presents:
FIVE STORIES FROM TANZANIA
© 1998 RADIO BRIDGE OVERSEAS TRUST

A young man has just bought a glass of fresh milk from a kiosk at Shetlango market at a busy junction just outside Dar-es-Salaam. This kiosk caters for people like the young man, who come in for refreshment as well as those who want to use the milk at home.
His parents told him this would be the most nutritious drink, and he observes with repulsion how two American soft drink giants compete with each other next door.
At the junction close by cattle and cars compete for space.

Devangwa Kibaria Maari: "Formerly it was illegal to sell milk other than the factory. But the factory which was started by the government had a lot of problems by the time I started selling milk to the public. I am the pioneer, the first to sell milk to the public."

Dr. William Mchau: "What happened is that most of these frezians from New Zealand were meant for parastatal farms because under the socialist policy the government was so much involved in milk production, milk marketing and so on. Because demand for these animals was so high in towns, some civil servants, by virtue of their position, they could bend the laws so that these cows were written off or rejected from these parastatal farms. They were culled and taken as not productive but they were still very useful."

Name of project: "Promotion of Fresh Milk Supply to Dar-es-Salaam"
Supported by: AustroProject, Vienna
Local partner: AustroProject Association Dar-es-Salaam
Dr. William Mchau
PO Box 31665 / Dar-es-Salaam / Tanzania
Phone: +255 51 666157 or 667969 / Fax: +255 51 666157




Listen / STORY 2 / 06'24"
"How civil servants outwitted the state
Fresh milk sale in Dar-es-Salaam"

The Austro project is involved in organising seminars to teach the farmers and milk vendors on how to manage the milk business. They have facilitated the coming together of the dairy farmers and vendors to form groups to assist each other in negotiations with buyers as well as lobbying for favourable policy. At the moment, they are trying to get government to include the groups in the national dairy board. "This, we have been talking to everybody including the Minister of Agriculture and he has understood that if the government forms a dairy board manned by people who do not know the difference between a cow and a dog then we are in big trouble. We are requesting government not to start it from the top because most systems from the top never work. We want this to come from the bottom and we will have this regulation," says Maari.



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THE RBO PRODUCTION TEAM:

Research & Interviews in Tanzania:
Klaus Juergen Schmidt
Scripts:
Dadirayi Chigoya & Klaus Juergen Schmidt
Presenter:
Dadirayi Chigoya & Shorai Kariwa
Translation in Tanzania:
From Kiswahili & Massai: Dr. William Mchau & John Laffa
Technical Supervision at RBO studio:
Nenad Kuzmic
Administration & Logistics:
Dadiray Chigoya
Managing Editor & Director:
Klaus Juergen Schmidt