Tanzania: Jangwani dreaming: Hope for Dar poor neighborhood as work set to start on slum upgrade
As is the case in many poor urban neighborhoods across the world, Jangwani valley in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, has her tales of filth, open sewers, broken water pipes, dangerously connected electricity and disasters that recur time and again, when forces of nature, like heavy rains, meet the ever-growing population in their vulnerabilities: poor and living in shacks in flood-condemned lands.
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The floods have recurred for years, killing tens, even hundreds of people, destroying property and interrupting business operations in the entire central business district of Dar es Salaam. But a programme spearheaded by the World Bank Tanzania in collaboration with the government and British Development Agency, DIFD, is promising to permanently end the city’s flooding woes.
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The Msimbazi Charrette Urban design framework is a comprehensive multi-stakeholder project that aims to come up with novel solutions and approaches to make Dar es Salaam resilient to the effects of a changing climate, including floods. Consultations, the acquisition of critical data and the creation of strategic partnerships took place over a period of seven months, with exhaustive engagement of all stakeholders, and culminated to the Understanding Risk in Tanzania conference, in which findings, plans and a roadmap were presented in the presence of representatives of all key stakeholders.
The new Jangwani valley as envisioned by the project is a people’s park with a thriving natural environment and a raised solid foundation for development of housing units and business spaces. A key win for the local community which suffered livelihood losses in the form of their small businesses each time they were evicted from the populated urban area. And a win still for the ecosystem, which will not only be kept clean but also in a state in which it can serve its natural role in regulating water levels.
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