TITLE:
Governance Deficits in Dealing with the Plight of Dwellers of Hazardous Land: The Case of the Msimbazi River Valley in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
AUTHORS:
Joseph Mukasa Lusugga Kironde
KEYWORDS:
Hazardous Land, Eviction, City Flooding, Governance, Climate Change
JOURNAL NAME:
Current Urban Studies,
Vol.4 No.3,
September
16,
2016
ABSTRACT: Hazardous land is given high profile in the Tanzanian National Land Policy 1995.
Subsequent land laws provide for participatory procedures to declare land to be hazardous.
Public authorities have over the years been concerned about the continued
living on a flood-prone Msimbazi River Valley in the city of Dar es Salaam. Despite
adopting carrot policies such as allocating alternative land, and stick policies including
forced eviction and demolition, sections of the population have continued to live
in the Valley. Research on the ways public authorities have dealt with flood-prone
areas, established that legal procedures to declare Msimbazi River Valley to be hazardous
or environmentally sensitive have never been taken, and are not well-known
among officials. Moreover, focus has been placed on valley dwellers instead of addressing
citywide flooding. Paternalism, dealing with market failure and exerting political
authority are considered to be the drivers motivating the government to evict
valley dwellers. It is concluded that the approach dealing with dwellers of floodprone
areas should adhere to legal provisions by, in particular, being participatory;
should utilize available technology to identify, declare and demarcate hazardous land,
should put this land to the badly needed greening of the city; and should address citywide
flooding as a part of managing the city instead of focusing on a few individuals
in a particular hazardous area.