(First published in Polestar)

Agriculture is an integral part of each school day in Tanzania. Through it the children learn self-reliance.

At a signal from the headmaster the class stands up. It is Monday and about twenty e1even-year-01d boys and girls wait quietly in front of wooden benches. To one side maize cobs are piled high and I notice a bundle of white cotton. The children have grown these on the school “shamba” or plot of land.

The cotton will be sold to buy materials for the school and the maize will be eaten. There are no school meals provided by someone else. If the school. or village do not produce food, then there is none.

The children learn the skills of farming and gain experience by helping to decide how to use the money for the good of the school as a whole; for new writing books, pencils or pens, a coat of paint for a classroom, another blackboard or repairs to the roof.

Ninety per cent of these children leave school at the age of fourteen but they will face no gigantic leap into the world of work. They have been working as they learn and are familiar with the kinds of decisions they will have to make as adults.

Only the scale of those decisions will have changed. Proceeds of cash crops, which in this particular village of Lukobe are cotton, sunflowers and castor oil, may be invested in a well, or inoculation of the livestock against tsetse fly, or in improvements to a local road.

Ten days later, we are in the fertile North. Two secondary schoolboys have left their lessons to conduct us round their school farm.

The maize stands tall and green, quite unlike the parched, yellow stalks in the arid plains below. Coffee bushes are dwarfed by the peppering of giant shade trees needed, even in this lush hill district, to keep the fruits cool.

In an adjacent field is a small nursery garden where seedlings are nurtured. Many of these have died, explains one of the boys ruefully, because during the summer holidays no one watered them. Across the track, is a small herd of cattle, about half a dozen, and a wooden enclosure built by the pupils.

Like all secondary schools, this is for boarders. It lies in Lyamungu in the northern hills of Tanzania approaching Mount Kilimanjaro. The academic standards are high. All instruction is in the medium of the pupils’ third language, English (Swahi1i being the second language and a tribal tongue the first).

From 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., apart from a break at 11 o’clock for porridge, a European style curriculum is followed. From 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. each day all pupils work in the farm.

They are fifteen per cent self-sufficient at present in terms of food production and cash income from the sale of coffee fruits, and are aiming at twenty-five per cent self-sufficiency in the near future.

School and work in Tanzania: a pile of maize and a bundle of cotton in a primary school classroom in the desperately dry interior; a fully-fledged coffee farm and small-holding at a secondary school in the fertile North. Both indicate a means of offering every child the dignity of work that makes an actual contribution to their country.

Sally Simpson.

The United Kingdom Development Programme in Tanzania: statement by the United Kingdom High Commissioner in Tanzania.

British Aid to Tanzania, all of which is in the form of grants, is provided under three main headings:

(1) Technical Cooperation is provided under a Technical Assistance Agreement signed in 1975. This envisaged an expenditure of £1 million a year but present expenditure is substantially in excess of this figure. At present we have about 25 Technical Co-operation Officers fully funded from UK and approximately 75 supplemented staff at the University and with ex-East African Community organisations such as the Harbours Corporation. It is expected that the TCO figure will double next year with the influx of experts for integrated regional development projects in Mtwara, Lindi and Tabora Regions. Training courses for Tanzanians 1n Britain are provided under an annual Training Grant. The Training Grant for 1977/78 has been estimated at £780,OOO, £521.000 of which will be for (about 200) new awards.

(2) Programme Aid. i.e. aid to finance imports from Britain to ease the balance of payments problem, has been allocated as follows,
– Grant (No.2) 1975 £2.5 million
– Grant (No.l) 1976 £5.00 million which was supplemented by a further £2.00 million specifically earmarked for railways
– Grant (No.l) 1977 £3.5 million.

