COUNTRY
PROFILE - TANZANIA
Geography, climate
and population
The United Republic
of Tanzania consists of the mainland and Zanzibar, which is made up of
the islands Unguja and Pemba. Its total area is 945 090 km2.
The country is bordered in the north by Kenya and Uganda, in the east
by the Indian Ocean, in the south by Mozambique and in the west by Rwanda,
Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia. The Indian Ocean
coast is some 1 300 km long, while in the northwest there is 1 420 km
of shoreline to Lake Victoria, in the central west one of 650 km to Lake
Tanganyika and in the southwest one of 305 km to Lake Malawi.
Land cover is dominated
by woodland, grassland and bushland, which account for about 80% of the
total land area. Cultivable area is estimated to be 40 million ha, or
42% of the total land area. In 2002, 13% of the cultivable area was actually
cultivated, comprising 4 million ha of arable land and 1.1 million ha
under permanent crops.
The climate varies
from tropical along the coast to temperate in the highlands. There are
two types of seasonal rainfall distribution:
- The unimodal type,
where rainfall is usually from October/November to April, found in the
central, southern and southwestern highlands
- The bimodal type,
comprising two seasons: the short rains (Vuli) fall from October to
December, while the long rains (Masika) fall from March to June. This
type occurs in the coastal belt, the northeastern highlands and the
Lake Victoria Basin
The total population
is 37.7 million (2004), of which 63% is rural. The population density
is 40 inhabitants/km2. The vast majority of the population
lives inland, far away from the coastline. Poverty is concentrated in
the rural areas; however, urban poverty has also grown along with rapid
urbanization. The national poverty rate is about 36%. In 2002, 92% of
the urban and 62% of the rural population were using improved drinking
water sources.
Economy, agriculture
and food security
The country’s
GDP was US$ 9.9 billion in 2003, and the value added in agriculture was
43.4% of GDP. The agricultural sector continues to lead economic growth,
in spite of the recent emergence of new high-growth sectors of mining
and tourism, and it continues to have the highest impact on the levels
of overall economic growth. Agriculture provides work for 14.7 million
people, or 79% of the total economically active population, and 54% of
agricultural workers are female. Small-scale subsistence farmers comprise
more than 90% of the farming population, with medium- and large-scale
farmers accounting for the rest.
Main food crops grown
are maize, sorghum, millet, paddy, wheat, sweet potato, cassava, pulses
and bananas. Maize is the dominant crop with a planted area of over 1.5
million ha during recent years, followed by paddy with more than 0.5 million
ha over recent years. The main agricultural products exported by Tanzania
are green coffee, cashew nuts and tobacco that, in 2001, represented about
41% of all agricultural exports. The main agricultural products imported
are wheat and palm oil.
In recent years, the
country is not self-sufficient for cereals, but it is self-sufficient
in non-cereals at a national level.
Water resources
and use
Tanzania’s total
renewable water resources amount to 93 km3/yr, of which 84
km3/yr are internally produced and 9 km3/yr are
the accounted flow of the Ruvuma River, which flows on the border between
Tanzania and Mozambique. Renewable groundwater resources are estimated
at 30 km3/yr, of which all but 4 km3/yr are considered
to be overlap between surface water and groundwater. About 5.7% of Tanzania’s
total land area is covered by three lakes, which also form the border
to neighboring countries.
In the 1970s, 21 small-scale
earthfill-type dams were constructed mainly on seasonal rivers in Tabora
region for irrigation and domestic supply purposes. All except seven of
them suffer from serious sedimentation. In addition to these dams, many
smaller dams exist over the whole land, called Charco dams, for use for
irrigation, domestic and livestock purposes. In general, dam construction
is largely restricted by hydrological and topographic conditions.
Water use
Total water withdrawal
in mainland Tanzania was estimated for the year 2002 to be 5 142 million
m3. Agriculture consumes the largest share with 4 624 million
m3 (almost 90% of total) of which 4 417 million m3 for irrigation and 207 million m3 for livestock, while the
domestic sector uses 493 million m3. Total water withdrawal
of the domestic sector and irrigation in Zanzibar is estimated to be about
42 million m3. Of this, withdrawal on Unguja Island is 33 million
m3 and on Pemba Island it is 9 million m3. Industry in Tanzania
consumes an estimated 25 million m3.
Irrigation and
drainage development
Evolution of
irrigation development
Irrigation potential
is estimated by the 2002 Study on the National Irrigation Master Plan
(NIMP) to be 2.1 million ha in mainland Tanzania, while for Zanzibar it
is estimated to be 8 521 ha. The criteria for this estimate are water
resources potential, land resources potential and socio-economic potential.
Irrigation in the
form of traditional irrigation schemes goes back hundreds of years in
the country. Those schemes have however become inadequate due to increase
in population, wear and tear, catchment degradation etc.
Most of the irrigated
areas are under surface irrigation, mostly used by smallholders. Water
distribution is usually by lined and unlined canals, and furrows and basins
are widely used. Sprinkler irrigation is used by few large-scale commercial
farmers. It is not common amongst smallholders. Drip irrigation is rarely
used. Almost all irrigation water on the mainland is surface water, and
groundwater is utilized on only 0.2% of all irrigated areas.
