Logistics in Dodoma

As my previous story provided an insight into the operations of WFP in the port of Dar es Salaam, I will know try to sketch a picture about one of the ‘downstream’ locations.

 

Receiving the food commodities from the Dar es Salaam port by truck or rail, the Dodoma office serves a vast area in central Tanzania through a number of different projects. One of the largest programs here is without a doubt the distribution of food at primary schools in the region, where school children are provided meals to stimulate enrolment, attendance levels and even their concentration levels. In total, 265 schools in the Dodoma region take part in the school meal program, making the logistic operations large and complex. With the upcoming rain season, the urgency for delivery at each school is measured foremost by the schools’ accessibility by truck and the conditions of the road towards it.

 

Most of the trucks used for the delivery of the school food are ranging from 5-15 tons, since in many cases the infrastructure does not make it possible to use the regular 30 ton trucks. Furthermore, transporters are reluctant to send out trucks to remote regions in the raining season, since this could mean that both truck and driver would get stuck due to bad road conditions for days, sometimes even longer, before they are able to travel again. As an indicator to the challenge that is being faced:  there is one village that cannot at all be reached by motorized vehicles, not even during the dry season, and therefore donkey transport will be arranged for the final kilometers to the village.

 

As I visited, the logistics team was making overtime to ensure the shipping of the required amounts of food to the various schools in the region, and this pressure will only be relieved when all schools have been supplied for the coming months before the rain starts. That’s a challenge, with trucks coming and going, stocking up with the four different commodities for the school meal program: maize, beans, vegetable oil and corn-soy blend.

 

While monitoring the offloading of locally purchased white maize, I started to talk with one of the casual laborers WFP employs for the manual work. Mattias – I’d estimate him 18/19 years old- told me that in his eyes the education is where it lacks in Tanzania. “Children can’t go to school since they have to work to get food for the family”. “I think WFP’s school project is really good to give the children a chance to go to school”. He himself took on the job of casual laborer, saving the money to be able to go back and finish his high school. “I’d like to go into the direction of  IT”, he says and stares away, as he picks up the 50 kg bag of maize and walks off to pile it on the stack in the warehouse.