Studies in East African Geography and Development

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1971.
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Mar 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9780520328211

Book preview

Studies in East African

Geography and Development

Edited by

S. H. OM INDE

Professor of Geography University College Nairobi

Studies in East African Geography and Development

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley and Los Angeles 1971

DEDICATED TO SAMUEL JOHN KENNETH BAKER

University of California Press

Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

ISBN: 0-520-02073-1

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 72-169228

© S. H. Ominde 1971

Printed in Great Britain

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CONTRIBUTORS

PHOTOGRAPHS

LIST OF FIGURES

S. J. K. BAKER

1 Geography & African Development

2 Geomorphological Mapping

3 Evolution of Meander Traits in the Basin of Lake Victoria

4 Climate & Development

5 Land Use S Ecological Problems

6 East African Ports

7 Geography & Economic Integration

8 The Lakes of Uganda

9 Climate & Crop-Potential in Uganda

10 The Population Mapping of Uganda

11 Agricultural Changes in Bunyoro 1954-68

12 Drainage Evolution in Kenya

13 The Semi-Arid & Arid Lands of Kenya

14 Settlement & Rural Development in Kenya

15 Machakos Land & Population Problems FREDERICK N. OWAKO

16 Population & Food in West & Central Kenya

17 Rural Economy in West Kenya

18 Location & Structure of Kenya’s Industries

19 Population in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania

20 Agricultural Vermin in Tanzania

Index

PREFACE

This book was conceived at a critical stage in the development of university education in East Africa. Major discussions on the future of the Federal University of East Africa had begun to take place, and the indications were that out of a single Federal University with its constituent Colleges three independent university institutions would emerge.

These essays have been brought together in honour of Professor S. J. K. Baker, who made a major contribution to the development of the University of East Africa, and in particular, of Makerere University. Professor Baker pioneered an important stage in the development of the geographical discipline within the framework of the University and contributed materially to the international status of the institution.

The development of the university institutions in East Africa, and the academic disciplines through which they contribute to the manpower needs of the East African countries, are part of the change in the manner of use of the region’s resources. These essays reflect the concern of the discipline with development needs. The more specialist aspects have a distinctive humanist flavour, reflecting the specialist concern of Professor Baker within the general spectrum of the geographical discipline.

In the applied fields there is concern in the essays with the geographical bases of development issues that continue to engage the attention of policy-makers throughout East Africa. A total of eighteen authors from the three countries of the East African Community and from overseas institutions include a number of Professor Baker’s former undergraduates, graduate students, and colleagues in the University of East Africa.

SIMEON H. OMINDE University College, Nairobi.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is th outcome of a co-operative effort of Professor Baker’s tormer colleagues now widely scattered in different parts of the world. My special thanks are due to them for making available their material for collection. I am particularly indebted to them for encouragement to go ahead with the production of the volume.

A great deal of effort has been spent by other members of the Department of Geography in bringing the manuscript to completion. We are specially indebted to Messrs Gabriel D’Souza and Ladislau Rattos for cartographic work and to Miss Vinod Jerath and Miss Nancy Muiruri for their contribution in the preparation of the essays for publication.

Finally, we wish to acknowledge permission to use various materials from publishers, government departments, institutions, and individuals. We should like to thank the Ministry of Lands and Settlement, Kenya, for materials used in Figures 13.2, 13.4, 13.5, 14.5, 15.4, and 15.5, Mines and Geological Survey, Uganda, for Figures 2.2 and 2.3, the Kenya Meat Commission for Figure 13.6, Department of Lands and Surveys, Uganda, for Figures 3.1, 8.1-8.7, and Dr T. Woodhead for Figure 13.1. Our thanks are also due to the Admiralty Office, Great Britain, for Figures 6.3-6.5, the Meteorological Office, Great Britain, for Figure 6.2, Actes du 11 Symposium Internationale photo-interpretation, Paris, for Figure 2.1, the Journal of Experimental Ecology for Figure 13.3, and the University of London for material in Chapters 15 and 16, the Ministry of Information, Kenya, for Plates 13.1-13.5, 17.1-17.5, 18.1, 18.2, 18.4 and East African Railways Corporation, for Plates 18.3 and 18.5.

S. H. OMINDE

CONTRIBUTORS

RANDALL BAKER, Lecturer in Geography at University of East Anglia, Norwich was formerly Lecturer in Geography at Makerere University.

RONALD A. BULLOCK, formerly Lecturer at the University of Nairobi, is Assistant Professor, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

BAS HI R A. D ATOO is Lecturer at the University of Dar- es-Salaam. He has done original research in the early development of East African ports.

JOHN C. DOORNKAMP, formerly at Makerere University, is now Lecturer at Nottingham University. During his period at Makerere he carried out important pioneer geomorphological mapping.

L. W. HANNA, Lecturer in Geography at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne was formerly Lecturer, Makerere University.

JOAN M. KENWORTHY is Lecturer in Geography at the University of Liverpool.

BRYAN W. LANGLANDS is Professor of Geography and Head of Department, Makerere University.

BRENDA j. MCLEAN (née TURNER) is Lecturer in Geography at the University of Liverpool.

ADOLFO MASCARENHAS is Lecturer in Geography at the University of Dar-es-Salaam.

ANTHONY M. O’CONNOR, formerly Lecturer in Geography at Makerere University, is now at University College, London.

