www.iteco.ch/Mobility/Project Selection/Roads Sector Support Programme - Tanzania/Beyond road activities - Tanzania

Beyond road activities - Tanzania

District Road Support Programme (DRSP) has incorporated social interventions for development of communities along with its normal support to road improvement. This is to enable the poor of the poorer to also benefit form the road and hence contribute to poverty reduction. DRSP has learnt that without direct actions that help the poor to take advantage of opportunities, the main benefits of improved roads will go to the richer such as transporters, traders, shopkeepers and commercial farmers.

The objectives of the programme are i) to facilitate identification and assessment of development gaps and to mobilise efforts to overcome them within the DRSP area of influence, ii) to create community awareness, ownership and maintenance of projects, and iii) to promote economic activities for communities along DRSP supported road corridors.

 

Representative Activities

  • Support/mobilise people to form IGAs e.g. food vending, small business, gardening and livestock keeping.
  • Facilitate and mobilise people to form savings and credit groups in a form of Village Community Banks (VICOBA) which can provide small capital loans to villagers along the road.
  • Mobilise/support formation of trade associations where they can have power to decide on prices, amount to sell, when and where to sell while usually dominating middlemen offer only exploitative prices.
  • Mobilise youths for productive activities by providing training and formation of groups, encourage them to join IGAs and hence provide them with employment to reduce dependence on their parents, reduce rural-urban migration and theft.
  • Organise and conduct training to communities in relevant areas according to needs.
  • Capacity building of District Support Teams (DST) and villagers to create ownership of the project (the DST comprises government staff from departments of community development, health, district engineers office and planning office.)
  • Link communities and groups to relevant service providers e.g.CRDB Bank, Farmers association, markets, etc.