(3) Project Aid has been allocated as follows:
– Grant (No.l) 1975 £10 million
– Grant (No.2) 1977 £25 million

The following projects have been identified:
– Farm Purchase. Approximately £1 million for purchase of a number of British-owned mixed farms in West Kilimanjaro for transfer to ownership of the National Agriculture and Food Corporation. Completed.
– West Kilimanjaro Re-equipment Project. £1 million over a period of 6 years for new equipment for the above farms. Initial order now placed.
– Dodoma Village Water Supply. £285,000 for providing clean water to 7 villages in the Dodoma region. Consultants now to be appointed to supervise implementation.
– Tabora Rural Development Project
(i) Roads Component. £2.47 million plus £364,000 Technical Assistance. Consultants have been appointed.
(ii) Land Use Planning – Technical Assistance of £1,405,000. The first members of the team hope to arrive in January 1978.
– TAFICO (Tanzanian Fisheries Corporation) – purchase of 3 fishing vessels. Original allocation of £110,000 increased to £160,000. Vessels have been ordered and should arrive early next year.
– Training for Maji (Ministry of Water) – Original estimate for £92,OOO for buildings, equipment and tools increased to £120,000. An advance order of equipment has been placed and a TCO Training Officer is awaited.
– Grain storage – Seasonal. £873,000 for construction of two go-downs at Songea and Makambako. Tender of construction firm recommended by the Consu1tants was above the cost budgeted for and London’s authority to increase the allocation is awaited.
– Grain storage – Strategic. £4,863,000 for 30,000 tonnes of storage capacity at Dodoma and 10,000 tonnes of storage capacity at Shinyanga to be built by 1979. Subject to a review of requirements by both Governments a further 10,000 tonnes of storage capacity should be completed at Shinyanga by mid 1981.
– Upgrading of Songea-Makambako Road. Pre1iminary consultancy under way and final decision on UL contribution to be made early 1970.

Southern Regions Plan Support. It has been agreed that in future British development projects will be concentrated primarily in the southernmost regions of Lindi and Mtwara. A team of plan support officers will be recruited to reinforce existing regional planning capacity, and it is our intention that this team will at the same time help to identify a succession of capital projects for UK funding.

The management of children with chronic handicap is costly and resources for the care of these children in Tanzania is limited and therefore facilities are minimal. It is estimated that of a thousand life births in Tanzania over 150 will die during the first year of life. Many more will have chronic debilitating illnesses requiring long term care. The correct approach for Health Departments must be to prevent the diseases in children which cause these conditions and also provide appropriate maternal and child health services. This is being done in Tanzania. However the number of children with chronic handicap is not likely to decrease in the near future and these children cannot be ignored.

Although little is known of the full extent of the problem, in this short article certain aspects of chronic disabi1ity in Tanzanian children will be considered with suggestions for management and prevention through provision of appropriate services.

The Handicapped Child
Handicap in the Tanzanian setting is commonly not due to irreversible impairment of bodily function but to continuous exposure to the environmental hazards of infection, malnutrition, social deprivation and ignorance. It is the failure to eliminate these preventable hazards which causes the disability in so many children. The children that survive these hazards are much more likely to suffer growth retardation, developmental delay, intellectual stunting due to lack of stimulation, und the malaise of chronic disease. This form of handicap is common.

However, children with irreversible physical and mental handicaps, are much more vulnerable in this threatening environment and are particularly susceptible in the neonatal period and during the first year of life.

Information on congenital abnormality is scattered and incomplete. Hamza and Segali describe extra digits, hare lip and cleft palate and spina bifida as common abnormalities. 5% of the admissions to the neonatal ward at Muhimbili Hospital during 1974 were congenital abnormalities. 28% of c1ei1ths in the neonatal ward in 1974 were due to congenital abnormalities. In 1975, 4% of the deaths in the neonatal ward at Muhimbili Hospital were caused by congenital disease. The difference between the rates in 1974 and 1975 was probably due to a change in the selection of children admitted to the neonatal ward. Hospital statistics provide only very limited information but epidemiological data on the incidence of chronic handicap in the community are not available.

In ‘The Young Child in Tanzania’ an estimate of the amount of handicap in Moshi District is described (1). (The Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre is in Moshi.)

“The number of disabled children in the district is not known but almost every secondary school girl had noticed a few cases in her village. From villages of 100 – 200 households, up to five handicapped were often reported. At Kilema Parish, the parish priest knew 12 mentally handicapped children, 7 epileptic children and 9 lame children.”

