Zanzibar rehabilitates rural roads with Fund support

Unguja, Zanzibar's largest island, came a step closer to more efficient road transport in June 1998 with the official re-opening of three important secondary roads in its Central District. Under the Unguja Central Roads Project, cofinanced by the OPEC Fund, these roads have been completely rehabilitated, upgraded to double bitumen standard and, on the more heavily traveled segments, widened to two lanes. The project was part of a comprehensive Government plan which seeks to return the main roads on Unguja and neighboring Pemba to an acceptable standard by the end of the decade.

With about 700 km of roads, Unguja has a relatively large road network for an island with an area of about 1,460 km2. Most of the island's trunk and secondary roads date from the 1930s or earlier and were well constructed macadam roads with hand-packed stone foundations. With the onset of economic crisis in the 1970s, the roads began to deteriorate rapidly, and by 1990 only 8-10% were in good condition. Twenty years of insufficient maintenance, heavy rainfall and greatly increased traffic levels had caused severe deterioration. Nearly half of the paved roads and over 70% of the gravel roads were judged to be in bad condition. With only three meters of running surface, the roads were also too narrow by present day standards. On most secondary roads, the safe driving speed fell to 25 km/h or less, and in 1989 traffic growth began to stagnate. The situation on Pemba was similar.

Clearly, the poor condition of the islands' roads had become a serious impediment to social and economic development. To correct the situation, the Government launched the Zanzibar Integrated Road Program with the goal of restoring 65% of the trunk roads and 55% of the secondary roads to good condition by the year 2002. In all, over 290 km of trunk and rural roads on Unguja and Pemba would have to be rehabilitated and upgraded. To ensure better maintenance in the future, institutional reforms were carried out, and a road maintenance fund established.

In July 1992, the OPEC Fund provided financial resources to carry out a feasibility study relating to the Unguja road project. And in March 1994, it approved a loan to help finance the reconstruction of three secondary roads with a total length of 21.5 km. The longest of these roads extends some 14 km from Regeza Mwendo in the south to Mfenesini in the north. The two shorter stretches run from east to west from Mkanyageni to Chuini and from Kizimbani to Bububu, for 3.4 and 4 km respectively. Each road is directly connected to one or both of two previously improved trunk roads, fanning out from Zanzibar city, either north to Mkokotoni or south to Dunga.

The project roads are relatively straight and level. Nearly the entire length was paved, except for a short stretch of gravel road on the Bububu-Kizimbani road, but the asphalt surface was in very poor condition and the roads were very pot-holed over long stretches. In preparation to widening and applying new double bitumen paving, the subbases and bases were stabilized and supplemented, and new drainage structures were installed. The more heavily traveled segments were widened to two-lane roads with carriageways six meters wide and shoulders of one meter each. Less frequently traveled sections were left at the existing width, but the shoulders were widened, partly to accommodate a high volume of pedestrians and cyclists. In addition to the civil works involved, the project covered the costs of engineering services, spare-parts and equipment, land acquisition and salaries. Consumption materials, such as bitumen, fuel, lubricants, cement and steel, were also included.

The project roads serve a rural area with an estimated population of some 64,000 with an annual growth rate of nearly 3.5%. With a population density of over 240 persons per square kilometer, Unguja's Central District is one of the most densely populated areas in Africa. The area has rich agricultural potential, but most people are poor smallholders, farming plots of 1.5 ha or less, and, in most cases, raising not much more than they need for their own use.

Although agriculture is still the mainstay of Zanzibar's economy, it has declined in recent years because of its heavy dependence on the export of cloves, whose world price has plummeted. Long years of fixed prices for domestically grown food have hindered the expansion and diversification of agriculture on the islands. As the islands are not food self-sufficient and must import food, especially rice, the Government is now pursuing plans to promote rice cultivation and food production.

Better roads will make it easier and cheaper for Central District farmers to transport their produce not only to markets in the surrounding villages, but also in Zanzibar city, the island's only significant urban area and its main port to mainland Tanzania and abroad. The improved roads will also increase access to the burgeoning tourist areas along the east coast, where the main roads have already been improved. More reliable road transport is expected to spur agricultural production and encourage diversification, while helping to lower the cost of inputs needed to boost productivity.

In the past decade, thanks to liberalized policies and privatization, tourism has become the most dynamic sector in Zanzibar's economy. The number of tourists visiting the islands increased by over 65% between 1991 and 1996, and, in just two years of that period, tourist expenditures tripled. Growth in tourism and the hotel industry is expected to continue, provided a number of infrastructure constraints can be removed. By improving the roads linking the hotels to the food producing areas and tourist attractions, the Government hopes to encourage further private investment and create the conditions the new sector needs to expand to its full potential.

Although the unusually long seasonal rains attributed to El Niño delayed work on some sections of the roads for several months in 1997, the Unguja Central Roads Project was completed close to schedule. In light of its successful conclusion, the OPEC Fund in September 1998 approved a new loan to help finance the Kidimni-Kitope Road Project, which aims to rehabilitate and upgrade an additional 18.6 km of secondary road in Unguja's Central District.


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