UN Chronicle Issue 1 2001: From 'Planning the City' to a 'City that Plans':The Experience of Dar es Salaam

By Horst Rutsch

City planners are realizing more and more that urban development can only be sustained by involving all stakeholders. Residents generally know first which areas need upgrading, private investors frequently know better where and when to invest, community groups often are perfectly capable of managing their own environments, and utility agencies usually develop capacities according to market demands. Since 1992, the Sustainable Dar es Salaam Program (SDP) has been developing such a participatory approach to planning and management of urban growth, and has initiated a number of innovative practices, most notably:

employing the environmental planning and management (EPM) process as a bottom-up approach to identify priority environmental issues;

enabling stakeholders to come together in a citywide consultation to confront common environmental concerns;

mobilizing resources from various partners to support project implementation; and

laying the foundation for informed decision-making by generating substantial information on the environmental status of the city.

Some 70 per cent of Dar es Salaam's revenue stems from petty trading. Photo/Horst Rutsch

The Dar es Salaam City Consultation, held in August 1992, identified nine issues as the most pressing environmental management concerns for Dar es Salaam: solid waste (before 1992 less than 3 per cent of the city's wastes was collected); upgrading settlements (3 out of 4 housing units are found in unplanned and unserviced settlements); servicing city expansion (unplanned growth has left many areas without basic services); liquid waste (less than 5 per cent of the city population is served by 130 kilometres of sewers and about 1.8 million rely upon pit latrines and septic tanks); urban transportation (motor vehicle use is escalating, leading to increased congestion and air pollution); open spaces (urban growth has been encroaching upon public spaces, such as recreational areas, hazard lands, green belts and urban areas with agriculture); petty trading (the informal sector has exploded due to trade liberalization and high rates of immigration and unemployment); city centre renewal (infrastructure is inadequate for businesses); and coastal resources (beach erosion has increased due to conflicting land uses along the seashore).

In August 2000, SDP was integrated into the municipality's operations in the newly formed Dar es Salaam City Council, administratively divided into three municipalities (Ilala, Kinondoni and Temeke) and comprising 73 wards. The EPM process also led to the development of the Strategic Urban Development Plan (SUDP) for Dar es Salaam, which serves as a dynamic framework for developing further strategies and implementing future action plans.

One of the most notable successes, according to Lawrence Limbe, National Programme Coordinator of the Sustainable Cities Programme in Tanzania, has been the solid waste management programme, which focuses on privatization of waste disposal, community waste collection, and refuse recycling and composting. In all areas of the city, waste collection services have been placed under private management, with the city council monitoring the delivery of services. The Programme also aims to create employment and generate revenue for the city. Residents now pay private-sector refuse collectors for waste disposal. However, according to Julius Maira, head of the new EPM Unit, although privatization has indeed increased waste collection efficiency, the contribution from private contractors is still "much below expectations", and support from municipal authorities is still required.

Some of the other action plans have also shown results. In the city centre, the introduction of one-way traffic and metred street parking greatly eased traffic congestion and has created a new source of revenue. Street traders have been relocated to certain market areas. New health boards have been set up to streamline health care service delivery.

One of the strengths of the EPM process is that it allows each city to identify and prioritize its own environmental concerns. In Arusha, for instance, managing land use and clean water supply are the main priorities, while in Tabora it is urban transportation; in Dodoma, improving liquid and solid waste disposal; in Mwanza, upgrading unplanned settlements; in Iringa, managing natural resources; and in Moshi, guiding urban growth.

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