Urbanisation, infrastructure provision and household livelihood improvements in Tlokweng, Botswana

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to establish the impacts of access to infrastructure on improvement of household welfare using the peri-urban settlement of Tlokweng as the case study. The paper is based on a study that administered a semi-structured questionnaire to a sample of 105 randomly selected households, 48 from the unplanned and 57 from the planned parts of Tlokweng. The study found that, even though there are still some problems of access to the provided infrastructure, those households that had access realised some improvements in their livelihood. In particular, households reported that having access to electricity and waterborne sewerage enabled them to charge higher prices for houses they rent out, hence increasing their earnings. The paper concludes that if barriers to infrastructure access could be adequately addressed, provision of improved infrastructure in urbanising settlements could lead to enhanced household welfare.

Key words: Urbanization; infrastructure; Tlokweng; livelihoods; peri-urban