PROJECT SUMMAY

PROJECT TITTLE: IDENTIFY AND ACT TO REDUCE RISKS FROM DISASTERS IN TANZANIA

COUNTRY:

TANZANIA

APPLICANT:

OBJECTIVE:

TO IDENTIFY AND ACT TO REDUCE RISKS FROM DISASTERS IN TANZANIA

TOTAL PROGRAMME COSTS:

US $: 49000

LOCATION:

DAR ES SALAAM

TABLE OF CONTENTS
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES ...................................................................................................8 IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY........................................................................................9 PROPOSED BUDGET .........................................................................................................13 TIME FRAME ......................................................................................................................13 References:.............................................................................................................................15

IDENTIFY AND ACT TO REDUCE RISKS FROM DISASTERS IN TANZANIA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This research proposal forms a starting point towards an action research based on the need to support initiatives and activities by city authorities, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Community Based Organisations (CBOs) and residents to identify and act to reduce risks created by urbanisation processes. The need for this action research is based on the growing awareness on the relationships between unguided urbanisation and risk accumulation. On the other hand disaster management efforts are hardly integrated with urban planning and management efforts.

This has made disaster management efforts less effective not only in addressing disaster when they occur but also in facilitating community based efforts in urban planning towards managing risk accumulation processes. This research shall therefore focus at capacity development of local communities and urban councils in the development of risk reduction and management plans and their implementation. Three communities have been identified and will be studied. Through participatory and qualitative research carried out jointly with the communities and urban councils lessons from these three communities will be generated. These lessons will provide a basis for policy dialogue with the intention of mainstreaming urban risk management into urban planning policies. Through that mainstreaming, policy makers, experts and community members can intervene and manage the risk accumulation processes created by urbanization and more important facilitate change of behaviour among urban dwellers. As part of the methodology, two workshops held in Nairobi and Lusaka involving experts in disaster management and urban planning from UNDP, IIED, Provention Consortium, Kenya, Zambia, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, Algeria and Tanzania shared experiences in conceptualising the research. As a strategy for continued sharing of experiences and dissemination of findings, an African Urban Risk Analysis Network (AURAN), has been established. This proposal therefore forms the Tanzanian component of the overall AURAN Programme.

INTRODUCTION Urbanization is a global phenomenon and an irreversible process. While process of urbanisation has been discussed from various perspectives, there seems to emerge a consensus on the variables that constitute urbanisation. First is the demographic dimension which views urbanisation as increasing proportion of urban population in a country. Second is the economic dimension that views it as a concentration of economic activities within limited geographical space, which have been triggered by industrialisation. Third is the spatial expansion of settlements including increasing density. Fourth is the social dimension that involves change in peoples lifestyles for instance consumption styles. Urbanisation processes in most sub-Saharan cities including Dar es Salaam is highly unguided as reflected in rampant changes in land and building uses, settlement development on marginal and hazardous land, unguided densification, urban sprawl beyond existing servicing capacities, deterioration of social services and public utilities, proliferation of informal and poorly serviced settlements, Lack of security of tenure, unemployment and urban poverty. The unguided urbanisation coupled with poor governance systems in these cities has increased residents vulnerability to disasters to the extent that very few communities are able to cope when a hazard occurs. According to UNDP (1992) a hazard is a rare or extreme event in the natural or human-made environment that adversely affects human life, property or activity to the extent. On the other hand a disaster is an event, which causes a serious disruption of the functioning of a society, causing widespread human, material, or environmental loses which exceed the ability of the affected society to cope using its own resources. A number of hazards have a high frequency of occurrence in the cities of the sub-Saharan Africa, including epidemics, flooding, fire, road and industrial accidents. When a hazard for example, cholera strikes in a settlement infecting one or two people is considered as a small disaster. If conditions favouring the occurrence of cholera are not eliminated in time, this health risk may accumulate and cholera spreads over a larger area. As more people become infected, cholera turns into an epidemic and becomes a disaster. The risk accumulation process in health described above can be experienced in other variables characterizing urbanization such as environmental, economic and social. Risk in this study refers to the probability that something bad to happen (disaster) in terms of loss of property, loss of

