Rethinking Social Housing Provisions and Public Health in Emerging Low-Income Peri-Urban Human Settlements, an Expose from Harare, Zimbabwe

Cities in Africa are rapidly growing spatially and demographically. Despite having a history of evictions while safe-guarding public health, there is little analysis about the concomitant public environmental health implications of poor housing delivery process within the emerging peri-urban settlements in Zimbabwe and other countries of the Global South. The chapter will focus on how public health has been impacted by the demand for housing by the urbanites and from policy to practice. The prevailing contemporary problem entails a paucity of understanding of housing challenges that are increasingly compromising the health and social security of peri-urban interfaces. The evidence from Zimbabwe shows that public health in peri-urban areas is problematized and facing severe neglect by national and local governments and non-state stakeholders. Purposive and stratified cluster sampling techniques will be used in this study to interrogate the shortcomings and institutional arrangements in housing provisions which are fueling public health challenges. This chapter proffers four dimensions for the connection between housing provisions and peri-urban environmental health, namely, the neglect of the public health system as the catalyst and engine for social development. Secondly, the lack of commitment toward socio-spatial contexts of peri-urban areas leads to the neglect of proactive and “health-centric” housing delivery to facilitate the process of health provision. Thirdly, despite housing standards and planning being in place, they are not aligned with modern health statutory frameworks, compromising effectiveness. Lastly, the housing framework in Zimbabwe, primarily in plans and policies, left out peri-urban low-income households in the community planning to enhance sound health practices. Therefore, the chapter concluded that there is an urgent need to holistically address and solve shortcomings of health delivery in peri-urban areas through sustainable housing and healthcare.