneath its ocean. Its greater, and far more certain, fortune lies in the informal settlements it keeps mislabelling as a burden.

​Off the coast of Lüderitz, drillships hover over one of the most exciting oil discoveries of the century, and the nation holds its breath for a final investment decision.

A few hundred kilometres inland, on the sandy edge of Windhoek, the corrugated roofs of Havana stretch to the horizon. We are transfixed by the first frontier and quietly embarrassed by the second. I have come to believe we have it precisely backwards.

For a generation we have read Namibia’s informal settlements as a wound to be healed: a housing crisis, a service backlog, a cost the budget cannot bear. That reading is the single most expensive misjudgement in our economic policy.