income, injury or loss of life may happen. For example urban communities living in poor sanitary conditions due to poor or lack of excreta disposal systems or lack of adequate potable water or poor solid waste management systems can easily be infected with different kinds of diseases. In other words the probability of them becoming sick is very high or they have a highrisk exposure factor to diseases. Since urbanization is an irreversible and sometimes a positive development, the issue is therefore how effective are the available mechanisms in managing risk accumulation processes and addressing residents vulnerability to disasters. Efforts by the Tanzanian urban planning system as well as by other actors to manage the urbanization process, for instance through encouraging a more even spread of the national population and their activities into both rural and urban areas have not really been productive, especially in terms of reducing the potential risks to hazards. In Tanzania about 30 per cent of the total population live in urban areas, which constitute an estimated area of less than 10% of the total land. Most of the industrial, commercial and service provision facilities are also located in urban areas. The National Human Settlements Development Policy 2000, shows that, the urban population has been increasing at a rate of 10 per cent per annum for the period from 1980 to 1997. It is unlikely that urbanization will decline. There is notable concentration of people and activities in Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Mbeya and Arusha, which are the four main urban centres in Tanzania. For instance, Dar es Salaam, accommodates about 10 per cent of the total national population and slightly more than 40 per cent of the national urban population. Again due to lack of effective urban planning measures, 40 to 80 per cent of the urban population resides in unplanned settlements, which also lack essential municipal services. In addition to limited services, there is also a notable process of uncoordinated densification in those settlements. In general urbanisation in Tanzania is characterised by un-coordinated spatial expansion and settlement densification, proliferation of informal settlements, deterioration of social services and public utilities, decline in formal employment and increasing role of the informal sector in urban dwellers livelihood. Other features include poor governance, increasing urban poverty and lack of security of tenure. In addition, many urban areas in Tanzania have poor drainage systems,

poor sanitation, lack access roads, poor housing condition and deteriorating spatial qualities. From socio-economic point of view; about 8 to 13 per cent of the urban population is not able to afford sufficient food to meet nutritional standards (Lerise and Kyessi, 2003). The issue at hand is that certain individuals and households in urban areas, are spatially and or socially forced, by lack of governance and the resulting poorly managed urbanization, into high risk areas and thus more vulnerable to urban related disasters. In other words the poorly managed urban development processes contribute to risk accumulation, which threatens individuals, their productive assets and production systems. As argued above and as shown in the newspaper study, more often some of these threats are actualized. There are instances where individuals or groups threatened by a disaster may implement mitigation measures, but rarely in a systematic approach. On the other hand, actions are taken after the disasters have occurred instead of managing the risk accumulation and actualization processes. Those uncoordinated disaster responses not only put those individuals and their properties into a more risky situation but also more people and properties become more vulnerable than earlier. For example it is common for individuals with properties in flood prone areas or where risks of burglary is high to erect walls and fences so that floodwater and thugs are kept away from their properties. In the case of floods, erecting walls around individual properties may lead to accumulation of rainwater and without proper drainage channels, the water volume goes up to the extent it becomes too strong for the wall to cope and thus increasing the risk to more people and threatens a larger number of properties. Likewise, due to poor water supply system, vending of untreated water has become a strategy to mitigate risks associated with income poverty. Those relying on water from vendors may or may not take any precautions to treat the water before it is used. They are thus likely to use contaminated water for domestic purposes. That practice increases the number of urban dwellers who are vulnerable to health hazards such as cholera. It is therefore obvious that individuals or groups operating in the context of the poorly managed urbanization create new risks or amplify the intensity and or frequency of existing ones.

On the other hand, governments attention and concern is more pronounced when some of the risk are actualized in a reasonably large scale, say cholera epidemic in a given city, or floods covering a community in an urban area. The processes and decisions, which lead into these risks and eventually hazards, are hardly recognized as important and consequently they have not been directly part of the urban planning agenda. Thus, the point of departure for the proposed study on urbanization and risk accumulation processes in urban Tanzania, is based on the argument that recognition of the existence of risks and the decisions and processes that actualize them into damages or loss of lives and properties, should be mainstreamed into urban planning policy and practice. Through that mainstreaming, policy makers, experts and community members can intervene and manage the risk accumulation processes created by urbanization and more important facilitate change of behavior among urban dwellers. PROBLEM STATEMENT Urban risks such as those related to health, economy, social and environmental which are more or less frequent in urban Tanzania have not been comprehensively studied in a participatory and integrated approach and documented. Lack of such an information and experience limits the mainstreaming of interventions to manage the risk accumulation process within the urban planning and risk management systems in Tanzania. Processes that generate the existing conditions of risk and vulnerability in urban areas are, if anything, known to planners and decision makers in an isolated manner, yet such processes seem to work together in an integrated way. For instance it is difficult to separate water supply issues from liquid and solid waste management and the overall city layout, vehicular accessibility, population density and governance capabilities at city and community levels. Particular risky situation is an integral part of a holistic and dynamic relationship. Without credible knowledge on this synergy it is rather difficult to effectively manage the inevitable environmental, spatial, social and economic transformations resulting from the irreversible urbanization. The proposed research is justified by the need to monitor the risk accumulation processes in order to reduce the level of technology and resources needed to minimize effects of disasters on