The whole of Kilema would have fewer than 5,000 children under seven years of age and a small percent of these children would be known by the parish priest. At Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC), 188 children with handicap were registered in 1972. Of these, 109 were multiple handicaps, 44 had feet deformities, 22 were polio cases, and 10 had hearing and speech problems. At KCMC 1% of newborn babies were discharged having shown cerebral depression for more than three hours after birth. In 1975 at KCMC, 68 congenital abnormalities were noted among 766 children admitted to the neonatal ward. In order of frequency the most common were talipes, spina bifida, cleft lip/cleft palate and Down’s Syndrome.

There is no reliable information available, but it is likely that the more severe congenital abnormalities such as spina bifida and hydrocephalus do not survive since there is no treatment available. Any neonatal condition which interferes with breast feeding is likely to prejudice the survival of the infant. Thus any neurological deficit which prevents the infant suckling or any physical abnormality such as cleft palate is likely to be a major hazard to the child. Twins so often die due to failure of the mother to provide sufficient breast milk. This leads to bottle feeding and almost inevitably to gastro intestinal infection which carries such a high mortality.

The incidence of chronic ear infection und nutritional and infectious eye conditions in the out-patient clinics and in hospital indicate the likelihood of significant hearing and visual deficit in children in the community.

Severe cerebral palsy is relatively uncommon in Tanzania compared with U.K. since these children fail to survive the first year of life. Paralytic polio cases, on the other hand, are more commonly seen since this affects children later when they have passed through the early hazardous years. Those that survive polio with paralysis present long standing social and medical problems. Polio is endemic in Tanzania, and it is common to see children with the physical stigmas of paralytic polio. Many of these children and adults are found amongst the beggars on the pavements of the towns in East Africa. The age of onset of polio is lower in developing countries and affects the pre-school child.

Epidemics of paralytic poliomyelitis in the developing countries of the tropics and subtropics have shown a three-fold increase in the past ten years. In neighbouring Uganda, the number of severely paralysed patients with poliomyelitis is about 3 per thousand and the total number with residual paralysis following polio is nearer 9 per thousand. The pattern in Tanzania is likely to be similar and poses an enormous problem.

Huckstep summarises the fate of the untreated child with chronic Poliomyelitis, the reason for treatment and the aims of rehabilitation In a developing country. (2)

“Death before maturity is the usual fate of the untreated crawling crippled child in developing countries. Most children with poliomyelitis, however, when upright and walking with supports, or following operation, are accepted by the community, educated by parents and relatives and employable when they reach maturity.

It is more economic to prevent 100 polio cases than to treat one hopelessly crippled child. It is often quicker to straighten 100 deformed limbs by simple subcutaneous operations, than to treat a single patient by complicated procedures. It costs less for 100 crawling paralysed children to walk in simple locally made calipers and clogs than for one patient to be mobile in expensive imported appliances and boots. It is essential to educate or rehabilitate patients in addition to making them mobile. The final aim should be a patient returned to his own village or town, accepted and integrated into his own community, and earning his own living among his friends.”

Provision for the Handicapped
Facilities for children with chronic handicap are meagre but provide a valuable although extremely limited service. Most of the centres are supported by voluntary agencies and receive more or less help from the Government. There are no institutions catering for the pre-school child.

The rehabilitation centre in Dar es Salaam has beds for about 35 patients, adults and children. In March 1976 there were 16 children from 5-15 years and 14 adults. The majority of patients were old polio cases who required appliances (shoes, calipers and crutches) or surgery for contractures. There were two cerebral palsy patients, one talipes and one amputee.

There is one voluntary expatriate physiotherapist who attends the unit every morning and a nursing sister who organises the medical care. The orthopaedic surgeon is busy with acute surgery and so the waiting list for these patients is long. Many patients come from hundreds of miles for treatment. The turnover of patients is slow and the length of stay is three to four months. There is a workshop run by a trained technician who makes and fits simple appliances. These are supplied to other hospitals and centres.

