Blog Action Day: Rural tourism as a tool for poverty alleviation in Africa

Poverty in Africa is predominantly rural. More than 70% of the continent’s poor people live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for food an livelihood, yet in recent years, many rural areas have suffered from a decline in the capacity of agriculture to provide livelihood for their inhabitants and development assistance to agriculture is decreasing. In sub Saharan Africa, more than 218 million people live in extreme poverty.

In many African economies, the rural situation is characterized by continuing stagnation, poor production, low income and increasing vulnerability of poor people. Lack of access to markets is a problem for many small scale enterprises in Africa. The rural population is often isolated beyond reach of safety nets. They are vulnerable to diseases like HIV/AIDS which has put an unbearable strain on poor rural households where labour is the primary income earning asset. In addition, health care services are often inadequate or non-existent.

In Uganda, the majority of the rural poor are women, and like their counterparts throughout the African continent face many challenges: they work longer hours than men, have limited access to resources, and exercise little or no control over what they produce. The result is that women are among the worst affected by poverty. In addition, women bear the greater burden of caring for the sick and the children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Their daily responsibilities leave them overstretched, and their ability to assure that the family is fed becomes severely compromised.

Poverty is not only about lack of basic necessities which can be purchased in life such as shelter, food, clothing, and medical facilities. In this context, poverty renders a person helpless, they have no voice in society and are unable to express themselves, their views are not sought nor appreciated and self esteem destroyed. This kind of poverty which is prevalent in most parts of rural Uganda often leads to depression, helplessness, and puts one in compromising situations where they have no control.

My home country Uganda which is located astride the Equator in East Africa is often referred to as the Pearl of Africa, a name bestowed upon Uganda by the former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill because of the unique beauty and scenery. Uganda is a lush greenbelt that stretches over 21,000 square miles making this part of East Africa seem like one gargantuan golf course. It has varied landscapes and scenery, vegetation, climate various people and cultures, legends and historical archeological sites, most of which are unique features in rural Uganda.

Uganda has been experiencing a growing trend in tourism, a major attraction being the mountain gorillas in their natural habitat, the green environment, hospitality and culture of the people. The new niche traveler is seeking opportunities that are in rural areas for instance, clean air, unique culture, organic foods, and scenic landscapes. There is now need to create relevant support systems for increasing the capacity of rural people to meet the demand and change from agriculture to tourism enterprises.

Rural tourism is gaining momentum in Africa owing to world wide demand for new attractions from wild life. It has potential to create economic opportunities, which are especially important in rural areas where few opportunities exist.

Tourism can give small but significant earnings for poor individuals. It is a sector which is coming up in many parts of the developing world for instance in Asia and South America where rural people are-supplementing their incomes with tourism.

Rural tourism can be an alternative source of income offering a range of variable non-financial benefits that decrease vulnerability such as access to information and infrastructure in rural areas. It has immense benefits both for the rural poor communities participating and also for the tourists or visitors. For long, tourism has been focused on visiting lakes, rivers, visiting game parks and other tourist destinations and the people in those areas just sit back and watch as visitors come and go. They rarely, if ever benefit or even participate. Rural tourism is an opportunity for the local people to join the main stream tourism industry.

Rural tourism is good for women who would rather work close to home than commute long distances. Nevertheless, women and rural people in general need to be empowered to link their culture, environment, skills and indigenous knowledge to tourism to be able to utilize it as a source of livelihood.

Making some little conscious changes and a small amount of “know how”, the local population will be able to get what they are entitled to, not only by offering a service or a local product but to offer the lifetime experience of meeting, working and living like them, providing the visitor a unique opportunity to have a taste of daily, common down to earth life. Tourism can be linked to poverty alleviation, used to promote the diversity of attractions and activities mainly found in rural areas and to generate income. In addition to the economical benefits for these communities, the tourist will open the door for a new vision and a gateway to understand, admire and share the abundant traditions of the people of Africa. After all isn’t this world all about People helping People?

There is need to direct tourists to country sides, balancing the biased geographical distribution of tourists, offering opportunity to disperse benefits from tourism into rural economies.

However, for tourism to make a difference in the lives of the rural people in Africa there is need for a holistic approach that helps them learn how to do tourism as a business from village level to national and global perspective. Funding agencies focusing on environmental conservation in Africa, should consider funding research and piloting rural tourism as a poverty alleviation tool. People cannot conserve what they do not benefit from. As long as developing agencies continue funding environmental conservation in isolation, their efforts will fail if issues of livelihoods and poverty are not addressed first. The poor rural people need to be availed alternative sources of livelihood and rural tourism is a viable alternative to promote sustainable use, management and conservation of the environment and natural resources.