people and properties or in dealing with disaster after they have occurred. By providing more knowledge on the risk accumulation process it is possible to chart out a more effective urban planning and disaster management policies and practices. Potential beneficiaries of the findings from the study are therefore: policy makers and planners, local government authorities, communities and individuals with or without properties in urban areas.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES The main research objective is to encourage and support increased actions by local governments, NGOs and community organisations in urban areas of Tanzania, to identify and act to reduce risks from disasters. The specific objectives are: a) To identify, categorize and map different types of risks facing urban households and their productive systems and the level of awareness among the different actors in urban planning and disaster management. b) To identify conditions and processes, which enhance risk accumulation and possible actualization of risks into small and big disasters. Conditions to be studied include policies, institutional arrangements, household socio-economic characteristics spatial and environmental conditions obtaining in urban areas. c) To identify and evaluate coping strategies among different actors (individuals, households, communities, local authorities and central government) in the context of policies, legal set up and how such coping strategies influence the risk accumulation processes. d) To recommend possible options for managing the risk accumulation processes and at the same time suggest ways of adapting the existing coping strategies and or introducing new ones. e) To propose and implement activities as pilot from which more lessons are generated and disseminated.

IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY Participatory Action Research in three Communities in Dar es Salaam The research will adopt participatory action research approach. Three communities one from each of the three municipalities in Dar es Salaam have been selected through purposeful sampling, guided by the following factors. urban hazards. Readily available information, Manageable size in terms of area and population Active CBO to work with the research team, Conspicuous risks and risks accumulation processes and occurrence of

Vingunguti informal settlement in Ilala Municipality Vingunguti settlement is located in Ilala Municipality. The settlement accommodates more than 2,800 houses built in a lowland area, which covers 32 hectares. Housing density is relatively high, established to be 87 houses per hectare. The high housing density together with lack of proper drainage channels has exposed residents of this settlement to the risks of flooding. Since the majority of people use pit latrines, flooded pit latrines causes overflow of human excreta. Besides, poor practice of people emptying their pit latrines when it rains, s locally known as kututa majior Kutapisha, the seeping water from uncollected piles of decaying solid waste has augmented the problem of poor sanitation condition in this settlement. This condition has exposed residents of this settlement to the risk of contaminable diseases. Effluents of wastewater from the nearby industries are also disposed into the natural drainage channels. This has contributed further to the pollution of the existing natural drains. When it rains, wastewater from industries and latrines spill over the surface causing significant environmental pollution. The highly polluted stagnant water surrounding the buildings and along the roads and paths is a threat to peoples lives, especially children. Stagnant water bas become breeding places for mosquito and also emits bad smell. As a result of this polluted and in-sanitary living environment, Vingunguti is one of the settlements experiencing cholera epidemic in the

Municipality of Ilala. Others are Buguruni and Tabata. In view of this problem, the Vingunguti Miembeni Development Association (VIMIDA) was established in the year 2000 so as to address drainage problems in Miembeni sub-ward. VIMIDA is a registered CBO that has been working in collaboration with other stakeholders but with limited success. THE RESEARCH IMPLEMENTATION PROGRAMME The research will be implemented in three phases within one calendar year. Focus and intensity will differ in each of the phases. Phase One: Preparation and fieldwork The first phase covers a period of four months during which all preparatory activities will be accomplished. During this phase, the research instruments mentioned below will be developed, and applied. The research partners will carefully document specific risk accumulation processes in the community through in-depth interviews, informal discussions, observations and focus group discussions. The main output from phase one is an outline of the risk accumulation process, including a list of the key factors and conditions enhancing such processes. Phase two: Prioritisation of community based risk reduction initiatives The second phase shall cover two months and focus on identifying potential community risk reduction initiatives and prioritise them for support. Among the activities in this phase is a meeting to evaluate and prioritise specific risk reduction initiatives to be supported by this research. The research actors in collaboration with community representatives will work out implementation modalities taking into account available resources and institutional framework. Phase three: Implementation, documentation and dissemination The third phase shall cover six months, where the research team will offer support to the implementation of the prioritised community based risk reduction initiatives in accordance to the agreed implementation approach. The implementation process will be carefully monitored and documented with a view to generating lessons relevant for informing policy change particularly