RICHARD s. ODiNGO is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography, University of Nairobi. His original research has been concentrated in the former ‘White Highlands’ of Kenya.

R. B. OGENDO is Senior Lecturer in Geography, University of Nairobi. He has done original research in the Structure and Location of Agricultural Processing Industries in Kenya.

FRANCIS F. OJANY is Lecturer in Geography, University of Nairobi. He has carried out extensive field studies in geomorphology in various parts of Kenya.

SIMEON H. OMINDE is Professor of Geography and Head of Department, University of Nairobi.

j. B. OUM A is Senior Lecturer in Geography at Makerere University. He has carried out concentrated fieldwork in the Lake Victoria Basin.

FREDERICK N. OWAKO, formerly Senior Geography Master at Machakos High School, is at present an Assistant Registrar at the University of Nairobi.

PAUL TEMPLE, formerly Lecturer in Geography at Makerere University College and Visiting Research Fellow at Merton College, Oxford, is Reader and Head of the Geography Department at the University of Dar-es- Salaam.

IAN D. THOMAS is Lecturer in Geography at the University of Dar-es-Salaam. He played a leading role in Enumeration Area Base Mapping for the 1967 Tanzania Census.

PHOTOGRAPHS

PLATE PAGE

5.1 Vegetation colonization of a cattle boma:

(a) A cattle boma six weeks after abandonment in Bunyoro, Uganda, December 1960; (b) The same cattle boma colonized by Hyparrhenia grassland, September 1967 56

8.1 Lake George from the northern edge of the

Katwe explosion crater zone, Toro 88

8.2 Lake Albert from Butiaba, Bunyoro 88

8.3 Lake Bisina from Kapiri, Teso 89

8.4 Lake Nyungu near Rubirizi, Bunyaruguru, Ankole 90

8.5 Lake Mutanda from near Mushungyeo,

Kigezi 95

8.6 Lower Kitandara Lake, Ruwenzori, Toro 96

13.1 An isolated group of volcanic hills in the

centre of Turkana, marking one of the few belts of true deserts in Kenya 147

13.2 Lodwar boma on the banks at Turkwell

River 154

13.3 Kerio Valley Pilot Scheme (140 hectares) 154 13.4 U.S. Consul Mr Macchia (1957) examin

ing a sample of groundnuts grown on the Perkerra Irrigation Scheme 155

13.5 Mwea Rice Scheme: the workers are pick

ing rice seedlings for transplanting 157

14.1 A new settler being registered in Nyahururu Settlement Scheme prior to being allocated a plot 17 3

14.2 A healthy herd of Boran beef cattle on one of

the co-operative settlement schemes in the Machakos area of Eastern Province 174

14.3 Wheat-harvesting, using hired combineharvester, in the Endarasha Scheme in Mount Kenya area of Central Province 175

15.1 Central hill-mass showing Iveti (left), Kilima Kimwe and Momandu Hills, with Kalama Hills in the background 177

15.2 (a) A typical central hill-mass environment— a highly dissected part of the Kilungu- Mukaa mass, with Mbitini Hills in the background 178

15.3 (b) A thinly settled hillside (Mukaa), with shallow stony soils 178

15.4 Acacia-tortilis in the Eastern Plains (Wamunyu), showing an overgrazed land in an area of medium-potential land 180

15.5 High-potential land—part of the north-

eastern slopes of Mua Hills at Ngelani 182

15.6 Acacia-Commiphora: in low-potential land 184

17.1 A flooded homestead, Kano Plains,

1961/62floods 210

17.2 Healthy cotton plants at the Kibos Experimental Station 224

17.3 Sugar-cane cutting at Miwani 224

17.4 Rice (paddy) grown by peasants on the

Kano Plains 224

17.5 Miwani Sugar Mills 225

18.1 Pork pie processing at the Uplands Bacon

Factory, Kanga 234

18.2 A general view of the interior of the

Mariakani milk processing factory, Coast province, Kenya 234

18.3 Kenya C offee Industry: the liquoring room in the Coffee Marketing Board’s ‘Plantation House’ at Nairobi 235

18.4 Part of the leather factory at Limuru, showing the stitching conveyors 235

18.5 Blanket-making industry—Nakuru, Kenya 235

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE PAGE

2.1 To illustrate the differences between (1) A geomorphological map, (II) A morphological map, (III) A land-systems block- diagram, each showing the nature of the Masaka Land System, Uganda 11

2.2 An extract from the Mbarara geomorphology sheet (SA-36-1), Uganda 21

2.3 The geomorphology of the area upstream of Kigezi, Uganda 22

3.1 The setting of Lake Victoria catchment 29

3.2 Longitudinal profiles of river channels

over distance analysed for meander trails 30

3.3 Correlation of meander wavelength with

distance upstream of mouth 34

3.4 Correlation of meander sinuosity with distance upstream of river mouth 35

3.5 Correlation of meander amplitude with distance upstream of mouth 35

3.6 Correlation of sinuosity with wavelength 36

3.7 Correlation of meander amplitude with

wavelength 36

3.8 Correlation of meander sinuosity with

amplitude 3 7

4.1 Variations in the seasonal distribution of

rainfall at selected stations in the Usambara Mountains, Tanzania 43

5.1 Diagrammatic representation of soilvegetation relationships and the planting programme at Mukihani-Waisembe Forest Reserve, Bunyoro, Uganda 52

