A Socio-Economic Profile of the Rufiji Floodplain and Delta.

Socio-economic profile of Rufiji flood plain and Delta - Vol. 1
4 Conclusions and Recommendations
The study was conducted in the Rufiji flood plain and Delta, covering ten villages. The purpose of the
study was to produce a socio-economic profile of flood plain and Delta. The methodology used
involved the review of literature and existing information and review of the methodologies used by
REMP for the pilot villages.
Data for the study were collected using a structured questionnaire and checklist (Appendix 1), and
through observations and discussions with key informants. A total of 182 households were involved,
including 21.4% of the households’ respondents being women.
The following are the main findings, conclusions and recommendations
Past studies in the Rufiji valley have generally been led by the Bureau of Resource Assessment and
Land use Planning (BRALUP) now Institute of Resource Assessment (IRA) of the University of Dar
Es Salaam. Other recent studies conducted by others covered specific projects in Rufiji district.
Despite the past attempts in studying the Rufiji district, there have been little improvements in socioeconomic
studies.
Many attempts have been made to classify Rufiji district into AEZ. Two main classifications are
identified, narrow AEZ and wide/finer AEZ. The present study followed the finer AEZ as described
by Havnevik (1983). There are two main justifications of using the finer AEZ. The first, as already
pointed out, is due to variations in economic activities and other factors gradually as you move
westwards from the Delta. This helps to identify differences in economic activities in relatively
smaller areas. The second justification is related to significance differences that were observed with
respect to important factors across the finer AEZ. These indicate that there are some factors, which are
not uniform across the finer AEZ. Some of these factors/variables include (to mention a few): age of
respondents, household size, means of prices of various commodities, costs of production of some
crops, number of assets owned etc.
The major ethnic group in the district is ‘Wandengereko’. Other groups include “Wanyagatwa” who
are mainly found in the Rufiji Delta, “Wamatumbi” who are mainly found in the southern part of
Rufiji. There is substantial number of “Wapogoro” and “Wangindo”.
There is cultural merge/link between the coastal ‘Swahili’ culture and the Persian Gulf States. Islam is
an integral part of the Rufiji culture.
Two main migration patterns were noted in the survey area as seasonal and migration from other
areas. Whereas the former is very prominent, the later is not significant with many households
originating from the survey areas. Seasonal migrations were found to have adverse effects on school
attendance by children.
Generally, dependency ratio is worsening i.e. more people are depending on a few who are able to
work. This calls for improvement in production technologies in order to increase productivity of major
means of livelihood.
• The major diseases in the area
• Malaria
• Anaemia
• Eye infections
• Respiratory tract infections
• Skin diseases
• Worms
• Diarrhoea
• Pneumonia
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