At KCMC there is a modern and extremely well equipped workshop and training school where appliances and prosthesis are made for the handicapped. It is run by an enthusiastic expatriate at present, who is training a Tanzanian to take over. This centre is one of the most modern and well-equipped in East Africa. It provides appliances for other centres in Tanzania and Kenya. Within the hospital a small physiotherapy and occupational therapy unit treats children with cerebral palsy and old polio cases.

The Salvation Army Centre, Mgulani Dar es Salaam, runs a hostel for school children with physical handicap which takes 193 children who are almost all polio cases. The hostel is attached to a Government school and the handicapped children are integrated with normal children. In all two thirds of the children attending the school have handicaps.

There are training centres for the blind in Tabora, Masasi and Dodoma but these include blind adults. There is also a training centre for the deaf in Tabora.

In Handeni in Tanga region, St Francis Mission Hospital, Kwamkono, has a hostel and school for 43 children with old polio. The technician who is a local carpenter, makes very effective and cheap appliances from local materials. There is a smaller similar centre in Masasi in southern Tanzania.

With the limited facilities available for the handicapped it must be assumed that the majority who survive live in rural areas and are accepted by the family and village community. There are many taboos associated with handicap and the fears of the family and community must be allayed with sympathetic education. Integration of handicapped children into family and village life is likely to be the only satisfactory arrangement for the majority of children in Tanzania for some time to come, and every effort should be made to facilitate this by education and support from local medical personnel and auxiliaries.

The Government policy is to ensure that parents are given as much support as possible in managing handicapped children and that facilities are available for education, treatment and long-term care. Collection of reliable data on the patterns of handicap is required so that the right provision can be made for these children. Also anthropological studies on how children have been integrated into the family and village life when no special facilities are available would be helpful in planning a service. The medical services are likely to have the most significant effect on chronic handicap in children in Tanzania by concentrating their efforts on prevention and in this respect the development of a maternal and child health programme is important.

Maternal and Child Health Services
The importance of providing maternal and child health (MCH) services has been widely accepted throughout the world. The social, medical and educational benefits are known to have an important and lasting effect on the welfare of families and therefore the nation. In Tanzania there has been a recent reorganisation of maternal and child health services to provide a more efficient, standardised service. In the past there has been a division between services for mothers and services for children. This has meant that a pregnant mother with a toddler had to attend different clinics on different days and probably had to travel a long way for each visit. The reorganisation will bring the two services together in one clinic and it is planned ultimately to have a basic MCH team at dispensary level.

Maternity Services
Approximately one quarter of the total population of Tanzania are women in the reproductive age group 15-45 years. The maternal mortality rate is about 27/1,000 and the majority of deliveries occur at home, although there is evidence that about 75% of women attend antenatal clinics at least once; the average number of attendances is 3.8 per pregnancy. About 35% of women have institutional deliveries whether it is at a large teaching hospital or in a rural dispensary. There is no domiciliary service and postnatal services at present are limited.

Family Planning Services
The family planning association of Tanzania (now UMATI) originally introduced a service in Tanzania to meet part of the need. Family planning is now an integral part of MCH activities. UMATI continues to provide clinical services but increasingly organises training and information services.

Child Health
In 1969 children attending health clinics were estimated as 13% of the country’s pre-school population. These clinics were organised as the so-called “under five clinics”, providing curative and preventive services with mother receiving health education. Although these should ideally run in conjunction with antenatal clinics and family planning clinics, often this was not possible because of lack of trained staff or unsuitable premises and equipment.

Reorganisation
The aim of the reorganised MCH service is to provide a multipurpose clinic for mother and child. It incorporates all the benefits of the under five clinic with the added advantage of on-the-spot antenatal and postnatal provision and family planning. Children are weighed, immunised, examined, treated, given prophylaxis and mothers are given advice. Women receive antenatal care, prophylaxis, immunisation, postnatal care and family planning advice and treatment. This combined approach works very well and cuts down duplication of work and also travelling for patients and medical staff.

