Visit to Arusha

For all those following, I've been working with a group of people in the Engineers Without Borders organization on implementing some project ideas in Tanzania. Originally, we were looking at the Masaai tribe as our target market mainly because we had a connection with a local non profit there. As we progressed, we were put in communication with the Tanzanian government, specifically the Vice President and Minister of Environment and would be given endorsement if we could target our potential projects in the Dodoma district of Tanzania. Our group is currently concluding our trip there and below are some of the notes taken from the visit to Arusha on July 8th, 2011. It's pretty long.


Met Tayeb Noorbhai, Renewable Energy advisor, SNV. He is a development professional with a deep
understanding of development issues. Also Flora ?, who just joined SNV one week ago and will be
working with Tayeb. She just listened. Both are Tanzanian nationals. Peter Bos and Tom Ole Sikar,
other SNV professionals, were away. SNV is the largest Dutch NGO; however, it is independent from the Dutch government.


SNV has a history of working in Tanzania for over 40 years, on a variety of different projects, most of
them based on improving agriculture. SNV is currently concentrating on 3 areas in Tanzania: agriculture,renewable energy, and hygiene. SNV is presently working to identify the ‘value chain’ for agriculture.
They advise and work through CAMARTEC, and CAMARTEC works through regional organizations,
including KAMA in Monduli and MIGESADO in Dodoma. SNV is doing an Evergy Baseline survey (sources of energy used today, covering 300+ households) and will do a Biogas User survey. The reports will be available to us.


Four years ago,SNV began a Biogas Africa project, the ABPP (African Biogas Partner Program), following success in the Biogas Asia project – a 20 year history of working in Nepal and Vietnam. The Biogas Africa project was launched in 6 countries, including Tanzania, in 2009 and 2010. In Tanzania, this consists of support for the Tanzania Domestic Biogas Program (TDBP or TBP), which is managed by CAMARTEC [ if I understood the connections connectly]. ‘Domestic’ means ‘for one household’: they are not working on biogas plants for institutions (schools, hospitals, prisons). In addition to the TDBP, SNV works with the Small Industries Development Organization (SIDO), which has an office in every district and TAREA, the Tanzania Renewable Energy Association,based in Dar es Salaam.


CAMARTEC has existed since the 80’s, as a para-statal organization devoted to mechanization of
agriculture and rural technology. They previously worked with a German Development organization,
GTZ, to develop the fixed dome model of a biogas digestor. They mainly do research: they have
developed good technologies, but not done much commercialization of them. They provided very
little “after sales support” for digestors which they installed, which were mainly built at schools and
hospitals. Therefore, although biogas currently exists in Tanzania, it is often seen as an “elite” status
symbol.


Under the current structure of the TDBP, the main CAMARTEC/TDBP offices work with local area NGO partners across Tanzania. These include Tanzanian organizations, churches, and other foreign NGOs. KAMA (based in Monduli) and MIGESADO (based in Dodoma) are two of these organizations with local contacts, providing ‘extension’ services. They provide training for masons, technical assistance, and deliver subsidies to people interested in having biogas systems. The current subsidy for a household is Euro 190 per plant, which is about 20% of the cost (~800,000 TZ Shillings, or ~$500). Note that the rest of the cost is often covered by loans through saccos, local banks. Another one of the TDBP’s partners is OIKOS, an Italian NGO. They have specifically built “energy centers”, also known as Integrated Rural Energy Utilities (IREU), at the ward level (10000 - 40000 people), which help to train women to build stoves and masons to build biogas systems. Only two of these exist, both in the Northern part of the country – one is in Oldonyo Sambo, an hour north of Arusha, although we were not able to visit it. These were begun in South Africa, as a way of allowing rural communities to manage their own energy supplies (we should do some follow up research on the concept). Note that although this structure is similar to that which SNV has helped to set up in other countries, usually companies are used rather than NGO partners. However, SNV has found that Tanzanian masons are generally not very entrepreneurial. The Tanzania Government departments involved are the Ministry of Energy and Minerals (particularly its Rural Energy Office), and the Ministry of the Environment, which falls under the Vice President’s office. Note that there is a Mr. Mwihava who currently works in a different part of the VP’s office, but was formerly the chair of the National Biogas Steering committee; we will attempt to meet him in Dar es Salaam. Almost 50% of the Tanzanian government budget comes from foreign aid.


The national government is highly decentralized; budgets are formed at the district level. The TDBP goal (which has become an SNV goal) is to get 12000 plants installed in 5 years. 1000 were installed last year (2010), and the plan is for 2300 this year.


MIGESADO provide training for masons, quality-control services, business development training etc.
SNV strongly encourages EWB to work with MIGESADO if we go ahead with the ‘hub’ project. I had tried to reach MIGESADO by e-mail, without luck - itturns out I was given the wrong e-mail address. See a later report about our meetings with MIGESADO.


With regards to the geography of Tanzania, Tayeb saw Arusha as an area of high potential, as most
villagers (excluding the Maasai people) have zero-grazing cattle – a larger percentage of dung can be
collected, and people live in one area year round. The two systems we saw in Monduli (where ~40
systems exist) both used zero grazing cattle. Biogas is more difficult to build in Dodoma, as there is very little yearly rainfall [more on this in later reports].


There is no smell problem associated with normal biogas plants. Maybe there would be if chickens or
pigs were used (more acid). Tayeb knows that de-sulfurization filters are available and cheap if they
are needed. There is no history of biogas plants causing house-fires or explosions. Unlike for pure
methane in the USA, mercaptan (an odorant) is not added to the gas. Normal biogas digestors use a
1:1 ratio of dung and water, although SNV is interested in solid state digestors, which might only need
a 1:5 water:dung ratio. We discussed the possibilities of supplanting dung with human waste; Tayeb
expressed caution, especially because it would increase the amount of material to be filtered out (i.e.
toilet paper, condoms). Also, some people, apparently, just don’t like the idea.


We also talked about ICSEE and their stove program. Tayeb expressed disappointment that ICSEE had not been invited, but said that missing that one meeting was not of much consequence. He seemed
impressed by the numbers: 90% reduction in air pollution and 50% reduction in wood usage. He
would like to visit ICSEE next time he is near Monduli. SNV is currently at a feasbility stage in studying cookstoves, which consists of market scans, as well as a review of biomass policy (there has been confusion over the legality of charcoal in certain areas). Tayeb stressed that the key will need to
be certification of standard designs – in other words, that the goal should be to build a national list
of certified stove designs, which local agencies could then decide between. Also, he talked about
specifications for the materials for the stoves.