Currently, there is a great rampage among conservationists looking for useful approaches that can be used to bring efficiency towards conservation of global natural ecosystems. But which approach can be really effective to halt destruction of a particular natural ecosystem where the local people depend on the same ecosystem resources for their livelihoods? Do the local communities accept to refrain themselves from using natural ecosystem resources (loss of free access), which they believe is under their local territory since they are born, without having alternatives that will replace and improve economic gain of their livelihoods? Are the consumers who benefited from the ecosystem services always willing to compensate local communities around natural ecosystem as a means of replacing what they lose? This study looks at the reliability of Payment for Water Environmental Services (PWES) approach at Kiwengwa-Pongwe Forest Reserve (KPFR) as a device aimed at promoting the sustainable management of KPFR watershed resources without undermining livelihoods of the Kiwengwa-Pongwe local communities. Hoteliers along the Kiwengwa-Pongwe Tourist Area (KPTA) are the potential customers benefiting from water resources found in the KPFR, which is claimed to be deteriorated by the intensity of the livelihood activities of Kiwengwa-Pongwe (KP) local communities. Based on Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), KPTA hoteliers were asked about the amount they would be willing to pay as maximum (WTP) for improvement of water services through sustainable management of watershed areas in KPFR. On the other hand, KP communities were asked what level of compensation they would be willing to accept as minimum amount (WTA) for a loss of free access to KPFR. Both hoteliers (75 %) and KP communities (91 %) agreed on the establishment of the PWES system. However, there were differences between amount accepted by KP communities (10 US$ per 200 litres) and the amount claimed to be paid by hoteliers (1US$ per 200 litres), thus giving a gap of 9US$. Based on the overall study findings and experiences from other parts of the world where similar systems have been implemented, this issue is negotiable. It is upon existing KPFR management team and proposed board from Zanzibar water authority to launch a constructive dialogue between stakeholders to reach the amount that can be used as compensation causing no harm to both parts and without compromising the sustainable management of KPFR.

Community-based management of natural resource (CBNRM) projects have commonly failed to deliver conservation and development benefits. This thesis examined how the theoretical assumptions of common pool resource (CPR) theory have contributed to the indifferent performance of CBNRM projects. Evidence was gathered from two CBNRM case studies in Zanzibar to show that CPR institutional design does not sufficiently acknowledge the politics or social relations of project sites. Moreover, these limitations reduce CPR theory's explanatory power and the functionality of CBNRM projects. This is because CPR theory's influence on CBNRM projects is to frame people with fixed identities and related interests as 'rational resource users', rather than people enrolled in multiple network relations with differentiated means of influence, interests and responsibilities. Actor-oriented theory is used to show that CBNRM would benefit from a shift in the correlation with institutional design factors to understanding the operation of power and conflict at project sites. These findings suggest that currently CBNRM projects are too mired in concern about regulating the 'direct' relationship between resource users and conservation objectives, with problematic implications. It is shown that actor-oriented theory is more sensitive to the different capacities, interests and strategies of actors in CBNRM institutional transformation processes. While actor-oriented theory does not offer a parsimonious or predictive theory to reform CPR theory or CBNRM policy, it can provide insights into pre-project conditions and emergent practice useful for explaining project interventions.

In the field of International Development, increased attention has been given to the concept of women’s empowerment as it has been recognized as a potential driver for change. Classified as a global struggle, commitments to this concept have been at the core of many development interventions, whether they be a small NGOs working in a single community or large-scale international aid agencies with presence all around the world. Despite its international recognition, women’s empowerment has been largely left unquestioned within development practices and especially with regards to the impact it may have on local beneficiary communities. This thesis will address how universal ideas such as this one become meaningful in the local setting through a case study of CARE-International’s Women’s Empowerment in Zanzibar project that was implemented from the years 2008-2011. In applying Sally Merry’s (2006) concept of vernacularization, as a theoretical framework, it will be shown that international aid organizations do not simply adapt women’s empowerment to the local arena. Instead, various local actors are involved in a dynamic process of translating, negotiating, and making the concept more meaningful to the beneficiaries and, thus, cause a new hybrid understanding of women’s empowerment to emerge. This new concept draws more extensively on local institutions, knowledge and practices that have been inter-weaved with Islamic practices which play an important role in the lives of Zanzibaris. This thesis will illustrate how NGO culture converges with and diverges from the local communities and expose the realities that exist within the greater development discourse.

