Potential for the Community Economic Development Programme Supporting the Local and Central Government Reforms in Tanzania

The paper focuses on the contribution of the Community Economic Development Programme (CED) run by The Open University of Tanzania in collaboration with the Southern New Hampshire University based in the United States of America in political and economic empowerment in Tanzania. The government of Tanzania in its efforts to facilitate the community empowerment process at both political and economic levels had resolved to institute political devolution and decentralization hence the establishment of the ongoing central and local government reforms. Embodied in these reforms are components such as capacity building and training for realisation of the reforms. Selectively, the study underscores the impacts and achievements in the sectors of capacity building and training through CED. The findings of the study support the contention that the ongoing reform programmes in the central and local government, require some intervention by other stake-holders in as far as capacity building and training is concerned. The study also underscores the levels attained in democratization, governance, empowerment and the degree of participatory practices all of which are objectives of the reforms. The findings of this study are based mainly on seven Councils that include Kilombero, Tandahimba, Mbozi, Rungwe, Babati, Kilwa and Mbeya. Responses from respondents have-to a large extent, thrown some light on the course of action to be taken with regard to capacity building and training. It can be noted that as one of the stakeholders, OUT- CED, has the potential to undertake the task of capacity building and training jointly with other stakeholders who are already involved in such exercises. As a result of this study civil societies and the private sector are seen to have a role to play in the social and economic development of the district and urban council

Influence of Water Fund to Sustainability of Community Managed Rural Water Supply Projects: Moshi District, Northern Tanzania

Water financing is one of the major factors, which determine the sustainability of rural water supply projects in Sub-Saharan Africa including Tanzania. This study investigated how financing aspects affects sustainability of community managed rural water supply projects. The study was conducted in Moshi district Council in Kilimanjaro region, northern Tanzania whereby two different types of management models i.e. the Board of Trustees and the Water Users Associations were used for data collection during the study. Purposeful sampling was used to get a total of 157 community water users who were interviewed.  Six groups of 10 key informants each participated in focus group discussions and 6 key informants were involved in in-depth interviews. These respondents represented a population of 141,386 people in the case study area. The transect walk was also used in the service area to learn about the service level, users satisfaction, quality of water infrastructure, status of water sources, availability of water service at the public toilets, household connections and public water points. The analysis of the findings provided the evidence that water fund collected is inadequate to cover operation and maintenance costs due to extremely low tariff levels, users preference of service level, weak water consumption control measures and power relations between upstream and down stream users. These results conclude that there is a relationship between water fund, sustainability and management of rural water projects. Thus, the ingredients, which can evolve the sustainability of community, managed projects are first the rethinking of rural water financing strategies and mechanisms and second, reviewing the effectiveness of community based management.The study has used institutional bricolage by employing reconsideration of participatory water governance and possibilities to draw attention to local, endemic, or informal institutional approaches that might be adapted to deal with water related concerns by shaping the knowledge, needs, interest and aspiration of rural communities

Hydraulic Rams for Rural Water Supply Schemes in Selected Areas in Tanzania

Abstrac

OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INITIATIVE AT THE OPEN UNIVERSITY OF TANZANIA: CHALLENGES AND LESSONS LEARNED

This paper is one of the six series of studies that describes the process of designing and development of an OER based course titled Academic Digital Fluency for 21st Century Lecturers at the Open University of Tanzania. Through a descriptive research design approach, the study employed documentary analysis (particularly of the proceedings and records from the course development workshops and planning meetings) and review of literature to systematically describe the process of designing and development of the OER course on Academic Digital Fluency. The study has demonstrated that, given the institutional commitment at OUT and the critical role that OER will play in the university, it was feasible to produce five (5) initial drafts of the modules of the OER course on Academic Digital Fluency within the shortest time possible. All course designers worked tirelessly to ensure that the drafts were ready in time for review. On the other hand, the reviewers also played their part very well by providing timely and constructive comments which enabled further refining of the contents and improvement of the courses in order to produce high quality OER course materials before being uploaded into the MOODLE Learning Management System (LMS) of the OUT. However, despite being interesting, the process of designing and development of an OER course is often quite challenging because it is an added load to the lecturers. Furthermore, it demands team work and also to undertake a comprehensive review of literature and the available course materials. The experience from OUT was shared with the ACDE member institutions during the meeting of the Technical Committee on Collaboration (TCC) of the African Council for Distance Education (ACDE) as well as the ACDE Executive Board meeting, held in 14th July, 2014 in Nairobi-Kenya

Tratamento de esgotos sanitários em sistemas reatores UASB/wetlands construídas de fluxo horizontal: eficiência e estabilidade de remoção de matéria orgânica, sólidos, nutrientes e coliformes Domestic wastewater treatment in UASB-horizontal flow constructed wetlands systems: organic matter, solids, nutrients and coliforms removal

Este trabalho apresentou os resultados de um estudo realizado durante 19 meses sobre o comportamento de wetlands construídas na remoção de matéria orgânica, sólidos, nutrientes e coliformes, em unidades em escala piloto de fluxo horizontal, subsuperficial e superficial, com tempo de detenção hidráulica entre 1,3 a 5,3 dias, operando como pós-tratamento de efluentes de reatores UASB (esgotos sanitários). A remoção de matéria orgânica e de sólidos mostrou-se elevada e estável, com eficiências médias de 70, 80 e 60% para SST, DBO5 e DQO, respectivamente. A remoção de nutrientes, após início promissor, mostrou-se instável e aparentemente influenciada pela temperatura. O sistema de tratamento revelou elevado potencial de remoção de coliformes, embora com variações relativamente amplas ao longo do período de operação: &#8776; 2 log10 de remoção de coliformes totais e 2-4 log10 de remoção de Escherichia coli.<br>This work presented the results of a 19-month study on the performance of constructed wetlands in terms of organic matter, solids, nutrients and coliforms removal in pilot scale unities with horizontal, subsurface and surface flow, with hydraulic retention time from 1.3 to 5.3 days, as post-treatment of UASB effluents (domestic wastewater). Organic matter and solids were effectively and consistently removed, with average values of 70, 80 and 60% for TSS, BOD5 and COD, respectively. Nutrients removal, after a promising start up, became unstable and apparently influenced by temperature. The treatment system has also shown high potential to remove coliforms, although with relatively wide variations over the study period: &#8776; 2 log10 reduction of total coliforms and 2-4 log10 reduction of Escherichia coli