Ruvuma Development Association (early 1960s-1969)
Dates
- Existence: early 1960s-1969 - 1969
Biography
The Ruvuma Development Association (RDA) was an organisation set up in the early 1960s in Tanzania to support the creation and development of self-organising communities later known as ‘Ujamaa' (collective self-help) villages. Despite being short-lived, this project was an iconic example of creative villagisation, and became admired both nationally and internationally. Julius Nyerere, the first President of Tanzania, was one of its most prominent supporters.
The RDA was set up by the villagers, with the aim of spreading Nyerere's vision of self-organising villages across Tanzania. The leading force behind its creation was Ntimbanjayo Millinga, secretary of the local branch of the Tanzanian African National Union Youth League, who was supported by Ralph Ibbott, an English quantity surveyor who acted as an advisor. Ibbott and his wife Noreen had agreed to who live and work with their children in Litowa, the first of these communal villages.
The principal objectives of the project were self-sufficiency and self-governance. Members focussed on improving agriculture and village industries, such as milling, knitting and weaving, which were taught by Noreen Ibbott in Litowa. Volunteers from overseas supported by charitable aid programmes helped villagers to acquire building skills such as bricklaying, carpentry and joinery. The school of Litowa had its own curriculum. Members selected their representatives amongst themselves and were not controlled nor organised from above, in accordance with Nyerere’s vision. By the late 1960s the Association comprised 17 villages, including several with over 80 families.
However, the RDA was strongly opposed by the country’s elite (members of the party's central committee, regional commissioners, civil servants etc.) who saw the system as a direct threat to their power and privileges. In 1969, the Tanzanian parliament voted to disband the association and seize its assets, despite Nyerere’s opposition. The government then instituted the ‘villagisation’ project whereby all rural families across Tanzania were forcibly collected into villages, however these were far less successful than the original ‘Ujamaa’ villages.
Citation:
Sources: Dave Darby, 'Ujamaa Undermined', The Land, 19, (2016), pp. 51-53, in http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/ujamaa-undermined [external link, accessed 22 May 2019].History of RUDA, http://rudatanzania.org.uk/aboutus.htm [external link, accessed 22 May 2019]