The matter of sustainable thinking today permeates the Western world and is now widely agreed to recognize three aspects; environmental, economic and social sustainability. Due to limitations of resources and knowledge, this concept is considerably less widespread in developing countries. Many sustainable ventures in developing countries aim to unite the three aspects and solve the pressing issue of unsustainable development, but evaluating these projects has proven to be a challenging task and tools for systematic analysis are missing. Furthermore, current frameworks lack in guidance on what tools to use for the assessment of the three sustainability aspects. This research aims to investigate how established models can be applied and what obstacles that occur when evaluating a sustainable venture in a developing country. To do this, a case study is performed on Zanzibar, Tanzania where the Swedish waste management company Zanrec is considering pursuing a sustainable venture of starting up a biodiesel production from used cooking oil. This research therefore also provides Zanrec with an evaluation of the project’s alignment with the sustainability concept. To reach the purpose of this study, two established models for evaluation are chosen; LCA for the environmental aspect and the payback method as capital budgeting tool for the economic aspect. No established evaluation tool is used for the social aspect; instead the social implications of the project are analyzed in a discussion. It is found that the applicability of the chosen tools for evaluating the biodiesel production project is highly affected by the contextual setting of a developing country. The major finding is that these tools have varying flexibility in adapting to the main challenge, which is the lack of documentation and available data. LCA is found to be a complicated and rigid tool to use if fully abiding by its associated ISO standards. Without an existing LCA knowledge base and any guidelines on how to manage missing data, the LCA tool is deemed to not reach its full potential in a developing country at this stage. The payback method is proven to be a more flexible tool that to a higher degree can be adapted to fit the setting and the requirements of the commissioner. The project’s impact areas related to the social aspect are found to be few, but to evaluate the extent of these, further research is required. / Hållbart företagande genomsyrar idag västvärlden och det är nu allmänt vedertaget att konceptet täcker in tre aspekter; miljömässig, ekonomisk och social hållbarhet. På grund av begränsningar i resurser och kunskap är hållbarhetskonceptet långt ifrån lika utbrett i utvecklingsländer. Hållbarhetsprojekt i utvecklingsländer syftar till att förena de tre aspekterna och lösa den rådande frågan om ohållbar utveckling, men det har visat sig vara en utmaning att utvärdera dessa projekt och det saknas verktyg för systematisk analys. Vidare saknar existerande modeller riktlinjer om vilka verktyg som bör användas i utvärderingen av de tre hållbarhetsaspekterna. Studien syftar till att undersöka hur etablerade utvärderingsverktyg kan tillämpas för att utvärdera ett hållbarhetsprojekt i ett utvecklingsland samt vilka hinder som detta innefattar. En fallstudie har därför utförts på Zanzibar i Tanzania, där det svenska  avfallshanteringsföretaget Zanrec överväger att genomföra ett hållbarhetsprojekt som ämnar att upprätta produktion av biodiesel från använd matolja. Därigenom syftar denna undersökning även till att förse Zanrec med en utvärdering av projektet med avseende på de de tre hållbarhetsaspekterna. I denna studie används två etablerade modeller; LCA för miljöaspekten och payback-metoden som investeringskalkylsmodell för den ekonomiska aspekten. Inget etablerat utvärderingsverktyg används för den sociala aspekten vars påverkan av projektet istället analyseras i en diskussion. Det har visat sig att tillämpbarheten av de valda verktygen för utvärdering av  biodieselprojektet i hög grad påverkas av de kontextuella förutsättningarna i ett utvecklingsland. Den viktigaste slutsatsen är att dessa verktyg har varierande flexibilitet i att anpassa sig till bristen på dokumentation och tillgänglig data, vilket är den största svårigheten. LCA har bedömts vara ett komplicerat verktyg med fasta ramar vid användning i enlighet med dess ISO-standarder. Utan en befintlig kunskapsbas kring LCA och riktlinjer för hur man ska hantera avsaknad av data, anses LCA-verktyget i dagsläget inte nå sin fulla potential i ett utvecklingsland. Paybackmetoden har visat sig vara ett mer flexibelt verktyg som i högre grad kan anpassas efter rådande förutsättningar och kraven hos uppdragsgivaren. Endast ett fåtal inverkansområden med anknytning till den sociala aspekten har identifierats som påverkade av detta projekt, men för att utvärdera omfattningen av dess påverkan behövs vidare studier.