5.2 Suggested relationships between land-use and grass composition, in Combretum savannah woodland, Bunyoro, Uganda 55

6.1 Factors involved in the land situation of East African ports before the end of the nineteenth century 64

6.2 Factors involved in the water situation of East African ports before the end of the nineteenth century 66

6.3 The twin harbours of Mombasa 69

6.4 Zanzibar Harbour 70

6.5 Anchorages near Malindi (A and B) 71

7.1 East Africa: Income 75

7.2 Important localities mentioned in the text, and areas covered by more detailed figures 87

7.3 The Koki lakes of southern Ankole and western Masaka 90

7.4 Lakes Kyoga, Bisina, Opeta, and Okoli- torom 91

7.5 Pre-lake drainage over Lake Victoria 91

7.6 Contrasted types of crater lakes from

Western Uganda 92

7.7 Lakes and craters of the Kyatwe volcanic

field, Toro 93

7.8 The Kigezi lakes in their topographical and geological setting 94

9.1 Soil moisture for a sugar-cane cycle at

Kakira, Uganda 106

9.2 Yields of made tea and soil moisture estimated from daily meteorological data, Kerita, Uganda 109

9.3 Moisture balance of sugar-cane in Uganda 109

9.4 Moisture balance of sugar-cane in Uganda 109

9.5 Moisture balance of tea in Uganda 110

9.6 Moisture balance of tea in Uganda 110

10.1 Uganda: Population distribution 1959 118

10.2 Uganda: Population distribution 1948 119

10.3 Uganda: Population distribution 1931 119

10.4 Uganda: Population distribution 1921 120

10.5 Uganda: Population distribution 1911 120

11.1 a Bunyoro: agriculture 1968 125

11.2 b Bunyoro: cotton acreage, production and

price, 1950-67 125

11.1c Bunyoro: tobacco harvests and acreages 1954-67 127

1.1 Lid Bunyoro: coffee acreage and coffee price 1951-66 127

1.2 Bunyoro: cattle and tsetse fly 1954 130

1.3 a Bunyoro: cattle industry 1967 132

11.36 Bunyoro: cattle population 1954-67 133

11.37 Bunyoro: percentage change in taxpayers

by sub-county, 1962 and 1968 135

12.1 Kenya: present drainage pattern 139

12.2 Probable form of the early Tertiary topo

graphy in Kenya 140

12.3 Possible early Tertiary drainage pattern in

Kenya 141

12.4 Suggested drainage pattern in early Tertiary

period 143

13.1 Annual potential evaporation 147

13.2 Rangelands 148

13.3 Ecology 149

13.4 Irrigation areas 156

13.5 Mwea-Tebere irrigation scheme 157

13.6 Kenya stock movement 15 9

14.1 Location of the Kenya Highlands 163

FIGURE PAGE

14.2 Kenya Land Divisions 1934 164

14.3 Kenya land-productivity potential 167

14.4 Population densities on the peripheries of

the Kenya Highlands 171

14.5 Kenya Highlands settlement schemes and boundary adjustment 171

14.6 Kenya Highlands settlement areas 1966 174

15.1 Position of Machakos District 17 8

15.2 Machakos District physiographic units 179

15.3 Mean annual rainfall and regime 180

15.4 Machakos District: tsetse distribution 181

15.5 Machakos District: agricultural-potential land categories 181

15.6 Machakos District: population distribution

1948 183

15.7 Machakos District: population distribution

1962 183

15.8 Machakos District: population density

1962 183

15.9 New and old settlement schemes 188

15.10 Machakos District: population movement

1948-65 189

16.1 Western and Central Kenya: agricultural

administration 1961 194

16.2 Western and Central Kenya: population

density per acre 1962 195

16.3 Western and Central Kenya: foodcrop cultivation 1961 195

16.4 Western and Central Kenya: per capita

calorie production 1961 196

16.5 Western and Central Kenya: cropland by

major use 1961 197

16.6 Western and Central Kenya: population

density per foodcrop-acre 1961 198

16.7 Western and Central Kenya: calorie

adequacy index by quartile deviation 1961 200

16.8 Relationship between population per culti

vated foodcrop acre and calorieadequacy index 1961 200

16.9 Western and Central Kenya: calorie production by major source 1961 201

16.10 Relationship between population per culti

vated foodcrop acre and per capita vegetable calorie production 1961 202

16.11 Relationship between population density and per capita animal calorie production 1961 202

16.12 Western and Central Kenya: foodcrop land productivity 1961 204

17.1 West Kenya physiographic regions 208

17.2 West Kenya drainage pattern 209

17.3 Bungoma District: density of population and sex ratios 1962 213

17.4 Busia District: density of population and sex ratios 1962 214

17.5 Siaya District: density of population and sex ratios 1962 215

17.6 Kakamega District: density of population and sex ratios 1962 216

17.7 Kisumu District: density of population and sex ratios 1962 217

17.8 Homa Bay District: density of population and sex ratios 1962 218

17.9 Kish District: density of population and sex ratios 1962 219

18.1 Areal density of factory sites 230

18.2 Location pattern of the industrial towns and centres 231

18.3 Patterns of the agricultural manufacturing industries 231

18.4 Distribution of Nairobi Area, 43,795 manufacturing operatives in 1964 232

18.5 International and administrative boundaries, 1968 232

18.6 The natural regions of Kenya 237

18.7 Suggested industrial development zones 237

19.1 Southern Highlands: territorial census areas 1957 241

19.2 Southern Highlands: settled areas 243

19.3 Southern Highlands: population distribu tion 1957 244

19.4 Southern Highlands: population density 1957 244

19.5 Southern Highlands: population regions and settlement zones 245

19.6 Southern Highlands: population density 1930 254

20.1 Tanzania: status of information 1968 260

20.2 Tanzania: quelea-infested areas 261

20.3 Tanzania: game-protected areas 265

S. J. K. BAKER

A biographical note by S. H. Ominde