in mainstreaming the management of urban risk accumulation process in urban governance. Included in this phase is a city level workshop and preparation of the first year report. EXPECTED RESULTS One: Preparation and fieldwork Key stakeholders became aware of the research objectives and support the research process. Research tools and work plans developed and agreed upon between research team and the primary stakeholders. Workshop reports outlining agreed work plans, roles and responsibilities among the research project partners at community level A summary of different types of risks (social, economic, health and environmental) facing various household/family, social/geographical groups in the community and the community. A map showing the spatial distribution of the main risks in the area A table showing different categories of risks in accordance to hazards and vulnerability in the community. Phase two: Prioritisation of community based risk reduction initiatives A description and analysis of a selected number of disaster risk coping strategies (reduction, avoidance, etc.) by households, different groups in the community, the whole community and the municipality. A report outlining the prioritised community based risk reduction initiatives for possible support and implementation by the research project A report outlining the mechanism and plan of action for monitoring and documenting the implementation of the prioritised initiatives. Phase three: Implementation, documentation and dissemination Prioritised community risk reduction initiatives supported and or implemented A report outlining the implementation and lessons for policy changes

ACTIVITIES TO DELIVER THE RESULTS Mobilisation of the research team and training of research assistants Sensitising key stakeholders and resource persons Developing research tools Identification and training of community representatives and agreeing on a community level work plan and outputs. Set up project implementation structure and develop work plan and agree on roles and responsibilities. Action Research (Field work) Community level workshop to introduce the research project objectives, works plan and roles and responsibilities Identify different types of risks and levels of vulnerability in the community, through household interviews Carry out risk assessment and risk mapping in the community Organise a focus group discussion to categorise the risks in accordance to hazards and vulnerability. Prepare a report on the identified risk categories

Phase three: Implementation, documentation and dissemination Support the prioritised community risk reduction initiatives Monitor and document results, outcomes, experiences and lessons from the implementation process Carry out a stakeholders workshop to discuss lessons and inform policy makers Prepare workshop report

Prepare project summary report for year one

PROPOSED BUDGET Items to be covered by the budget include, human resources particularly costs for the research team, costs of participatory workshops and meetings, stationary, maps, photocopying, secretarial services, transport and telecommunications and specific interventions or resources to support the prioritised risk reduction initiatives in the selected communities. Considering these items the cost for the three project phases are summarised below:
Table 1: Budget Summary

Activities Phase one Preparations and capacity building Risk Assessment: Identification, mapping, categorisation Assessing the level of awareness and linking

Costs in US $ 4000 8000 4000

identified risks to disasters Identifying and documenting various risk accumulation process 9000 Phase two Phase three in the community Identify, potential initiatives to be supported Formulate mechanisms to guide the support Support to implementation Monitoring and documentation Dissemination Workshop and report First year report preparation 3000 3000 9000 3000 3000 3000 49000

Total

TIME FRAME The proposed research activities and the expected outputs shall be realised within one calendar year as outlined below. Phase shall be accomplished within four months, while phase two will cover duration of two months. Phase three which include interventions to support the communities in their risk reduction initiatives shall run for six months.

Table 2: Project Time Frame

Activity Date / Duration Draft research proposal discussed with

AURAN Network members in Lusaka Revised proposal finalised and submitted to IIED and UNDP for funding Risk Assessment: Identification, mapping, categorisation Assessing awareness the and level of

linking

identified risks to disasters Identifying and documenting various risk accumulation process in the community Identify, potential initiatives to be supported Formulate mechanisms to guide the support Support to implementation Monitoring and documentation Dissemination Workshop and report First year report preparation May 2010 June 2010 July 2010 August 2010 October 2010 November 2010 December 22010 January 2011 February 2005 March 2011 April 2011 May 2011 June 2011 September 2004 July 2011

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Kironde J.M. L., (1994), The Evolution of Land Use Structure of Dar es Salaam, 1890-1990; A Study in the Effects of Land Policy, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Nairobi, Kenya. Kironde J.M. L. and Ngware S., (eds.), (1996), Urbanising Tanzania, Issues, Initiatives and Priorities, Dar es Salaam University Press, Dar es Salaam. Kombe W. J., (1995), Formal and Informal Land Management in Tanzania, the Case of Dar es Salaam, SPRING Research Series No. 13, Dortmund. Kombe W. J., (1995), Service Provision Governance in the Peri Urban Interface of the Metropolitan Areas, The Case Study of Dar es Salaam, UCLAS-DPU Research Project Report, Dar es Salaam.