Activities in Tanzania

Vision 2025" of the Government of Tanzania aims at achieving access to safe water by 90% (rural areas) and 100% (urban areas) of the population by 2025, strengthening of water resource management capability, etc. The National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty 2 (NSGRP2 /MKUKUTA2) considered the increase of water supply coverage as one of the top priority agenda items. In Tanzania, the Water Sector Development Program (WSDP) had been implemented based on the "National Water Policy" and the "National Water Sector Development Strategy".

Japan, along the lines of the WSDP of the Government of Tanzania, had been putting emphasis on the assistance for improving the access to safe and clean water in rural areas and promoting sustainable and effective use of limited water resource including capacity development of water management by community members in Mainland Tanzania until 2017 with a number of grant assistance together with capacity building activities.

In recent years, JICA puts more focus on addressing urban water supply in Zanzibar, for which JICA initiated its support in 2006, in order to concentrate the resources and intensely implement projects in more programmatic manner.

Water supply services in Zanzibar was launched in the 1920s and the operation of a full-scale water service business, which had standards for water supply service/service connections and regulations for rate system, started in 1935. Upon Zanzibar gaining independence in 1963, the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar (RoGZ) took over the operation of the public water service entity, and by 1982, the water supply for domestic use became charge-free, meaning that the cost burden was shouldered by the national tax.

Nevertheless, when the served population increased and reached 200 thousand in 1990, RGoZ encountered difficulties in expanding facilities and developing new water sources due to the lack of finance. Since then, the quality of water service has declined and been characterized by long durations of water supply failures and low water pressure, mainly caused by frequent leakage due to aging pipes and poorly planned construction/repair/renewal works of the facilities. Zanzibar Water Authority (ZAWA) was established in 2008 for RoGZ to run financially sustainable water supply service with better service quality. However, it still faces both financial and technical challenges including collection of water bill, maintenance, and rehabilitation and expansion of facilities.

Zanzibar Vision 2020, which was formulated in January 2002, aimed at ensuring access to safe water. In order to do so, specific goals were put in place, such as establishing a management system to supply reliable water at acceptable rates, and establishing a system for billing and collecting water tariff efficiently and effectively for all water users.

The population with access to safe water in Zanzibar is 88.3% in rural areas and 98.4% in urban areas in 2014/15 respectively, and 100% access was supposed to be achieve in 2020 (MKUZA III, 2015). However, owing to the low coverage of tariff collection and lack of capacity in facility management, neither of expansion and rehabilitation of the facility was implemented to a sufficient extent. As a result, the water facilities has become aged and worn-out, leading to stagnation of the service level represented by high water leakage estimated at 60%, short water supply hour averaging below 6 hours, etc. In turn, people's willingness to pay for water service remains low, and ZAWA falls into a vicious circle of management performance.

For ZAWA's better business operation as a public water supply entity, Japan assists ZAWA to improve its management capacity and investment in infrastructure, and strengthen its maintenance capacity. In addition, currently Japan is planning on assisting with the water resource management in mid and long run to avoid water salination due to excessive dependence on ground water resources.

Japan will continue to support sustainable and stable water supply in urban areas which is considered as a serious issue, based on the achievement of present and past cooperation.