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June 11, 2007
Karibu Dar es Salaam
Hello blog readers,
This summer I am working for a microfinance organization called FINCA Tanzania. FINCA Tanzania is affiliated with the American organization FINCA International, based in Washington DC. FINCA Tanzania has been operating since 1998 and has over 37,000 clients across the country. Specifically, this summer I will be doing market research on ways to improve service delivery and customer service to increase client satisfaction. I will be visiting various branches of the bank across Tanzania talking to clients, branch managers etc. to try and get an idea about their experience with FINCA and how it could be improved. One reason that this is an important thing to think about because micro-finance is a competitive market and FINCA is trying to establish itself as the market leader in Tanzania.
Today is my first day and I met Robert (my boss), the chief operating officer, Jason (the managing director and fellow Brunonian) and a ton of other people in the office. I have been trying to learn all I can about FINCA's policies, procedures and products before I launch myself into the field in a couple of weeks. Everything seems pretty straight-forward and clear-cut now, but knowing this city and the way things actually happen, I can only imagine some of the challenges that FINCA loan officers face in actually implementing the policies.
Perhaps a few words on Dar es Salaam are in order. I spent six months here last year and absolutely love this city. Dar es Salaam is the economic, cultural and social capital of Tanzania (although technically not the political capital) and by far the largest city in the country. No one is exactly sure of how many people live here but estimates say between 3.5 and 5 million people. Also, Dar, like many cities across Africa and the developing world, is growing at an incredibly fast rate, perhaps around 400,000 people a year. Dar's growth is fueled by rural-urban migration or people leaving the very difficult conditions of village life in search of economic opportunity and better access to services (such as health and education) in the city. Many of these migrants are men, who leave their families at home. Consequently, driving around the city, you see a tremendous amount of young men everywhere, many just sort of lounging around in the shade and also selling things at traffic lights.
Dar is a bit of a crazy and complicated place. Dar is busy cultivating a cosmopolitan image as a regional hub and the changes are visible almost everywhere. The most notable is the recent construction of Mlimani City, the second largest mall in Sub-Saharan Africa (which is (in)conveniently located down the street from my house). It was finished in November when it only had two big stores and I went back the other day and was totally blown away. Walking into Mlimani City is like walking literally on dusty dirt roads with enormous potholes and piles of trash lying everywhere into any shopping mall in suburban America. They have since added a really fancy cinema, tons of clothes and electronics stores etc. The mall (and other places like it in the city) are really changing people's consumption habits around the city-in Shoprite, they were selling imported fruits in a country that grows of tons of delicious fruit. I saw a little girl and her dad buying all this Barbie stuff.
Maybe the best way to describe this city is an anecdote which some of you have inevitably heard before, but to me, really captures the city. So, when you are riding in a bus downtown, you come out upon the most magnificient vista of the turquoise Indian ocean, the permanently blue skies and bright sun with white beaches and fancy houses stretched out along the bay...Then, all of a sudden, you are hit with the most awful smell in the entire world, like trash, rotting something, low tide....And it never ceases to surprise me when it happens-I am always so taken by the scenery that I am always taken off guard when the smell rudely hits me in the face.
So I gues thats Dar and my job in a little nutshell-I will write again soon once I get a chance to get really into the work at hand.
Posted by Julia Hazen at June 11, 2007 06:42 AM
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