www.iteco.ch/Mobility/Project Selection/Roads Sector Support Programme - Tanzania/Local resource based works - Tanzania

Local resource based works - Tanzania

A principal objective of the Road Sector Support Project is to improve knowledge and increase use of ‘local resource based technology’ – DRSP’s improvement of ‘labour based technology’.

The project has worked from both ‘bottom up’ in training contractors and village groups and ‘top down’ through advising and developing policies for TANROADS, Ministry of Works and Presidents Office Regional Administration and Local Government. The LRBW process is designed to promote use of the most appropriate level of labour use, replacing equipment where this is economical for the contractor, where it can provide long lasting road interventions and, at the same time, best address poverty reduction by providing sustainable jobs.

 

Representative Results

  • 200 km of roads improved within labour based contracts.
  • On-the-job training for local contractors in 15 road contracts including development of pricing, labour organisation and improved construction techniques.
  • Some 280,000 worker-days generated.
  • Around 2,400 jobs created.
  • Approximately 35% of total costs directly paid out to local labour.
  • Works on both road maintenance and improvement schemes.
  • Optimum mixture of labour and equipment developed.

Important Findings

  • The project is demonstrating how a focussed approach is able to generates a remarkable number of meaningful job opportunities for the rural poor and make a direct injection of cash to the local economy.
  • Directly confronting existing and wrongly based traditional equipment based road-works design and construction management dogmas and technologies.
  • The project is forcing introduction of community based maintenance to use road infrastructure to empower local communities and change attitudes and ensure involvement of rural populations in management of their future.
  • Knowledge of how to address rural poverty by maximising use of labour to replace machines requires technically and economic knowledge and passing on knowledge of each element to government engineers, to design consultants and to road contractors who each are both conservative and deeply intimidated by confronting tradition and practices even when they know it fails to deliver.