Windhoek hopes to reclaim cleanest city title 

By:

Ludorf Iyambo

The City of Windhoek Mayor, Ndeshihafela Larandja, said in July her office launched a programme called the Mayoral Cleaning Campaign as an effort to try and reclaim the Africa’s cleanest city title.

Namibia’s capital, Windhoek, once regarded as the cleanest city in Africa, lost that title to Kigali, Rwanda, in 2014.  Windhoek current occupies  the 10^th position.

Larandja noted that a dirty environment discourages investment and negatively impacts the national economy.

“That is why I’m saying the fact that the city of Windhoek is declared as a capital city constitutionally and it is a seat of the government,  it is affecting the economy of the country and we lost that position in 2014 already. We kept on sliding back from 2014 until today.  It is a sign that we should all, all parties should come together and clean the city in order for all of us to claim back that position that we did not only lose this year 2025 but since 2014,” she added.

Larandja said the campaign actively involves community development committees, neighbourhood committees, and trained youth volunteers to help clean the city.

She emphasized that maintaining a clean city should be a shared responsibility for all residents.

The clean-up campaign started in Windhoek’s Tobias Hainyeko constituency and is set to continue to the rest of the other constituencies of the city.