Prof. Dr. Gesa Ziemer reports from the City Science Lab in Hamburg, and UNITAC – the United Nations Innovation Technology and Accelerator for Cities.
The requirements for data collection and use are very different in Namibia than in the Global North, writes Gesa Ziemer. She has supported projects in five cities of different sizes, with a focus on promoting climate resilience in informal settlements:
I have just returned from a very inspiring stay in Namibia. In the City Science Lab at HafenCity University Hamburg, we work on data projects both locally and nationally, and also very internationally. For us, this not only means that we work with technically highly developed countries such as the USA, China or Australia, but also with countries in the global South, for which specific solutions often have to be developed and adapted to the local conditions. With our sister lab, UNITAC - the Innovation Technology Accelerator for Cities, which we operate in cooperation with the United Nations (UN-Habitat, based in Nairobi and the UN-OICT, based in New York), we are currently carrying out projects in various African and Latin American countries as well as Ukraine.
I find African countries in particular (also due to their young population structure) to be very dynamic, open, committed and interested in technology. Unlike in the cities of the Global North, however, the situation in these cities is more challenging in terms of both the existing data situation and the availability of basic digital socio-technical facilities. There is simply less data, or there is data but it is not made available on data platforms. In addition, there is a lack of trained personnel and resources, especially in small towns or rural regions, to regularly update technologies and operate them sustainably.
Data projects in five locations in Namibia
The aim of our project, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), is to increase data capacities in cooperation with the five cities of Rehoboth, Rundu, Opuwo, Helao Nafidi and Windhoek, to make data accessible and to enable data-based decision-making and to focus on the topic of climate resilience in informal settlements. The use cases of the cities are very different.
In a larger city like Windhoek, for example, which has a good data infrastructure, we are working with the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development and the Namibian Statistical Agency to collect more data on informal settlements and make it usable. With a small village like Helao Nafidi, we are pursuing the goal of making data usable in order to minimize recurring heavy rain damage. Here, we work with area and environmental data to make predictions so that residents can be warned in good time. We are not simply exporting our smart city technologies, but setting up teams based in Namibia and Hamburg to jointly develop technically and socially sensible solutions.
Conference on the use of urban technologies in informal settlements
As the project also has scientific aspects, we have just held a three-day conference in Windhoek on the use of urban technologies, particularly in informal settlements, at which extremely impressive data projects from Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa and other African countries were presented. For example, Code for Africa reported on how they collect data in the so-called floating slums in Nigeria under the most difficult conditions and make it usable, including for numbering the houses so that help can arrive in an emergency. Sandile Mbatha, head of the data department of the eThekwini metropolitan region, which includes the city of Durban, put it in a nutshell: "Let's see the situations in African countries as potential and as a place of transformation and not always cast them in a negative light with a discourse of scarcity.
This credo was enthusiastically received by us and the audience. Our other cooperation partner, the NGO Slum Dwellers International (SDI), a global association of people living in informal settlements, also emphasized with verve that the communities are tired of being called "slums" and treated like "slums" instead of highlighting the positive energies and successful projects. The very definition of a "slum" can be an expression of a political interest in labeling it as such and thus deliberately disadvantaging urban spaces. It was very nice to experience that theoretical postcolonial discourses, which often seem somewhat forced to me in the West, are important, but that the concrete projects are supported by many commonalities, so that we can hopefully work well together in the future.
The conference, which was also a cooperation with the National University of Science and Technology (Nust) in Windhoek and the African Center for Cities Cape Town, then continued its event in such a good project, the Havana Youth Café. Researcher Shilumbe Chivuno-Kuria introduced us to the project. She works there every day with young people and is herself writing a doctoral thesis on the subject of accessibility of technical applications for young people. Nust is also currently designing a Master's degree course in urban development in informal settlements, for which there are not yet many training opportunities worldwide. However, this is urgently needed, as informal settlements are already an everyday reality for around 30 percent of humanity.
German colonial history only just beginning to be updated
Namibia is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. Its surface area is twice that of Germany, but only 2.5 million people live there. The rural areas, which also extend over vast deserts, are correspondingly large. A large part of the country is divided into farms, most of which still belong to families of German origin, as Namibia was colonized by Germany from 1884 to 1915. When the local population, especially the Herero and Nama, resisted in 1904, the German troops reacted with extreme harshness. They drove them into the desert after the Battle of Waterberg, poisoned water sources or had them shot beforehand.
When I was standing on the Waterberg with my colleagues a few weeks ago, our guide, who was a Damara himself, showed us the site of the genocide and kept emphasizing that he had nothing against the Germans. Today, Namibia's tourism industry is mainly made up of Germans who like to travel there, so what else could my guide say? I can't hide my discomfort as a German in this country anywhere, also because the colonization is still so obvious in the streets and town names, and I have to admit that I often mention my second nationality as Swiss when someone asks me where I come from. When I ask how land distribution could be changed in favor of the local population, people often refer to the current state of "peace over justice".
The process of coming to terms with Germany's colonial history, including in Namibia, is still in its infancy and Germany and Namibia still have a very long way to go towards justice. I hope that data can help to make not only informality, but also issues such as land ownership and climate change, which are already massive in this dry and hot country, visible and politically negotiable.
Gesa Ziemer is Professor of Cultural Theory and has headed the City Science Lab at Hafencity University Hamburg since 2015, which researches the transformation of cities through digitalization. Since 2021, she has served as Academic Lead for UNITAC Hamburg - the United Nations Innovation and Technology Accelerator for Cities, a collaboration with UN-Habitat and UN-OICT.
She has previously published in this section: "(Digital) knowledge transfer", "Courage for urban data culture", "Training: We need the city and IT interface!", "The city in the metaverse?", "How to create a digital urban twin?", "Why the United Nations is driving digital cities forward", "How Hamburg uses its data", "Data storytelling: climate policy needs stories", "How data can help with refugee accommodation" and "Urban co-modeling: Between technical possibility and local reality".