Mobile clinics are well suited to maternal and child health work. One land rover can carry equipment and personnel sufficient to provide a very satisfactory clinic. One such team provides an important service to a village on the higher slopes of Kilimanjaro. The driver acted as an important member of the team, registering new patients. A useful illustration of the relative cost and difficulty of travel is the cost of an avocado pear in this village on the higher slopes of the mountain, compared with the cost in the market in Moshi 15 miles away in the valley. £1 would have bought 150 avocado pears in the village and only 15 in the market. The mobile clinic took about one hour to get to the village from the hospital whereas it would take a mother and child at least four to five hours.

The standardisation of equipment and methods of running MCH services is another advantage. The universal use of the “road to health” charts as described by Morley and adjusted for local conditions is one innovation. Standard record forms for collection of data are used at all clinics and information is returned centrally for analysis and evaluation.

The Ministry of Health has established a central MCH Unit under the Director of Preventive Services although the maternal and child health clinic is designed to provide both curative and preventive services. This unit is responsible for the administration of the national programme, setting up training schemes, data collection and evaluation. It co-ordinates the supply of refrigerators, vaccines and appropriate equipment for the clinics. Initially four zones were established and based on Mwanza, Kilimanjaro, Dar es Salaam and Mtwara. In 1976, two of these zones were operational. Each zone has a co-ordinator responsible for liaison with regional medical officers and the regional development teams. The regional administration which, with the present plan for decentralisation of Government, has the responsibility to develop WCH services, co-ordinates district provision. Fourteen training schools for MCH aids have been established and the trainees have completed primary school and are taught all aspects of maternal and child health. It is an 18 month course and at one such training school in Bagamoyo, the first year intake was 36. The MCH aid will ultimately replace the rural midwife and at the dispensary level the team will be – rural medical aid, MCH aid and health auxiliary.

Poor communication is one of the main obstacles to development, and it is the difficulty that health teams have travelling to rural communities or patients travelling to clinics that most hinders the provision of health services. Vaccines must be kept at low temperatures and the logistics of getting viable vaccine to a patient in a rural area are enormous. UNICEF refrigerators have been supplied to assist the Tanzanian MCH service. These are run on paraffin which has to be available at the rural dispensary. There is evidence that the refrigerator takes several hours to reach the required temperature once the door has been opened for a short while. This may damage the vaccine and at present there is no simple way of detecting if the vaccine is satisfactory.

Mobile units require vehicles which are well maintained for the rough roads on which they must travel and petrol must be available. The present economic problems of the western world have put an enormous strain on developing countries and in Tanzania medical personnel are having to restrict their travelling simply because the health service cannot afford it.

Nutrition Rehabilitation Units
An important aspect of maternal and child health is the management and prevention of malnutrition. These units are usually linked with a hospital paediatric ward and children who have been admitted to the wards with malnutrition are discharged from the ward to the rehabilitation unit with their mothers. Here they stay about two to three weeks and are exposed to health education in a very practical way. Mothers are taught the importance of balanced diets for their children, how to grow suitable foods and rear chickens for meat and eggs, etc, and how to cook the food using traditional methods. Home economics, family planning, maternal and child care are also taught. The idea is that this will prevent the parents returning with other malnourished children, since it is not so much a lack of available food that causes malnutrition amongst under-fives but the mothers’ ignorance of the correct diet for a child. The hope is that these mothers return to their villages and pass on what they have learnt. A more profitable way of disseminating information is to admit mothers who are looked up to in the community and who have healthy children and to teach them so they may return as teachers to their villages.

Discussion
Introducing the second Five-year Plan in 1969, President Nyerere said:

“Giving birth is something in which mankind and animals are equal, but rearing the young and especially educating them for many years is something which is a unique gift and responsibility of men. It is for this reason that it is important for human beings to put emphasis on caring for children and the ability to look after them properly, rather than thinking only about the number of children and the ability to give birth.”

This has been a much quoted statement but it emphasises some important points. There is a rejection of the old tribal law of acquiring status and wealth by proc1ucing a great number of children and an affirmation of the importance of responsible parenthood and the need for the protection, education and care of children. Implied in this statement is the importance of healthy mothers in giving birth to heal thy children and the need for family planning services.

