Water rights and water fees in rural Tanzania

Abstract

Tanzania is an agrarian country, which ranks 151th out of 173 on the Human Development Index (UNDP, 2002) and 80% of its 34 million inhabitants live in rural areas, where agriculture constitutes their primary economic mainstay. Agriculture contributes 48% to the gross national product (GNP). Physical water resources are relatively abundant in the coastal and highland areas, which receive well over 1000 mm of rainfall/year, but most parts of the drier interior receive less than 600 mm. An estimated 50% of all annual surface runoff flows into the Indian ocean and the large lakes (URT, 2002). However, temporal and spatial variability in rainfall and surface flows is high. Yet, Tanzania’s level of infrastructural development to harness water and to mitigate nature’s variability is still very low, primarily because of the lack of financial, technical and institutional resources to bridge the infrastructural gap. It is estimated that the naturally available land and water resources are sufficient for 2.3 million, 4.8 million and 22.3 million ha of high-, medium- and low-irrigation potential areas in the country respectively. However, currently, the total area under irrigation is only 191,900 ha, out of which 122,200 ha (64%) falls under traditional irrigation schemes (JICA/MAFS, 2003). The remaining 36% are medium-sized centrally managed irrigation schemes, owned by public and private institutions, primarily for sugarcane, rice and tea. More than 60% of energy produced in the country is from hydropower plants located in the Rufiji and Pangani basins, downstream of smallholder irrigators. Other economic sectors that utilize the underdeveloped water resources include livestock, forestry, mining, tourism, industry and fisheries (URT, 2002).