Saad Yahya, born in Zanzibar in 1939, studied architecture and town planning in Great Britain and in Canada; since 1968 he has lectured at the University of Nairobi. He portrays everyday life of typical inhabitants of Zanzibar and Nairobi, displaying a penetrating understanding of their problems and of their state of mind, linked with a remarkable stylistic ability. He is an acute observer who presents his characters with humour and irony, but also with a profound insight. Furthermore, in his stories, under the surface of everyday activities there is always some hidden antagonism or passion, never spelled out, but only alluded to. Several years ago Yahya sent me the manuscript of two other stories which I hoped to translate and publish in Italy, but ultimately it was not possible. I have included one of them, called Nyoko-nyoko and consisting in five typewritten pages, in the syllabus of my literary courses in Naples and in Paris. It is a rare - if not unique - Swahili story in which the main character is a Mzungu, a white man: the British governor of an imaginary East-Aftican country called Nyalia, who has to abandon his post suddenly for unspecified reasons. He regrets to must leave the country he has learned to know and to like; however, behind the mask of liberality and tolerance is hidden a self-conceited racist. The story describes his last day in Africa after a long stay.

I his paper examines the music and career of Siti binti Saadi, a famous taarab musician who performed in Zanzibar during the 1920s and 1930s. Relying on four distinctive types of evidence: her recorded music, written documentation produced in East Africa, interviews with men and women who heard her perform and records of company executives I compare perspectives regarding the source of power and authority attributed to her voice as well as the meaning of her music. Siti binti Saadi was the first East African to have her voice captured and reproduced on 78 rpm gramophone disks. The production of these records enhanced her status and imbued her voice with a sense of authority that it otherwise may never have attained. Written histories of taarab, particularly those authored in the 1950s and 1960s, often memorialize her as literally, `giving voice to the voiceless,´ allowing the voice of East Afiica to be heard internationally.

This paper is a brief exploration of Zinzibar soceity in contemporary times, of how it can be read through the ngoma perfromances, music events which take place during the focal moments of the social life in the Swahili communities. It is a study of their identity constructions, referring both to ethnic identities and gender ones, which are given meaning through the ngoma performances and can be also discussed or confirmed through them in the social context of the Zanzibari daily life. It mainly analyses the crucial dichotomy culture/religion from the point of view of women perfromers, who are deeply related to the domestic area (and not the public one, usually related to men) in which they can find a way to speak to the community through the perfromance and consequently to get an active role despite their social status. It is also a brief summary of the contemporary socio-political situation of the islands, in which ngoma performances become a way to participate to the social processes and to decode political tensions which characterize Zanzibar today.

Different labels have been used for marking the reciprocity in Swahili dialogue poetry, varying between the more neutral `malumbano´ or `kujibizana´ and the more marked `ukinzani´ or `mashindano´. By showing a sample from the Zanzibari newspaper Mwongozi (1956) of a poetic dialogue on wife-husband relationships, the paper argues that the poetical form and the strong language used are not a mere expression of what has been called `rivalry´, but instruments in expressing views and opinions that have been observed in other literary devices (mithali, misemo, vijembe) and their usage. At the same time it is demonstrated that different types of poems (tenzi, mashairi, nyimbo) and different styles (plain, metaphoric, riddle) are used side by side. The ambiguity, incompleteness and strength of the language that is used in this poetry, make it all possible to express views on sensitive issues in the society.

Adam Shafi aliyezaliwa mwaka 1940 kisiwani Unguja ni mmojawapo wa waandishi mashuhuri wa riwaya ya Kiswahili. Hivi sasa mwandishi yumo mbioni kukamilisha muswada wa riwaya yake ya sita iitwayo Mtoto wa Mama. Mbali na uandishi, Adam Shafi aliwahi kufanya kazi mbalimbali za uandishi wa habari na kazi za ushirika wa kimataifa. Ni furaha yetu kubwa kuwa hatimaye tunaweza kutoa mazungumzo hayo baada ya kuyapitia na kuyahariri kidogo tu, kwa vile tunaamini utamu wa lugha inavyozungumzwa katika hali halisi ya maisha una nguvu ya kiujumi inayoweza kumvutia msomaji zaidi.

This field study explored the lives of children with hearing loss on the biggest island of Zanzibar, Unguja. Through a qualitative method the collecting of data was performed by interviewing one ministry, one organization, two non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and 14 children with hearing loss. The method to find participants to the study was done through snowballing. The organizations have project plans to improve the living situation for the people with hearing loss on Zanzibar, however they lack resources and fundings to implement them. The consequences of living with undiagnosed hearing loss are behavioral problems and mental health issues, lower academic results, and working on less paid jobs. This research relates to the Sustainable Development Goals with focus on goal four, quality education. The result of this study is divided into two, one descriptive part and one covering the interviews of the children. The descriptive part enhances an understanding of the context and the view of people with hearing loss. The interviews with the children constitutes the data analyzed through the theoretical framework. The study established that the children on Unguja are limited in their development due to the lack of knowledge about hearing loss in communities, limited communication abilities, and lack of support in school. Resulting in limited abilities to develop and improve their living situations.