Project helps rural Zambians with transport

The Intermediate Means of Transport (IMT) pilot project, funded by the World Bank, is helping rural Zambians to reduce the financial burden of hiring transport by providing credit for donkeys, carts and bicycles. Liston Kasongo acquired three donkeys from the project, currently operating in five remote districts of the country, which he uses for both draughtpower and transporting agricultural produce. He also earns additional income by providing transport services to other farmers. Under the scheme, run by the ministry of local government, the donkeys are loaned to farmers at K824,000 (about US $177) each, repayable over a year. "I used to hire tractors or ox-carts to bring maize from the fields and I was paying K15,000 (about $3) for any short distance. Now I am using my own transport and so I am saving a lot," said Kasongo, a farmer and businessman from Mpongwe in the central Copperbelt province. Kasongo was also one of the first to be trained to make donkey carts by the University of Zambia's Technological Development Advisory Unit (TDAU). He now supplies carts to the IMT project. Humphrey Makwenka, another farmer in the area, boasts an average income of K50,000 ($11) on a "good day" from hiring out his donkey-cart to transport agricultural produce for other farmers. "We used to hire ox-carts, but now we ferry our own crop and also raise income through hire. We charge K5,000 per trip, and we can even make 10 trips in a day," Makwenka said. The IMT project was initiated in Mpongwe in 1999 after a number of field studies, followed by the local artisan training programme. "We started loaning out [donkeys] in 2001 and we have loaned out 377 donkeys [so far]. We have 30 [donkeys] left with us. Farmers really appreciate the services and we have a long list of applicants," said Sibusiso Mzizi, IMT's field officer in Mpongwe. "Before we loan out the donkeys, we verify assets such as goats and pigs, which applicants use as collateral. We also use references from senior citizens in the village to recommend applicants, because most of them do not own permanent structures," Mzizi told IRIN. Local artisans are also trained to make hand carts and water barrows, and are then awarded individual contracts to build the carts from raw materials supplied under an IMT credit scheme, as part of capacity building to make the scheme self-sustainable. The project has given rise to an entire new industry manufacturing related goods in some areas, such as Chibombo, a rural district 100 km north of the capital, Lusaka, where Fanuel Kaseba has begun making harnesses to draw the carts. The beneficiaries of the IMT project in Chibombo are particularly enthusiastic about the introduction of donkeys because most of their cattle had been wiped out by diseases endemic in the area. When the project moved into the district in October last year, Kaseba, a paprika farmer, began using his donkeys not only for transport but also to plough his fields, for which he needed to make harnesses. He now supplies other local donkey owners with harnesses. Raphael Dimuna, another farmer, already had an ox-cart and a bicycle, but wants a pair of donkeys and a cart because he lost a number of cattle to diseases. The other problem with cattle, Dimuna said, is that they are prone to theft by cattle rustlers - Chibombo is on the road to the Copperbelt and near big towns like Lusaka and Kabwe, the biggest markets for stolen beef, which has made rustling endemic in the area. Donkeys, on the other hand, are less likely to be stolen for their meat.