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Setting-in-motion the process to change the face of some shanties, Government is spearheading a two-year slum upgrade pilot project in Lusaka’s Kanyama township which is now at mapping stage – roads and drainages are being done as well.

“The drainages and roads will help in reducing the impact of floods that Kanyama usually experiences. This is a good development. We hope that after this, they can bring us street lights,” Adrian Musuka, a Kanyama resident, said in an interview.

Kanyama also got a 12-months Support to Occupancy Licences Project for Kanyama ward 10 residents, which ran from January to December 2017 at an estimated cost of K710, 000 from UN Habitat and the Lusaka City Council (LCC).

The project’s main objective was to improve the tenure of security for Kanyama ward 10 residents through the provision of occupancy licences, aimed at improving their social and economic conditions in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SGD) 11.

Mr Musuka, a landlord, said the LCC has since issued them with documents for paying monthly land rates under the Support to Occupancy Licences Project.

The project was implemented in partnership with the UN Habitat, the Ministry of Local Government and the Ward Development Committee of Kanyama.

The upgrading project in Kanyama follows Government’s launch of the Citywide Slum Upgrading and Prevention Strategy to tackle challenges of service provision to unplanned settlements.

The slum upgrading plan aims at re-planning, dealing with the complicated boundaries and work on the roads, drainages and solid waste management system among other issues.

Under this strategy, Kanyama Township qualifies for upgrading after it was legalised by the LCC in 1999 and declared as an improvement area under the Housing Statutory and Improvement Areas Act of 1972 (now the Urban and Regional Planning Act number 3 of 2015).

In benefiting from this status of being a formalised settlement, Kanyama received a two-year (2017-2018) Slum Upgrading Pilot Project for re-planning, roads and drainages at a cost of K5 million.

The Government, LCC, with an assemblage of cooperating partners; UN Habitat, World Bank, Africa Development Bank (AfDB), the German and Irish embassies are working together on the slum upgrading pilot project.

Following the occupiers licences, the LCC has moved into Kanyama for mapping and enumeration, and database compilation for the township is being developed and access to occupancy licence by residents of Kanyama ward 10 is expected to increase.

Established as an unplanned settlement in the1960s, Kanyama is located on the western peripheral of the city of Lusaka and has sprawled wider over the years, making it the largest slum in Zambia with a population of slightly over 143,000, according to LCC 2016 statistics.

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