Appropriate Rural Technology Institute Tanzania

ARTI-Tanzania is promoting charcoal briquettes in Tanzania, popularly known as the "Waste to Wealth" project. With the support of the World Bank's Biomass Energy Initiative for Africa (BEIA), the project has trained and equipped 24 villages in two districts to facilitate their transition from cutting trees to produce charcoal to using agricultural waste and other biomass to produce charcoal briquettes sustainably. Currently, we are working to link the trained villages into groups of 5-6 to form Community Based Enterprises (CBEs) and providing technical, equipment and financial support to the fledgling businesses and open the market to charcoal briquettes in Tanzania.

Lighting Rural Tanzania - in the belief that low cost solar products can sold as any other durable consumer good, given the right service, we started the "mauli kauli" project (mauli = credit, kauli = word of honour) to inject quality low cost lighting products into existing trade channels at the District wholesale level. We are near completion of the pilot project which initially sought to work with 5 District wholesalers within a one year period, however we have grown to 14 wholesalers and are now working with over 50 savings and credit societies across Tanzania.

Biogas in the the Great Lakes Region: we are currently working with a French NGO named RONGEAD to promote compact biogas technology in Ukerewe and Magu Districts in Mwanza Region. We have so far trained 6 communities and two ToTs on the fabrication, installation, feeding and maintenance of the biogas systems. More trainings are planned for this pilot project in the new year. The goal is to have these communities generate an income from the use of the biogas systems, upon which they will invest in the fabrication of more systems.

ARTI-Tanzania staff have in-depth experience working with people and communities at the grass roots level. The ideas for most of our projects are developed from conversations at the grass roots level upon which we develop and grow into a bankable plan of action. The success of our Waste to Wealth and Lighting Rural Tanzania projects are a testament to this approach. Of the four central focuses of PCIA our efforts best fit with (i) Meeting Social/Behavioral Needs & (ii) Developing Local Markets. We believe that the technologies exist as does the demand, and that we have to now identify the appropriate technologies/products and deliver them to the market.

Commercialization of renewable energy products is our primary focus and, in our belief, the key to changing the energy landscape in Sub Saharan Africa. We strongly believe that success of any environmental intervention is more likely to be successful if it is linked to the economic well being of stakeholders. Equally so, people are willing to be part of the solution if they are given the opportunity to participate and see the benefit from the solution. We need to believe that market development is the key. It ensures clean energy reaches peoples homes, institutions and business and it ensures people gain employment from it, thus reinforcing the the development cycle.

People want quality clean energy products. Finding the balance between affordability and quality is the key to developing the market in Sub-Saharan Africa. If quality is sacrificed for cost, we will destroy the market. Equally, if cost is sacrificed for quality, we will make the products inaccessible for the poor. We must find a realistic balance between the two.

Our main focus is implementation but the truth of the matter is that there is growing awareness concerning indoor air pollution amongst average citizens. During installations we now have cooks and kitchen staff asking questions about how their health will improve because of the clean energy. We hope to further build our capacity to monitor and report on these case stories/achievements in the near future.

ARTI-Tanzania is an implementation organization. We know the country, we know the people and we know what works. We therefore see ourselves as a regional partner that turns ideas and plans into action. We have 5 years of project expertise and are willing to work with Partners to implement realistic, appropriate and sustainable projects.