In a large country with a scattered population and poor communications, a service that reaches the population, who live largely in rural areas, must be integrated with village life. Tanzania is made up of a large number of tribes with different customs and languages. Swahili is the national tongue but the second language for the majority. Therefore the Government policies have aimed first at developing a national identity to ensure political stability within the country and secondly rural development at village level.

Change has come rapidly to Tanzania and this can be very disturbing to any society. The development of a road can transform a remote village and the improved communication can bring with it education and an improved social environment, but also it brings all the painful changes of development. The development of health services in Tanzania has been, up until recently, more concerned with curative services despite the regular reports emphasising the need to develop preventive services.

The Government has recognised this need for preventive services and also the importance of healthy educated children to the country’s development. Looking at the mortality and morbidity of childhood, the majority of acute and chronic handicapping disease in Tanzania is preventable. Improved nutrition, clean water supplies and immunisation against common diseases would transform the pattern of disease in children. Within strict economic limitations the Government has introduced a maternal and child health service which should have a significant impact on the nation’s health. The policy of setting up ujamaa villages and self-help schemes should greatly enhance the development of the service. Also the decentralisation of Government enables the people to plan priorities at village level.

Improvement in child health services will only slowly affect the number of children with chronic handicap in the country. Provision for such children in western countries is criticised as inadequate, and to provide anything like an adequate service in Tanzania is impossible in the near future. In UK the emphasis is on supporting the family to care for the handicapped child and where possible integration into normal schools and a normal environment. • In Tanzania a similar approach is needed; support within the family and the village, by augmenting the traditional form of management of these children with appropriate education medical care and simple rehabilitation techniques. It has been shown that a great deal can be done to help the physically handicapped at village level by providing simple aids and prostheses made from local materials. The removal of fears and taboos related to the handicapped will also improve the quality of their lives. It is likely that the MCH aid will be the key person at village level to support and guide parents so that the child can be given every opportunity to develop his full potential.

There will still be a place for residential care for the more severe problems, particularly in the urban areas. Again residential schools to teach particular skills to children with specific defects (e.g. blindness) will be necessary, but it is essential to maintain family contact to ensure rehabilitation of the child to a sympathetic environment.

The dilemma for the medical worker in a developing country is to know how best to use his skills and time. Medical problems surround him and urgent problems are always requiring his attention. What helps him understand and appreciate the medical priorities is reliable information on disease patterns within the community and also a constant evaluation of the work he is doing.

Epidemiological studies of morbidity and mortality pinpoint the common problems in the community and are an essential adjunct to providing a relevant and practical service, particularly when the economic restrictions are so great.

Within the reorganised MCH programme there is a system of data collection in a standardised way which will be analysed and evaluated centrally. This will be an important “barometer” on which to measure the services’ strength and weaknesses.

It is important that the provision of medical care and the development of services for mother and child should build on the positive aspects of traditional family life and in order to make a developing service acceptable to the population, more social and anthropological studies are required. In this way modern medical techniques will augment the valuable aspects of traditional maternal and child care which have developed over the centuries. This must be emphasised since it is becoming common place in many countries throughout the world to see the steady drift of populations from the traditional rural setting to the ever growing slums and shanty towns of the cities. In this sort of environment important, well established traditions of family life break down and this can do untold damage to the developing child. What appropriate medical care can provide in Tanzania is a gradual manipulation of a threatening environment to provide a greater potential for the normal and healthy development of children and through them a richer cultural development for the nation.

Peter Christie

References
(1) “The Young Child in Tanzania”, A report on a study of the young child from conception to seven years: Tanzania National Scientific Research Council, 1973.

(2) “Poliomyelitis” by R.L. Huckstep (Churchill Livingston, 1975)

A copy of the full report on which this article is based and a full list of references may be obtained from the author, Dr. Peter Christie, The Wolfson Centre, Institute of Child Health, Hecklenburg Square, London WC1.

