From All Africa via East African Business Week

The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors last week approved $300 million for the new Dar es Salaam Metropolitan Development Project (DMPD). The money is going towards improving services directly for 1.9 million residents and, indirectly, for the city’s overall population of 4.6 million.

It is being disbursed through the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank Group soft loans agency.

Dar es Salaam, whose population growth rate averaged 5.6 percent between 2002 and 2012, is among fastest growing cities in the world.

However services have not kept pace with the rapid development leading to sprawl, growth of informal settlements, congestion, flooding, and constraints to the business environment.

The IDA credit will improve the key services to address flooding, urban mobility, and basic infrastructure in low-income communities whereas DMDP will improve the capacity of local governments to better plan and provide services while focusing on the growing need to adopt a metropolitan approach to addressing the region’s challenges.

Read more at All Africa