Of the 1 428 irrigation
schemes inventoried by the NIMP, 1 328 were smallholder schemes, 85 private
schemes and 15 government-managed schemes. About 3% of the total area
is covered by small schemes with an area of less than 50 ha each, while
58% is covered by schemes of over 500 ha each.
Gravity-fed irrigation
schemes account for over 99% of the irrigated area, while the rest uses
pumps for water abstraction.
Role of irrigation
in agricultural production, economy and society
The main irrigated
crops are paddy rice and maize, accounting for about 48% and 31% of the
irrigated areas in 2002. Other irrigated crops account for 44% of the
irrigated areas and are beans, vegetables including onion, tomato and
leaf vegetables, bananas and cotton. From the above figures, the cropping
intensity is 123%. Private irrigation schemes produce cash crops such
as tea, coffee, cashew and sugarcane.
Water management
and policies
Water management
The responsibility
for managing the water resources of the country lies with Ministry of
Water and Livestock Development (MWLD). Water resources management involves
water resources development, water allocation, pollution control and environmental
protection. Before the 1990s water was managed by MWLD on the basis of
administrative regions. Since the early 1990s the emphasis has changed
to managing water resources on the basis of river basins. To strengthen
river basin management, MWLD was implementing the river basin management
component of the River Basin Management and Smallholder Irrigation Improvement
Project (RBMSIIP) in the Rufiji and Pangani basins. The project, the implementation
of which began in December 1996, was intended to deal effectively with
water management problems and improve the efficiency of smallholder irrigation.
Irrigators’ Associations
(IAs), or Irrigators’ Groups (IGs), have been formed from the early
1990s onwards, for example in the Pangani basin. They are expected to
become a main actor in the irrigation sector, representing part of the
private sector. The rights and obligations of these groups cannot always
be clearly and uniformly defined under the present legal framework. A
new legal framework for the IGs seems to be very important and necessary.
Finances
The average share
of irrigation development for the five years 1998/99-2002/3 was 1.46%
the Government’s Development Expenditure.
Policies
The Agricultural Sector
Development Strategy (ASDS), finalized in 2001, focuses on the period
2002-2007 and proposes to apply the principles of integrated soil and
water management, emphasizing the use of low-cost approaches by smallholders
and to promote and support small-scale irrigation.
In July 2002, the
Government issued the National Water Policy, whose main goals are to establish
a comprehensive framework for sustainable development and management of
water resources and for participatory agreements on the allocation of
water use. The Government pulls out of executive functions, i.e. the actual
delivery of the services, which are taken over by the LGAs. Central statements
of the Policy are that “water will be subject to social, economic
and environmental criteria” and that “every water use permit
shall be issued for a specific duration”. This could mean that irrigation
might have to compete with industrial sectors and that the continuous
irrigation water supply might not be guaranteed.
Perspectives for
agricultural water management
The NIMP (2002) proposes
an irrigation development programme that includes only smallholder schemes
and is to be implemented by 2017. The whole programme plans to have a
total of 405 421 ha developed.
A major challenge
in order to improve the irrigation sector is to overcome the following
problems in irrigation schemes, as identified by the NIMP (2002) :
- Lack of appropriate
participatory approaches
- Unsound logical
structure of projects and weak linkage between purpose and output of
projects
- Misunderstanding
of the concept of “simple and low-cost technology”, taken
to mean “easy and no concern of technical know-how and understanding”
- Lack of feedback
system on the lessons learnt through actual experience in implementation
of irrigation projects
- Inadequate guidelines
and manuals in planning, design and construction supervision, and lack
of proper application of them
- Need of effective
support system to WUAs’ (IGs’) activities
- Lack of human resources
and active participation of Local Government Authorities in irrigation
development
The public sector
will gradually but increasingly limit its role to financing the provision
of collective goods and services, including land and water resource utilization
and management. Mechanisms will be developed for private and public sector
collaboration in the delivery of effective support services.
Floodplains, mainly
used for agriculture and notably rice cultivation, are a conspicuous future
in the extensive Maasai and Wembere Steppe, Usangu Plains and the Rukwa
and middle Malagarasi River basins. They are the most promising areas
for the introduction of the pedal pump for lifting up water for irrigation
and fishing farming. Experience has shown that the use of pedal pumps
allows the farmers to irrigate vegetable gardens, the benefits of which
are twofold: i) as an off-farm income generating activity; ii) vegetables
could add up nutritional value to the village community.
Tanzania’s unexploited
natural resource base of 40 million ha of cultivable land, abundant sources
of water and several agro-ecological zones, permits virtually unlimited
expansion and diversification in crop production, and in particular the
development of irrigated agriculture. Such development, especially for
rice and cash crop production, could contribute importantly to stabilize
agricultural production and increase income and is, according to the above,
not likely to be constrained by the supply of natural resources in the
country. However, access to these natural resources may be a binding constraint
in some cases.
Tanzania and ICID
Tanzania joined ICID
in 2000, and has been actively associated with ICID activities at national
as well as international level. At present Eng. Mbogo Futakamba is the
Secretary General and Prof. F.L. Mwanuzi is the Chairman of Tanzanian
National Committee of ICID (TANCID). | 
