The left-wing mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, was hoping to invite progressive mayors from Africa for a meeting.
Mamdani ran on a socialist platform focused on affordability and public services, including free city buses, universal childcare, grocery stores owned by the city, rent freeze, affordable housing, a wealth tax, etc.
Our left-wing network in Windhoek unfortunately couldn’t think of any mayor in Namibia to recommend and didn’t even know who the mayor of our capital city is.
This reflects the dominant neoliberal political culture in Namibian cities and the consequent political distance between elected officials and working people.
This is why Namibia’s cities are at a crossroads. Citizens face rising unemployment, unaffordable housing and unsafe streets. Municipal budgets are drained by overpriced tenders.
Namibian cities lose millions through exorbitant tenders and private monopolies.
Essential services are increasingly privatised, inaccessible, or unreliable.
Namibian cities rely too heavily on outsourcing, private contractors, and parastatal monopolies.
The country’s urban economy must therefore urgently shift from extraction to empowerment. Privatisation and outsourcing must be stopped.
Municipal socialism in Namibia would mean using local government power to deliver essential services publicly, expand social infrastructure, democratise decision‑making, and reduce inequality at local level.
It is not a separate ideology in Namibian law, but a governance approach that applies socialist principles to municipal functions. Namibia has 57 local authorities with powers over water, sanitation, electricity, waste, land servicing, and local economic development.
There is so much to be done. Windhoek, for example, should expand the municipal bus service with routes to Havana, Khomasdal, and the informal settlements.
The capital city must also establish a Municipal Housing Authority to develop public housing and the freezing of land speculation by taxing vacant plots. It should launch participatory budgeting in Katutura, Khomasdal, and informal settlements.
Walvis Bay, the worker city, must build rent-controlled public housing for harbour workers and create a harbour workers’ council to co‑design city policies. It should also support worker cooperatives in logistics, recycling, and maintenance.
Swakopmund should make possible city‑wide free municipal Wi‑Fi, starting with Mondesa and Tamariskia, as well as public computer labs in libraries and community centres.
Affordable housing could take the form of municipal housing units for tourism workers and public rental housing.
The northern city of Ongwediva could pilot a municipal bus network linking Ongwediva–Oshakati–Ondangwa. It should support youth cooperatives for vegetable production and food distribution as well as build affordable municipal rental units near campuses.
Oshakati requires flood‑resilient public works to redesign flood‑prone zones.
It also urgently needs water and sanitation expansion with municipal boreholes and water recycling.
Rundu should consider community‑run water committees supported by the town, municipal brick‑making cooperatives for housing projects and incremental public housing with municipal resources.
Namibian municipalities often feel administratively constrained, but through participatory budgeting, for example, workers, informal‑settlement residents, and community groups help decide how a portion of the city budget is spent.
Citizens should also fight for local autonomy and push for reforms that give municipalities more fiscal and policy independence from the central government. Municipalities could reduce dependence on bulk water suppliers by investing in municipal boreholes, recycling plants, and leak‑reduction systems. Regarding electricity distribution, local authorities could for instance expand (affordable) solar power access.
It is high time to end the reliance on expensive private tenders. Public services must never be a playground for private profit.
Municipal socialism thrives on broad alliances, not party‑only politics that have been so divisive.
In Namibia, this could mean that informal traders and cooperatives participate in local economic development, nurses and teachers partnering with municipalities on community wellbeing, worker‑owned cooperatives delivering services like urban farming, recycling or maintenance.
This builds a grassroots governance culture that Namibia desperately needs.