In October 1924 Samuel John Kenneth Baker went up to the University of Liverpool with the purpose of studying geography, attracted to that university by the reputation of Professor P. M. Roxby. It was under the inspiration of this distinguished leader of geographical thought that, first as a student and then as a member of staff, Baker’s own development as a geographer took place. Roxby claimed that, rightly studied, geography comprised a valuable element in training for national and international citizenship, in that it could enable us ‘accurately to imagine the conditions of the great world stage’ and the place of the different regions within it. The subject was a valuable mental discipline, calling for an exact sense of proportion in the appraisal of many facts and developing the quality of sympathetic understanding.¹ In the work of Roxby there was recurrent concern with the cultural value of geography. From Roxby, Baker derived an interest in the evolution of geographical thought, and when in 1927 he entered the postgraduate course for the diploma in education he chose for his dissertation to make a study of Paul Vidal de la Blache, the doyen of the French school of regional geography: whence came an abiding insistence upon the active role of man in the relationship between human societies and their environments. Professor H. J. Fleure, who was at the neighbouring University of Manchester from 1930 to 1944, is another geographer to whom Baker has acknowledged a debt of ideas, especially in respect of the connections between geography and the scientific renaissance of the nineteenth century.

The Liverpool department of geography under Roxby was a place of many contacts. There were, for example, close links with the movement for regional planning, visualized as a conscious effort in constructive social geography. In a related field of endeavour it was a source of gratification to Baker that he was invited, in collaboration with his senior colleague Wilfred Smith, to provide the first chapter of The social survey of Merseyside, as a geographical and historical background to this sociological report.² There were contacts, too, with the University Department of Education, and for two sessions during the war of 1939-45 Baker mounted lectures and discussions on the methods of teaching geography. The emphasis of the department of geography was on the Far Eastern region, but scope and encouragement were forthcoming for teaching and research upon African geography.

For his undergraduate thesis Baker elected to make a library study of Tanganyika Territory, a choice which stemmed partly from an interest in the mandatory system of the League of Nations and partly from the desire to bring a knowledge of the German language into the service of geographical inquiry. In 1926 a committee on ‘The human geography of inter-tropical Africa’ had been set up under the chairmanship of Roxby by the British Association for the Advancement of Science. For this committee, of which he became a member, Baker compiled a population map of Uganda, which was presented to Section E of the Association at its Bristol meeting in 1930 and later published in revised form in the Uganda Journal.³ In 1933 a period of study leave, from March to September, enabled Baker to pay his first visit to East Africa. The fruits of this visit included a paper on ‘The social geography of western Uganda’, read before Section E of the British Association at Aberdeen, 1934; and in the same year ‘A study of the distribution of native population over East Africa’, presented to Section C (Demography and Population Problems) of the International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, London. Contacts with the social anthropologists continued, and a paper on ‘Pastoralist and cultivator in the highlands of East Africa: a study in contrasting social relationships’ was delivered to Section E (Ethnography) at the Copenhagen, 1938, meeting of the International Congress.

During the 1930s there were active relationships with the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures, which published Baker’s own paper on the population geography of East Africa⁴ and that of research student L. James on the Kenya Masai.⁵ Work with another thesis student, R. T. White, resulted in a joint paper for the Institute of British Geographers, which was published in the Geographical Journal.⁶ Assistance given to the African Research Survey included memoranda used in the drafting and revision of certain chapters in Lord Hailey’s An African Survey, 1938. Inquiries concerning draft material on the human geography of the Kikuyu country were naturally directed to Mr Jomo Kenyatta and elicited an appreciative and helpful response in a letter dated 14 January 1939, which is now in the library of Makerere University. In 1946, immediately before taking up his appointment at Makerere, Baker wrote articles on Eastern and Central Africa (the latter with R. T. White) for Chambers’s Encyclopaedia.

In 1945 Baker read the report of the Commission on Higher Education in the Colonies, and attracted by the prospect of taking part in what he considered to be a veritable historical movement, he decided to seek an appointment in one of the developing colleges of what were then the colonial dependencies of Britain. It happened that the first advertised vacancy, in 1946, was at Makerere College, which served the area wherein his research interests lay. At the age of 39 Baker came to his post with a long standing interest in inter tropical Africa and an active desire to contribute through the medium of higher education to the advancement of colonial peoples. He stated at the time that it would be his endeavour to create a school of geography which would be a vital centre of teaching and research for the whole of the region served by the college. In January 1947 he arrived at Kampala, having travelled up the Nile valley, to take up the challenge of his new appointment.

The arrival of Baker at the dawn of university education in East Africa coincided with some very crucial changes in the structure of higher education. The year of his arrival marked an important stage in plans for higher commercial and technical education in Kenya. In 1949 Makerere College entered into a special relationship with the University of London and began courses leading to the award of the External Degrees of the University of London. He became deeply involved in the vital changes that began with Makerere University College and culminated in the establishment of the Federal University of East Africa. Baker saw and approached the challenge of his new appointment in three vital areas.

In the first place, he had found an opportunity to establish a genuine university department of geography, fortified by the experience and inspiration gained at Liverpool. He combined the zeal of his predecessors and the founders of modern geography with the practical approach demanded of the discipline in a developing country.

In the second place, it is characteristic of his foresight that he unobtrusively demonstrated that a firm foundation for a university department of geography depended on a consistent policy of attracting and recruiting local East African staff. To this end, modifications of the London degree structure in geography had the double aim of safeguarding standards and providing East Africa with university manpower grounded in the discipline. He was among the pioneers in instituting a systematic programme of selecting and training of East African staff. By a regular and sometimes lengthy correspondence he maintained close touch with them at a time when rapid changes were affecting university education in East Africa.

Thirdly, Baker was undoubtedly one of the architects of the Federal University of East Africa. With Makerere firmly established he extended university influence through close contacts with the secondary educational institutions. The Department of Geography at Makerere built up a consultative system with the schools that greatly enhanced the teaching and interest in the subject. With the emergence of the newer university institutions in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam he took an early opportunity to ensure an orderly transfer of this consultative role.

In the midst of heavy administrative and academic involvement at Makerere University College and within the University of East Africa, Baker maintained a close watch over the research interests of the members of staff and postgraduate students. He initiated the bibliographical contribution on East Africa which the department has continued to compile for the ‘Association de Géographes Français’ and served for a period as President of the Uganda Society. However, it is a mark of his dedication to research that despite heavy demands on his time he maintained a steady dialogue with fellow geographers in a series of publications from the Department.⁷,⁸,⁹,¹⁰,¹¹ For a more detailed study of the programme of the Department, readers are referred to Research in Geography at Makerere 1947-1967.¹²

REFERENCES

1 ROXBY, p. M. ‘The scope and aims of human geography’ Scottish Geographical Magazine vol. 46 pp. 276-90(1930).

2 JONES, D. c. The social survey of Merseyside vol. 1 pp. 1-41 (1934).

3 BAKER, s. J. K. ‘The population map of Uganda: a geographical interpretation’ Uganda Journal vol. 1 pp. 134-44.

4 BAKER, s. J. K. ‘A study of the distribution of native population over East Africa’ Africa vol. 10 pp. 37-54 (1937).

5 JAMES, L. ‘The Kenya Masai: a nomadic people under modern administration’ Africa vol. 12 pp. 49-73 (1939).

6 BAKER, s. J. K. and R. T. WHITE ‘The distribution of native population over south-east central Africa’ Geographical Journal vol. 108 pp. 198-210(1946).

7 BAKER, s. J. K. ‘Buganda: a geographical appraisal’ Transactions and Papers 1956 (Institute of British Geographers) No. 22 pp. 171-9 (1957).

8 BAKER, s. J. K. and A. SHEPHERD‘A bibliographical postscript to the Makerere Symposium’ IGU Newsletter vol. 8 No. 2 pp. 32-6.

9 BAKER, s. J. K. ‘The Geographical Background of Western Uganda’ Uganda Journal vol. 22 No. 1 pp. 1-10(1958).

10 BAKER, s. J. K. ‘The population geography of East Africa’ The East African Geographical Review No. 1 pp. 1-6 (1963).

11 BAKER, s. J. K. ‘The East African Environment’ Chapter (pp. 1-22) in OLIVER, R. and G. MATHEW (eds.) History of East Africa vol. 1 (Oxford University Press 1963).

12 LANGLANDS, B. W. Research in Geography at Makerere 1947-1967. Occasional Paper No. 2 (Department of Geography, Makerere University 1967).

1 Geography & African Development

SIMEON H. OMINDE

1. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL DIS CIPLINE

In the rapidly expanding institutions of higher learning in East Africa the development of the geographical discipline is but the culmination of a period of intense intellectual application to the challenges of Africa. Within the context of East Africa, it is proper that we should record our debt in particular to the vision of Professor S. J. K. Baker and his colleagues for their faith in the establishment of Makerere School of Geography, and to the part it has played in extending the horizon of geographical tradition in East Africa.

I shall later comment on the specific research contribution of this school and that of the University College, Dar- es-Salaam. However, it is necessary to remind ourselves that as the University institutions in East Africa enter the next phase of their development, Makerere and its sister colleges have played a crucial role in meeting the high- level manpower needs of East Africa. I have a special privilege in recording our debt to Professor W. T. W. Morgan and those of his colleagues who were available at a critical movement in the initial stages of the growth of the University College, Nairobi, who helped to ensure that the geographical discipline secured a respected place in the developing structure of the academic commitment to the Kenya nation, East Africa, and the wider international community of which we are a part. We need also to record the welcome development of the geographical tradition in its new base at Dar-es-Salaam under the resourceful leadership of Professor Berry and his colleagues.

In choosing Geography and Development as the theme of this paper, I have done so to remind readers of the ultimate role of our intellectual activity in the challenges facing our continent. But there is a more positive reason underlying the choice of theme. In the context of United Nations Development Decade it is only proper that we should examine our role in the practical situation facing our countries and continent. The ‘economic take-off by the continent of Africa in this second half of the twentieth century demands that the intellectual activities on which success or failure will depend should be constantly under review.

In the narrower sense it is difficult to resist the temptation to use this opportunity to clear up some misunderstandings regarding our role or reason for existence within the general educational framework. In many areas of our educational experience we are paralysed by philosophical disputes which are part of the colonial educational legacy. Lacking in originality, we tend to be lost in academic disputes which have no foundation in the realities of our development. The extent to which twentiethcentury African geography will free itself from the methodological uncertainties of its parentage will depend on the comprehension of a growing generation of geographers, with a vision of their discipline not as restricted within narrow national, faculty, or departmental confines, but as a dynamic intellectual activity of great practical importance to economic and social development in the modern world. It will also depend on the extent of their contribution to finding and adapting new methodological approaches, and in particular, the use of new techniques that are becoming rapidly available and are being put to good use by scholars in other disciplines and in more developed parts of the world.

2. THE GEOGRAPHICAL TRADITION AND THE NATURE OF MODERN GEOGRAPHY

In a community of scholars in which we have made a distinctive contribution, I do not feel the need to offer an apologia for my subject. However, it is natural that I should make a few observations concerning the nature of our intellectual activity. In the first place the rapid pace of development of our institutions of higher learning in East Africa and new ideas to which we must constantly adapt ourselves from time to time raise the question as to what geographers are supposed to be doing.

In the second place, our cultural relations with the rest of the world unfortunately put us in a situation in which we tend to be concerned with disputes in the educational sphere for several decades after they have had their impact in the European world and elsewhere. In Europe today, where the stress is on teaching and research, the administrative base is secure and the dispute about which fold geography belongs to is a matter of the past. But in some of our institutions the efforts of geographical scholars tend to be frustrated by the discipline mould which we have inherited, a situation that is contrary to the nature of geographical thought and to the development challenge that East African countries present to geographers.

However, even if such problems continue to exist in the developed countries of the world, the facts of development in Africa require that the role of geography in the transformation of our natural resources and development of our human resources be correctly appreciated. Such an appreciation calls for insight into how geographers have shaped the discipline over the past hundred years. A. E. Perkins, surveying the American scene in the early twentieth century, recorded general agreement that geography was concerned about the earth and knowledge about life on it.¹ Others (to resolve the dispute) have taken the view that ‘Geography is what Geographers do’.² Another distinguished American geographer once defined geography as ‘The science of areal differentiation’, and later added ‘geography is concerned to provide accurate, orderly and rational description and interpretation of the variable character of the earth’.³ These definitions are but a fragment of the wealth of literature that has accumulated as a result of over a century of intense intellectual discussion, in an attempt to clarify the scope and subject-matter of geography. We are aware that the dispute rages with no less fury in the Socialist countries, despite the tremendous contribution of the subject to development in these countries.

In the Soviet Union Academician Gerasimov has drawn attention to the difficulties over the subject-matter and definition of approach to phenomena to be studied which have yet to be overcome by geographers. But geography as an intellectual activity in the Soviet Union aims at ascertaining and clarifying connections between natural phenomena in different parts of the earth’s surface or between characteristics of the population and the economy in the national and world-wide context.

The diversity of approach outlined here is a reflection of the varied strands which have come to make up the modern complex discipline of geography over the last century. It is natural that professional geographers in the universities and institutes should be at the centre of this controversy. But practising teachers and a large number of educationists have also contributed definitions which in the main reflect their area of special interest in geography.

Modern geography had its beginnings in the great surge of intellectual and social activity of the nineteenth century. It was a time when the transport revolution had created a new awareness of place and the differences between places of which an increasing number of observers were beginning to have first-hand experience. With the triumph of the scientific method intellectual activity on an unparalleled scale was unleashed to systematize the vast accumulation of factual material. This new phase of scientific activity could be described in terms of ‘Curiosity for its own sake, but also interest in industrial techniques, and practical control; freedom of inquiry; experimental verification in place of authority; full publication and abundant discussions.’⁴ Its wider impact on intellectual activity in general has been to categorize specialization of thought and the development of analytical techniques in association with particular phenomena.⁵ The nineteenth-century scholars who launched the discipline in its modern form were deeply dissatisfied with the current trend of ever narrower specialization which threatened the unity of intellectual life.

This nineteenth-century intellectual framework in which modern geography was moulded also led to a tendency to explain social change in terms of features of the physical environment. It was responsible for the subsequent revolt of some geographers against the narrow approach of environmental determinism. This was an intellectual revolt which once more shifted the centre of gravity in geographical thought towards human activities. Perhaps the most significant and lasting aspect of this shift was the birth of the ‘Regional’ school of geographers, led by eminent names in French geography such as Vidal de la Blache, Reclus, St Martin, and Maunoir.

The regional method in geography emerged at a time when the application of the methods of natural science to the social sciences was under attack. The foundation for systematic geography had been firmly laid and the genius of French scholars turned to interpretation and exposition. Together with other landmarks in the development of the geographical tradition, the emergence of the ‘Regional’ school illustrates the importance of the prevailing intellectual climate of the day on the work of geographers.

I have outlined the changing ideas in the developing geographical tradition not to arrive at an agreed definition but to set the framework for the diverse views of geographers about the purpose of their intellectual inquiry. In this connection I need to mention another intellectual surge which has added yet another framework of reference to geography as an intellectual pursuit. This is the emergence of Marxist ideology. Modern Soviet geographers address themselves to their challenge within the framework of the principles of dialectical materialism. Thus our expectation of a single definition within the world’s intellectual framework must recede even farther. But even in such a situation, the distinctive characteristic of geographical methodology is defined as generalization and synthesis—‘which is just as essential to the progress of science as the analytical work done within the narrower framework of a more specialized scientific discipline’.⁶ I shall have more to say about the contribution of geography to development in the socialist economies at a later stage.

3. WESTERN GEOGRAPHICAL TRADITION IN THE CONTEXT OF AFRICAN GEOGRAPHICAL CHALLENGE

In a sense to superficially attach the label ‘African’ to a scientific discipline might justify the charge not only of narrow nationalism but also of intellectual bankruptcy. The invitation here to examine the distinctive African character of our task as geographers in my opinion has two main justifications. In the first instance, as part of the modern intellectual re awakening of our continent, we are challenged to reflect on geography as an intellectual activity within the context of the African development situation, and of Africa in its adjustment to the world setting. In this respect, we see this intellectual tradition adapting itself to the wider intellectual climate of a changing Africa. Here is an opportunity to place in perspective the contribution of the Western geographical tradition to the understanding of problems of African development and global relations.

In the second place, if African development is not a blind imitation of the course of events in the countries which have so far nursed the geographical tradition, then there is need for a redefinition of the goals which would determine the evolving theoretical and practical role of the subject in the solution of our development problems. This is the question of the African philosophy of economic and social development. In this lies the distinctive contribution of African scholars to expanding the intellectual horizon through geographical research and teaching.

Like most aspects of the modern intellectual traditions in Africa, geography as a discipline belongs to that phase which might be called a phase of cultural intrusion. It is owing to our manpower situation that the place and philosophy of geography in the face of our challenge must for some time depend on overseas support and inspiration. This in a large measure means exposure to and assimilation of those traditions of geography from its past sources which have become inextricably woven into the modern fabric of geography as a scientific discipline in Africa.

In its critical formative period during the second half of the nineteenth century the growth of geography was essentially part of the upsurge of western intellectual activity. In Europe and America it developed in a closely knit international intellectual atmosphere, flourishing side by side with progress in the conquest of nature. Whether from Germany, whence it inherited its scientific gene, or from France and Britain, where the humanist strain made a distinctive contribution, the complex stream of modern geography as an intellectual activity very clearly became an essential instrument in African political, social, and economic development. In Europe and America it was a practical concern of statesmen, missionaries, merchants, commercial entrepreneurs, and even other adventurers with their interest in the expanding world-horizon. The encyclopedic geography of the exploration period was in the main part of a drive to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding European sphere of influence. But at the same time, in America, it was harnessed in the service of the expanding American frontier, particularly that of better knowledge and control of American resource bases.

The discipline was forged by scholars, partly in institutions of higher learning, who were acutely conscious of the importance of the educational system in its establishment. Many of the pioneers of modern geography devoted their time to encouraging the growth of geography in schools. It emerged in the educational scene at a time of fierce competition for a place in the timetable, and the threat is not entirely over. The difficult circumstances of the birth of the discipline has had the effect of putting professional geographers on the defensive and of giving emphasis to the definition of the role of geography and the place of its changing methodology.

For many years the Western geographical tradition in Africa continued as a ray illuminating African enterprise from its home base, selecting for study those aspects which fitted into the intellectual framework of the time. The founding of educational institutions in Africa, especially in the mid-twentieth century, therefore constitutes an important milestone in the establishment of African geography as an intellectual and practical activity. With the foundations of institutions of higher learning, the Western geographical endeavour in Africa found a base and new media, in which the discipline could begin a fresh period of growth in the service of new nations and a continent faced by new challenges. It is this phase that bears the indelible mark of Professor S. J. K. Baker and colleagues who worked with him in East Africa.

We must pass on to an important field in which the geographical tradition outlined has made a permanent contribution to African geography. This is the vital field of cartography. The great achievements of European and American geography in African development form a lasting chapter in the cartographic revolution. The advances in cartography were stimulated by the need to codify information gathered from both known and newly explored parts of the world.

Through official surveys and private atlases, valuable geographical information on our continent has been recorded for posterity. Cartography is now a highly specialized science in which geographers continue to play an important role. Great names in this cartographic revolution have an honoured place in the development of geographical science just as much as the distinguished scholars and societies that were responsible for the development of the discipline we have now inherited.

However, despite the basic importance of cartographic advances to modern geography in Africa, inadequate cartographical resources continue to be one of the most critical limitations in our task. The cartographic science is part of the essential technological equipment of the more developed parts of the world. Its successful establishment in the service of African advance is a major development challenge. Large areas of the continent are inadequately mapped or still depend on former metropolitan countries for their cartographic needs despite increased local activity. In English-speaking Africa an increasing share of the basic topographic mapping is done locally. But in former French colonies the basic topographic mapping is done almost wholly in France. Local activity is confined largely to cadastral surveys and revision of topographical sheets.

In Britain the Directorate of Overseas Surveys was established after the Second World War to meet the expanding needs of the Commonwealth countries. But with the rapid increase in the number of independent countries, new difficulties began to arise. Delay in execution of the assignments is one of the major problems. Further, there is the cost of new production techniques, which have already been employed for other countries. These difficulties point to the urgency of pooling African resources to expand the cartographic service in support of development programmes.