It would be useful if this Bulletin were able to offer every six months an integrated summary of the current situation in Tanzania. This issue certainly does not aspire to do so. It consists of five segments. It begins with Tanzanian statements on the Rhodesian issue. It continues with an article about the need for new techniques of building houses in Tanzania’s villages. The contrast is deliberate. Tanzania operates with effect on the scale of world affairs but much of the crucial change and planning for change happens at the very local level and in regard to the fundamentals of village life. The third section is a digest of Tanzanian news, which moves in the same way from the overall economic position of Tanzania and its foreign policy to planned change at the village level. Then comes a fourth section reporting on life in the rural areas from the perspective of an Anglican missionary – a report particularly appropriate in the centenary year of the UMCA in Tanzania. Finally there is a review article on three recent books on Tanzania, each of which does attempt to interpret the totality of the Tanzanian situation and each of which tests its interpretation through its own estimate of what is happening locally.

(Based on an article by Harald Kristiansen of the Norwegian Institute for Building Research in the Norwegian magazine ‘NORKONTAKT’)

The objective of building research in any country in the world is to facilitate the development of a ‘Building Industry’, in the broadest sense of the word. This includes the production of building materials and components, research into methods of work, tools and equipment, structures and techniques, as well as the erection of finished buildings. In this respect, there is no difference between industrialised and developing countries. The major difference lies, not in the aims and purposes of building research, but in the economic circumstances and political framework within which such research must take place.

In the fifty or so poorest countries in the world, a total of more than 2,000 million people enjoy a Gross National Product of less than 300 dollars per head. By comparison, Norway has a GNP of 3,130 dollars, and the USA of 5,160 dollars per head. In Tanzania, the average GNP per inhabitant is only 100 dollars, or 1/30 of that of Norway. In an attempt to raise the living standards of the majority of the population, priority is being given to the development of agriculture, education and public health and there is a conscious effort to decentralise and build-up the economy of the rural areas. All this requires improved communications, the building of schools, health centres and administrative premises, the provision of storage facilities for agricultural products and – last but not least – the provision of good houses that can be seen to be a substantial improvement on present living conditions.

Given the low level of income, such a programme clearly cannot be realised on the technological standards of the industrialised countries. At present, some 10,000 houses a year are built by paid labour, while about 600,000 are constructed by communities working on a self-help basis. The 10,000 houses are to the 1950 standard of the Norwegian Housing Bank. The 600,000 have an average life of only 6 years, being built of organic materials timber, palm leaves, grass – which rapidly succumb to decay and the depredations of termites in the hot, humid climate. The main focus of building research in Tanzania must therefore be to contribute to the creation of houses and other buildings which are more durable and conform to better standards of health; and this can only be achieved by the development of a technology based on local materials and an extension of traditional skills.

Unfortunately, foreign ‘aid’ often has, in this respect, a negative effect. Many donors insist, on prestige grounds, that the building content of aid programmes reflects the technological level of the donor country. European architects and engineers do the planning. They follow instructions, standards, norms and styles coming, for example, from Germany, Britain or the USA, which in turn leads to the importation of practically all building components. The consequent multiplicity makes it impossible to hold the necessary spares and the repair and maintenance, both of machines and buildings, is a constant headache. Such external aid has, on the other hand, few positive repercussions. This building, or that technology, cannot be copied and exerts no influence on traditional building activities.: The gap between them is too great.

These reflections may seem obvious, but they hardly begin to be considered by many European architects who do their design work, either sitting at home, or in the branch offices of their firms in developing countries. Their activities are purely of a business character and result in no diffusion of technology, their architectural style being, in any case, alien to the context in which the buildings are to be erected.

Building Materials and Components
The use of locally available raw materials for building can lead to significant savings in both money and, even more important, foreign exchange. For example, a bag of cement which at the factory in Dar-es-Salaam costs 16/- may, in the remoter parts of Tanzania, cost 35/- or even more. The greater part of the cost (oil for cement production; lorries and fuel for transport) is in foreign exchange. The substitution for cement of chalk found locally would have obvious advantages. This requires, not only a thorough knowledge of the raw materials locally available for building purposes, but also careful consideration of their use in conjunction with the traditions and manual skills available in the areas in which they are found.

