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July 30, 2007
Wanderings in the Haven of Peace
Sorry for the inexcusably long blog silence. Things here are at FINCA Tanzania have been really hectic. I am working with the newly formed Marketing Office. We have been undertaking a market survey of Dar-es-Salaam.
To situate our research within the city’s geography, Dar-es-Salaam is made up of three districts. Ilala is the central district that fans out from the downtown financial district through the city’s busiest market area, Kariakoo, out into a very large stretch of low-income urban, peri-urban and rural districts. Kinondoni is the northern district, which stretches up along the coast. It is by far the wealthiest district and contains almost all of the city’s posh neighborhoods, the university, as well as a cluster of lower-income areas and a fairly large peri-urban area. Temeke, the city’s southern district, is by far the poorest. There is an industrial zone and a port zone near the city center, a wide swath of very low-income areas and a large rural area. To explain more holistically, the richest areas are almost without exception along the coast, the middle class areas form a buffer between the posh seaside neighborhoods and the poorer neighborhoods that fan out into the countryside.
In our market research activities, we are trying to do three things:
1. to get a comprehensive picture of local small business and financial service use
2. to identify areas of potential growth through an assessment of unmet financial needs in underserved areas or populations
3. to assess the competition and FINCA’s relative market position.
To do so, we graphed the concentration of businesses in various areas of the city with information from National Census data against the concentration of Village Banking groups in those areas. We could then have a rough idea of the relative distribution of FINCA clients versus the actual distribution of businesses in the city. Since then, we have been in the field holding Focus Group discussions, conducting brief individual interviews, and talking with local leaders, industry associations and market groups. We have focused both on established economic centers and the newest areas of the city.
Looking at the large map we have one the wall of our office is a bit misleading. This research is particularly fascinating to me because so much of what goes on in this city remains undocumented and disorganized. It is pretty confusing because sometimes one place might have several different names-the name of the ward, the name of the nearest bus stop, the name of the nearest major landmark. Sometimes I go to an area and I literally have no idea what to expect when I get there-guided only by statistics from an Excel spreadsheet and some vague notion of its location on a map. Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised to find a busy market area set amongst farms and palm trees and sometimes I find myself in the middle of a deserted industrial zone. Or worse.... yesterday, I was walking down the street in an area of Temeke listening to two women walking behind me talking about what they would do with the money if they robbed me.
Completing the survey is often a bit trying. Inevitably, whomever I am speaking to will ask me what I am going to do with the information, why I am not writing their name down, and how it will help them. Sometimes, these questions are asked with a fair deal of bitterness as some people are used to foreigners appearing conducting “utafiti” (research) and simply bringing the information home with them, never to be heard from again. After such exchanges, I am acutely aware of the fact of power that conditions “market research exercises.” Some days, I am pretty uncomfortable with the extent to which this market research exercise objectifies the individuals and produces codified, polished knowledge from a chaotic and discordant reality.
In any case, my colleagues and I quickly learned that simply doing “market research” must be accompanied by “sensitization efforts.” As we discuss financial service use with local business people, we tell people about the variety of financial services available and particularly FINCA’s products and services. Many people were very enthusiastic about the possibility of accessing affordable credit. Even though microfinance is a fairly “hot topic” in development circles, a surprising number of people don’t know how or where to get a loan and still feel that credit is inaccessible to them. Hopefully, at least some of the people we talked to benefited from the exchange and will at least know a bit more about their financial options.
Despite the challenges of the research, I have had the privilege of meeting many extraordinary people. Many people I interviewed shared with me their thoughts and opinions on financial services and spoke very candidly about the problems they face in their businesses. Around 40% of respondents cited capital as a major problem. Many of them buy new inventory every day or every other day to replenish their meager stock. Other common issues cited are things like the quality of inventory available, transport, storage, and police harassment.
I also was able to meet several local labor leaders. I came to discover an incredibly complex network of vyama and vikundi (groups and associations) that govern small business in the city. Each market has an association and within each market, each sector has an association. Within each sector association, there might be several ‘vikundi’ of people who might work together in a variety of ways-from coordinating production, procuring supplies, organizing storage and security or creating financial schemes to help finance their businesses themselves. For example, I met one man in Chanika (which is at the very edge of Dar-es-Salaam) who coordinates a kikundi that coordinates cassava distribution, uniting farmers from the surrounding Pwani region and vendors who bring the produce to crowded urban markets. Further, there are national industry associations and a myriad of umbrella organizations (such as Vibindo) that bring together small business owners from across the country.
Many of these groups have already organized financial schemes such as SACCOS (Savings and Credit Co-operative societies) or ROSCAs (Rotating Savings and Credit Association). SACCOs pool the savings of their members and then disburse loans from that collective pot of savings to its members and sometimes non-members. In our research, we have come to discover that SACCOs are the most popular choice of financial services, with far more customers than any microfinance institution in the city.
I have really relished the opportunity to explore parts of the city that I had no idea even existed. This city is changing astonishingly quickly. On Friday, my colleague Flora and I visited an area called Kibada, which is now a very sleepy little village along the coast. However, 27,000 people are slated to be moved to Kibada from another more crowded area, Kurasini, which has designated as a new industrial port area. It’s a little disconcerting to imagine what this quiet tropical hamlet will be like in a year or two when it’s population will have multiplied by six.
In other areas, the growth of the city is literally visible as you drive past. In Segerea, many middle to upper income people are building houses. There is a preponderance of hardware shops, cement dealers, glass dealers, wood dealers etc and there are dozens of half-finished houses half-hidden behind the palm trees all along the road.
Two of the most interesting places I visited were markets that were built by the government in the last few years, Mchikichini (Karume) in Ilala and Tazara-Vetenary in Temeke. Both of these markets were built specifically for small businesses after the government led a major campaign to “clean up the streets” (i.e. displace all the vendors operating “illegally” in public places). Many vendors were told simply to pack up their inventory and leave and some businesses were literally bull-dozed, destroying all the inventory inside. These new markets provide a solid infrastructure for these businesses but there are many caveats as well. The Tazara-Vetenary Market is situated in a fairly industrial zone and there is no bus-stop near by, rendering it fairly inaccessible. Further, many of the businesses in that area are visibly under-capitalized as there was a long period of time between being displaced from their roadside premises and moving into the new market area, during which many business people were forced to use their capital and savings to finance their daily needs. Also, some of these markets are huge, rambling structures with hundreds upon hundreds of vendors, many of whom sell the same product. High concentrations of one industry render these markets extremely competitive environments.
The market research project has kept me very busy, perhaps too busy. I haven’t had as much time to work on Ukombozi as I would have liked, but we have our first corporate gift deal and I am personally importing another round of larger sculptures to market at crafts fairs and exhibitions in the fall.
Other than that, life here feels uncannily comfortable. Weekdays are really busy between work, teaching English and my awful commute (which is a story for another blog posting...). On weekends, I hang out with friends, go to the beach, eat endless plates of nyama choma (roast meat) and ndizi (bananas) and generally just enjoy the Bongo lifestyle.
Posted by Julia Hazen at 04:42 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
