Help people to tap local opportunities

By Editor

Editorial Cartoon

It is usual for people in Tanzania to copy what successful colleagues are doing, thinking that they would likewise be successful.


This explains why one can find a series of similar businesses in a street or area. People often ‘copy and paste’ what others are doing thinking that they would also make it. Little do they know that there is more to it than meets the eye.

For instance, it is not unusual to find someone opening a shop or keeping chicken because his/her neighbour has done so, and is seemingly very successful.

However we must also hasten to add that many of the people ‘copying’ are doing so out of desperation to earn a livelihood and make headway in life. Some need to be guided towards opportunities within their localities.

A case in point is that of farmers living in East Usambara. Under normal circumstances, one would have thought that, as inhabitants of an area whose people are reputed for growing tea, they would also have turned to farming of the crop. At worst they would have taken to illegal lumbering as they live next to a forest reserve.

But, no, they have broken from that tradition and are now keeping butterflies for sale abroad instead! We are told that improved farming in East Usambara, Tanga Region, has brought with it great relief to forests and water catchment areas that were being decimated rapidly.

Under the Amani Butterfly Project, villagers now have an alternative source of income from the sale of their daily catch. And it has changed lives in the area in a dramatic way. For instance, they received USD16,718 in 2004 while in 2009 the revenue went up to USD57,150.

Narrating how the income has changed his life and that of his family, one of the villagers Amaniel Mnguruta told journalists recently that he has been able to build a modern house, send his children to good schools and was living comfortably with his family.

The success story of farmers of East Usambara tells us that life in the rural areas of Tanzania is not as bad as many people would make us believe. It is possible to make a difference and get on the path to success of human resourcefulness is fully tapped. And this goes for the more than 2,000 villages around the country, each of which has unique features which residents can exploit to their full advantage.

Many in the ecologically rich areas of our country have largely regarded butterflies, with their rich colour as nature beautifiers and nature’s cross-pollination agents, but not the commercial potential that villagers Usambara East are exploiting.

Tanzania is a vast country, boasting thousands of natural endowments like the Amani butterflies, that hold the key to local progress, if sustainably exploited. It would not be asking for too much to suggest that our researchers should be helping out in such areas that make a difference to people’s lives.

Such projects would not only be sources of foreign currency earnings for the country, but would also earn extra income for people staying in our rural areas. Eventually the projects would offer opportunities for the employment of the army of young people in the rural areas. 

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN