Abstract: | The water supply programme in a country is closely linked to its overall policy for development. Focussing on the Tanzanian physical environment, rural water supply is in this paper considered in the context of the political economy of East Africa. With a historical approach the central concern of the analysis is the structure of man-to-man interactions in the proces of production and how it relates to the use of the environment on the one hand, and to the superstructure - That is education, law, the State, etc. - on the other. In doing so, the author differentiates between the social classes existing in a society at a particular period in history. The specific pattern of interaction between the social classes forms the essence of the historical process of that period, marking the beginning and the end of the period and laying the foundation for the new pattern of class relations in the subsequent period. Sections: Introduction - Colonial rule - Rural water supply in the colonial period - Post-independence - The rural water supply programme at present - Self-help - The external component - Conclusion. Ref., notes. Map. |