Most raw materials cannot be used directly in building but require processing and/or manufacture into various components such as bricks, tiles, boards or windows. Although most such components can be produced with relatively small capital investment, considerable organisation is required, and a number of obstacles have to be overcome, before a National Plan for the development of the building materials industry can be evolved. As the level of activity in the building industry tends to fluctuate widely from year to year, it is important to establish national annual and five-yearly building programmes to ensure among other things, a more stable demand for building products. There has also to be a wholesale distribution system with buffer stocks to facilitate the planning of small or large deliveries of materials and guarantee a stable demand from producers. Finally, as the building industry is accustomed to using imported materials and components, a case may be made for deliberate restriction of imports in order to stimulate the demand for local products. Perhaps in this context the best kind of ‘aid’ is that which, in place of strings to an external market, stipulates that all building materials used in a project must be produced locally and which, where necessary, assists in the establishment of their local production.

Construction Techniques
Building activity resembles a chain. In addition to the local production of materials and components, it is also necessary to develop structures, techniques of construction, and methods of work which make good use of the materials available and are best suited to the prevailing conditions and skills. This demands not only research into foundations, floors, roof construction etc., but also the dissemination of information and the training of local craftsmen, architects and engineers. Written information in the form of ‘handouts’, although important in the longer term as a compendium of technology, is of only limited value in developing countries such as Tanzania, where the majority of ‘self-help’ builders are illiterate. Much greater use can be made of the radio. But perhaps a network of local instructors/ demonstrators is the most effective means of disseminating the message of building research. An organisation along these lines is currently being built up in Tanzania.

Before new techniques can be widely accepted, it is also necessary in many developing countries to amend or replace the existing building regulations, which are often an exact copy of those of the Colonial power. The problem is to produce guidelines that deal with the most elementary questions, such as the building of foundations, sewage disposal etc., while at the same time including the regulations necessary for larger buildings. In Tanzania, regulations are now being drafted along these lines, at three levels – the single, one-storeyed house, the two-storeyed house with more emphasis on load-bearing walls etc., and the multi-storeyed building, involving a whole series of regulations affecting hygiene, safety, security against fire risks, etc.

The Contracting Industry
Many European contractors have now ceased to operate in Tanzania, as they no longer enjoy the privileged position of Colonial times. The role of the contracting industry has, in any case, altered with the Government’s policy of decentralisation. Many small administrative, health and educational buildings spread over the whole country call for a decentralised industry which, at present, simply does not exist. There is a severe shortage, not so much of craftsmen, but of managers and supervisors capable of organising and administering small businesses. In addition, building work is casual and spasmodic; safety precautions on building sites are minimal; accidents are numerous; and there is generally no sanitation. There is clearly a need for a concerted effort to raise the status of workers in the building industry, and to organise work on a continuous and more stable basis. This can only happen within the framework of national programmes for construction. Such programmes will facilitate the analysis of the distribution, use and build-up of manpower resources and materials production within each District. They will also illuminate the need for local technology and show how, and at what cost, one can afford to build. It is only with sound economic planning that the foundation may be laid for a reduction in imports, the development of a realistic building economy and the establishment of a building industry that is locally based.

Physical Planning
Good physical planning requires architects, engineers and planners, all of whom must be in tune with local policies, values, norms, resources, social and cultural organisation and conditions. In Tanzania, those responsible for planning have, in whole or in part, a European background and/or training. A Tanzanian student trained in an industrial country will gain unusable knowledge in many areas. To expect him to undertake parallel studies leading to an understanding of values and norms more relevant to his own needs, to adapt his knowledge to use in quite different circumstances, is to make enormous demands on him. Therefore it is important for developing countries to establish their own training on a local basis as quickly as possible.

Also, the planning process itself, which is at present bound up with a system of training, professional agreements, methods of tendering and public regulations developed in a totally different context, must be adapted and improved.

Conclusion
This article has dealt briefly with a number of problems facing Tanzania in relation to the building industry and physical planning. If one poses the question of the need for research, it transpires that there is a long and varied list of questions to be looked into, such as the exploitation of local raw materials; the production of building components; the documentation of existing technology, and the evolution of a new technology based on local conditions; the development of a local contracting industry; documentation and development of the basis of planning; and, finally, the development of an apparatus for planning which is based on local policies, resources, technology and culture.