The city’s population growth is estimated at 5.6 percent between 2002 and 2015, which puts it among the fastest growing cities in the world.
A press statement issued yesterday by the World Bank office in Dar es Salaam said that despite the growth, services have not been able to keep up with the rapid development - leading to sprawl, growth of informal settlements, congestion, flooding and constraints to the business environment.It said that IDA credit will improve the key services to address flooding, urban mobility and basic infrastructure in low-income communities.
DMDP will improve the capacity of local governments to better plan and provide services while focusing on the growing need to adopt a metropolitan approach to addressing the region's challenges.
Philippe Dongier, World Bank Tanzania Country Director said that in 15 years Dar es Salaam will be a mega city with a population of over 10 million residents.
“With more than 800,000 new job seekers entering the market every year, many are looking to Dar es Salaam for opportunities. Investments over the next five years are key to help establish the foundations to develop and manage a booming metropolitan area - one that allows enterprises to thrive, create productive jobs, and provides improved quality life to the residents”, said Dongier.
“Given the complex challenges that Dar es Salaam faces, this project respond to both the immediate service provision demands as well as the capacity building requirements for a future megacity”, said Andre Bald, World Bank's Senior Urban Specialist who is also the Task Team Leader for DMDP.
DMDP, which will be implemented by the Prime Minister's Office - Regional Administration and Local Government, has three components.
The first relates to the development of priority infrastructure and will cover roads, flood control and storm water drainage and enhancement of disaster preparedness. The second component focuses on improvement of basic services for low-income communities as well as enhancing their capacity to undertake important works.
Institutional strengthening, which constitutes the third component and which is partly funded by the Nordic Development Fund, aims to develop governance arrangements and systems, local government revenue collection systems, integrated transport and land use planning, operations and maintenance systems and urban planning systems.
DMDP is the latest ongoing urban interventions in which the government and the World Bank have partnered to implement. It will cover 29 urban local governments, improve infrastructure and service delivery against the rapid urbanisation that the country is currently undergoing.
Other projects under implemention are the Tanzania Strategic Cities Project (TSCP), Urban Local Government Strengthening Programme (UGLSP), Zanzibar Urban Services Project (ZUSP) and Second Central Transport Corridor Project (CTCP2).
The World Bank's recent Country Economic Memorandum for Tanzania (CEM 2014) underscored the importance of improving the competitiveness and efficiency of cities in order to nurture greater agglomeration benefits and create productive jobs for the 800,000 young people who enter the job market every year.
Most of these graduates end up in the informal sector to which they are almost permanently consigned, as there are not enough jobs to absorb them in the formal sector.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
No comments :
Post a Comment