ZICTA in street naming project
PART of the audience that attended the meeting in Kalingalinga. - PICTURE By DOREEN NAWA.
IT is one of the vital requirements for any pupil enrolling at a new school to give a residential address or just particulars of the person’s abode.
But for people residing in most Zambian townships like Kalingalinga, this would definitely be a challenge.
Kalingalinga is one of the residential areas in Lusaka that do not have residential addresses and street names and this has prompted the birth of a project called National Addressing and Postcode Project.
There are numerous benefits to street naming and well-coordinated residential addresses. Think of a house catching fire in Kalingalinga and the firefighters have to locate a house to put out the fire or a post master wanting to deliver an urgent mail to a Kalingalinga resident.
And just how does one locate a house in Kalingalinga, ‘complicated’ puzzle here.
Firstly, there are no residential addresses on the houses and secondly, the streets have no names.
But such a challenge will soon be history following a street naming project by the Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority (ZICTA) with the help from the Lusaka City Council (LCC). The project is a brainchild of ZICTA.
Recently, ZICTA launched this development and implementation of a comprehensive National Addressing System in Zambia called the National Addressing and Postcode Project.
The primary objective of the project is to capture in a national database, the address details of all residential and commercial properties in the country, to enable users of the database to search for, and find, the physical address of all captured properties.
Speaking during the launch in Kalingalinga, ZICTA public relations officer Chisha Malunda-Shimungalu says, “Lack of addresses is a barrier not only to the provision of postal and courier services, but a host of social and commercial services as well.”
The project will involve the naming of unnamed streets, numbering houses and other properties, actual deployment of street-name signs in the affected neighbourhoods as well as house numbers on the individual houses in those areas.
“Street names in any city or township often appear to be insignificant and only present to guide lost travellers; however the history behind the names often reveals a past that reflects their true importance,” says Mrs Shimungalu.
She says utility companies will also find it extremely challenging to deliver essential services such as water and electricity, and to collect revenue from their customers in the absence of an addressing system.
Apart from selected neighbourhoods in Lusaka and Copperbelt provinces, which have properly named streets with logically allocated house numbers that are easy to locate, most of the country is in dire need of address infrastructure.
ZICTA further notes that the Post Office Box or P.O.Box addressing system which is currently the most widely used in the country is clearly not sufficient to cater for the whole population and, more importantly, cannot provide the various benefits that are associated with a physical or residential address mainly because of the current addressing system.
The project will also involve the development of addressing standards that will ensure uniformity and order in the allocation of addresses, and the development of national postcode system.
The project will be implemented in phases, commencing with a six-month pilot phase in the selected parts of Lusaka Province namely Northmead, the central business district, Kamwala South, Kalingalinga, and a village to be identified in due course.
Upon successful completion of the pilot phase, the project will be extended to the rest of the country over the next three years.
There was a rekindling interest in the naming of streets in Kalingalinga as evidenced by the number of people that attended the launch.
Kalingalinga ward 31 councillor Emson Mbewe spoke of the determination of the government to implement street names in various communities countrywide.
“This project may seem a worst of time for people that do not understand. But from the number of people that are here, I can safely say that the project is a positive one and we will succeed. It is important to embark on a project like this one for many reasons like security, in case a family is attacked by thieves, police will have easy access and render their help to the victims,” Mr Mbewe says.
But just how helpful is the naming of streets? Of what benefit is the adoring of a street to the economy and the ordinary man on the street?
Many reasons were cited during the launch of the project in Kalingalinga as to why it is important to embark on a street naming project within Kalingalinga area and other townships.
One remarkable statement made by the area councillor was the fact that the process was complicated because of the illegal construction of houses.
“This project needs experts and it needs to be carefully looked at to give location or for finding fire service and police services and geographical analysis,” Mr Mbewe says.
An address is a means of identifying a location that enables people to reach it as well as various goods and services to be delivered to that location. The location can be a home or shop, factory or any business.
Without addresses, ambulances, firefighters, police and security services cannot get to those in need on time.
Furthermore, postal and courier companies cannot deliver their letters and parcels efficiently.
Opening a bank account or buying goods on a hire purchase agreement all require a verifiable physical address to be provided.
Lack of addresses is therefore a barrier not only to the provision of postal and courier services but a host of social and commercial services as well.
Addresses are in this sense essential for social and economic development as they allow people to be connected to the formal economy.
Unfortunately, the majority of people in Zambia and most developing countries do not have an address in the true meaning of the word.
The recent spate of crime in Kalingalinga has raised several questions. The question that every concerned Zambian is asking is whether the police are really in control.
Consider armed robbery for example. The r absence of street names means that when a person is attacked by an armed robber, their location cannot be accurately be communicated to the police.
The police should be able to check within the shortest possible time where exactly the victim is for quick response.
If street naming had been intensely pursued, the information provided by the potential victim could be fed into the system which could then immediately show on a computer screen, upon query, a representation of the geography of the area where the victim resides including their very own precise location.
It is against this background that ZICTA has prioritised the development and implementation of the national address and postcode project.
The project is expected to be of great benefit, not only to the delivery of postal and courier services that are regulated by ZICTA but also positively impact the response to fire, police and ambulance emergency services by various wings of government.
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