DAR ES SALAAM, January 25, 2007 – A workshop for stakeholders to deliberate on the policy implications of the merging urbanization scenario in Tanzania opens today in Dar es Salaam..
Jointly sponsored by the Tanzania Cities Network (TACINE)1 and the World Bank Institute (WBI), the one-day workshop brings together more than 100 participants from government, development partners, academia, private sector and economic organizations. It will present the findings of a study entitled “The Urban Transition in mainland Tanzania: Building the Empirical Base for Policy Dialogue” carried out by the World Bank in collaboration with the Government of Tanzania, as part of a broader urban review.
“The World Bank is pleased to be a partner of Tanzania’s efforts to ensure that unavoidable urbanization does not result in further marginalization or entrenching of poverty among low-income Tanzanians,” said John McIntire, the World Bank Country Director for Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi.
“The issue we are grappling with is how to better understand and translate the big challenges of urbanization into even bigger opportunities for economic growth and it is our hope that this workshop will shed light on efficient and equitable ways to engage in this agenda,” John McIntire added.
Global urban population has grown steadily over the past few decades and this trend is expected to continue. In Africa, however, rapid growth in urban areas has come with a number of fundamental challenges, including: the increased informal and squatter settlements, inadequate provision of basic infrastructure and services, air and water pollution, high levels of unemployment, increasing levels of urban poverty and the proliferation of the informal sector.
Tanzania’s future economic growth and poverty reduction efforts must be informed by, anchored on and benefit from the significantly higher contributions to national economic growth provided by the higher productivity, higher household welfare, better social mobility, and improved human development generally associated with urban centres.
A stronger focus on urban centres does not have to come at the expense of rural dwellers. More productive and efficient cities will provide effective markets for and service benefits to the rural population in Tanzania, where about 70 percent of the population still live in rural areas. The percentage of Tanzanians living in urban areas will grow from 24 percent in 2005 to 38 percent in 2030, with urban population growth expected to rise at double the pace of the average national population growth. The United Nations estimates that by 2030, more than 20 million Tanzanians will live in urban areas.
[1] Tanzania Cities Network (TACINE) was established in 2007, during the implementation of the Local Government Support Project. Its goal: build modern cities without slums by 2025.
For more information about the project, visit
http://web.worldbank.org/external/projects/main?pagePK=64283627&piPK=73230&theSitePK=258799&menuPK=287367&Projectid=P070736
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