The role of infrastructure in  improving human settlements

04Apr 2018
Editor
DAR ES SALAAM
The Guardian
 The role of infrastructure in  improving human settlements

DISCUSSION is still going on as to whether improving the face of the city of Dar es Salaam ought to have one major component of infrastructure upgrading, basically roads and drainage systems, rapid bus transit expansion and commuter trains - or human settlements must be targeted as well.

There is a rule in solving such issues, that is to pick up what is basic and what is dependent on the other, or what is fundamental and what is auxiliary, and there is no question that infrastructure is basic and human settlements are secondary. One major reason is that settlements depend on improved roads, drainage, sanitation etc so this comes first.

But there is another reason, that while improving infrastructure is by definition a collective task, that it has to be undertaken by the public authorities even if they contract private companies to do the job, the same cannot be said about human settlements. By and large the government doesn't need to plan for land use in that regard but providing guidelines, which also ought to follow in the general tendency of the motion of commerce and habitation, not run counter to it. In that case there is plenty of spontaneity as to what areas become suitable for high rise buildings, jumping over Magomeni, Kinondoni for Hannanasif, as an example.

There are also tensions in some areas in building roads, drainage and sanitations systems where substantial demolition of frontal structures, front parts of houses etc is needed but there is no issue of infringing of road reserve and thus an obligation to compensate exists. When the municipal authorities feel that the cost  is too high, they are forced to provide minimal 'sites and services' improvement, adapting to the situation rather than change it. In the city centre that situation is well known but it is now creeping into the suburbs where it isn't everywhere that demolitions can take place, and definitely, that is for the public good as well.

There is an aspect of infrastructure improvement that doesn't meet the eye, namely the way in which land values tend to shoot up the moment a zone near the city of township is directly reachable by road, or by tarmac road within its vicinity. That enables the place to be joined as part of business expansion or new settlement plans by various individuals, as there is always new capital or savings that seeks to settle in this or that place depending on cultural affinities or business prospects. So the debate is faulty in the first place because it isn't a matter of choosing between infrastructure and settlements but one touches off the other.

Yet for infrastructure improvement to substantially facilitate a change in the human settlements patterns and in progress of real estate as a whole, other enabling parameters need to be there, for instance a dynamic business environment whose key parameters are overall economic growth and rise in money supply. Credit isn't a pivotal element as it is governed by money supply in the first place, and second not all investors rely on credit. When a financial institution is persuaded of the business vitality of a certain idea or project at hand it will provide credit as a way of investing in it; in which case credit dries up for speculative projects that rely chiefly on collateral and banks have little or no confidence in them, and have poor start-up capital.

 

 

 

 

 

The challenge for our farmers is to grow     healthier, more productive plants

 

 

AGRICULTURE is the main part of Tanzania's economy.  As of 2016, Tanzania had over 44 million hectares of arable land with only 33 per cent of this amount in cultivation.

Almost 70 per cent of the poor population live in rural areas  and almost all of them are involved in the farming sector.  

Land is a vital asset in ensuring food security, and among the main food crops in Tanzania are maize, sorghum, millet, rice, wheat, beans, cassava, potatoes, and bananas.

Agricultural products also make a large contribution to the country's foreign exchange earnings, with more than US$1 billion in earnings from cash crop exports.  

The main cash crops are coffee, sisal, cashew nuts, tea, cotton, and tobacco. At one point in its history, Tanzania was the largest producer of sisal in the world.

The agriculture sector faces various challenges and had been the government’s top priority to develop to reduce poverty.

Farming efficiently has been a challenge for many farmers, and lack of finances and farming education has caused many to remain subsistence farmers.

Farm sizes remain very small with the average plot size being around 2.5 ha.

Lack of agricultural technology, droughts, floods, and agriculture temperature shocks  severely endanger the living standards of most of the population and create huge increases in unemployment, hunger, malnutrition and starvation, and diseases rates.

Large declines in commodity prices decrease export revenues, increase trade and budget deficits, and hinder the growth of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). Agriculture represents 32.4 per cent of GDP.

Despite having some of the best agricultural research institutes in Africa, Tanzania is not following best practices that can lift farmers out of poverty.

 Our country’s agro sector may have registered various achievements in fields like research and production of edible oil seeds, but there has been little uplifting of the lives of enough farmers partly because of a lack of formal process in the marketing of harvests.

Tanzania has so far produced nine verities of sesame since it started conducting research on edible oil seeds in the early 1970s.

The country currently produces 1.2 million tonnes of sesame seeds per year making it the leading producer of this crop in Africa.

Many countries have benefited from our research findings to make their farmers richer after putting in place suitable marketing strategies.

We need to have a complete value chain which begins from the farms up to the final consumers ... we need to have official guidelines for marketing groundnuts which will tell farmers what to do. stated.

This will help to safeguard farmers’ interests while also helping the government to keep records on the exact amounts of seed crops produced and sold, he added.

Tanzania produces 1.8 million tonnes of groundnuts yearly, but only a small percentage is actually sold and the bulk remains in farmers’ storage houses for lack of markets.

Data from the Tanzania Edible Oil Association shows that the country spends $230,000 to import edible oil despite being one of the continent’s leaders in terms of research and production of oil seed crops.

Top Stories