I have referred to the role of cartography in advancing geographical knowledge about Africa not simply as a distinctive contribution of the Western geographical tradition, but to stress the making of maps as a basic geographical technique which must receive the increasing attention of geographers in developing Africa. I must in concluding this section pass on to review geographical specialization and new changes in methodology, which are equally important in extending the frontiers of our discipline in the face of development problems of the continent.

Specialization is as old as the formal study of geography. However, the present trend towards specialization is in essence a legacy of the nineteenth-century traditions of the subject. We have already noted that the scholars who fashioned the geographical discipline in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were trained in other disciplines. They established the discipline by asking themselves geographical questions, or by seeking geographical solutions to problems of the organization of knowledge.⁷ In the face of deepening specialization modern geographers find themselves more and more called upon to master at least sections of the natural science within which their material lies. This is the problem of subject-matter orientation or specialization in geography, which has given rise to academic uncertainties about the activities of geographers and continues to hamper the understanding of some scholars not trained in the discipline. Physical geographers find themselves drawn into the sphere of the natural sciences concerned with the physical, chemical, and biological aspects of the earth. In the field of human geography research workers have now found themselves side by side with other social scientists concerned with such problems as population structures and trends, factors underlying migration, qualitative differences in population, and a wide range of problems of economic development or under-development.

The degree of specialization associated with the growth in geographical knowledge, and which is reflected in Western geographical traditions, must be regarded as a development in response to national and world wide problems as seen through the eyes of geographers. These specialisms have become part of the widening horizon of African geography and form the foundation on which geographical tradition in East Africa must rest in serving development needs. However, it is necessary to draw attention to the fact that deepening specialization rests on the foundation of an important change in the techniques used. Western geography continues to be empirical in outlook, with increasing reliance on quantitative methods of analysis. Modern geographers in expanding their intellectual horizon have come to rely more and more on sophisticated statistical techniques throughout the whole spectrum of geographical specialization.

Statistical procedures do not comprise the entire activity of geographers. But since geographers are concerned with the integration of a large number of variables, advances in statistical techniques provide an undoubted and firm basis for geographic generalizations. Statistics also provide a meeting-ground on which the methodology of the physical and the social sciences can be accommodated. Among the current trends in research and teaching is the vital contribution of cross-fertilization by external concepts from the field of mathematical statistics and systems analysis.⁸ The quantitative and systems-analysis revolution in geography is one of the most important developments in contemporary geographical thinking and teaching.

In the specialist field of economic geography a healthy intellectual exchange has emerged in connection with the role of economics in determining the form of geographical patterns, including urbanization. A renewed interest has developed in regional research and methods of regional analysis. Regional studies have received a powerful impact from the contribution of econometrics. Investigations have been directed to such practical issues as the economic performance of regions, industries needed to smooth out employment irregularities, and how to maximize the use of limited resource endowment. Geographers have followed with interest the strongly mathematical approach of economists to definition of regions through the techniques of input-output analysis and linear programming. Through inter-disciplinary research projects, geographers and economists are today participating in research activities of a very high standard.

So far geographical teaching and research has relied mainly on static models or abstractions. New developments in the use of models in economic geography include attempts at a dynamic infusion through the idea of chance process. The uncertainty principle which is now a common language in the mathematical world has been a scientific achievement of immense importance to the present and future contribution of geographical methodology and research. It is also a pointer to the danger of neglecting the mathematical basis in the development of geographical education and research, and of thinking of geography as soft option. In this field geography is on the threshold of developments which require increasing attention to the teaching of elementary statistics.

The spread of geographical activity in Africa from the West by direct research, teaching, and inspiration has left a rich and varied record. The records may be scattered in the annals of exploration, colonizing activities and settlement, and public service. It has left a permanent record in the role of geography as a recognized subject in the modern education of Africa’s youth. But a mere extension of intellectual activity from outside would have meant little if geographers had not risen to the challenge of addressing themselves to the practical and theoretical problems of the African scene. This brief but varied history is best reflected in the records of research in the schools of geography that now form a well-established feature of our higher education system. It is on the universities to which Professor Baker contributed so much, and on other institutions of higher learning, that a full realization of geographical challenge must depend.

Within East Africa the contribution of geography to manpower needs and to research now forms a large part of the work of the new universities of Makerere, Nairobi, and Dar-es-Salaam. A summary of Makerere’s contribution in its two decades of existence under the inspiring leadership of Professor S. J. K. Baker has been ably presented by B. W. Langlands.⁹ In the two decades of the development of the School our horizons in the specialist fields of the physical and human geography of East Africa have been extended by inspired individual research, and at times as part of much wider international programmes such as the International Geophysical Year or the International Hydrological Decade. Through these researches almost all the main branches of geography have received attention within the context of East Africa. The effect of this has begun to be felt in the insatiable geographical market for East African material.

At the University of Dar-es-Salaam, a geographical team is addressing itself to the development needs of the Tanzanian Government and to the undisputed gap in research and teaching material. A late-comer to the research field, the Department of Geography at Dar-es-Salaam already has an outline of research topics in both physical and human fields that underline a clear awareness of the development role of the discipline. In the expanding programme of research covering land use, land classification and regional planning, population problems, problems of water resources, political geography, biogeography, and geomorphology, the department is stretching its resources to realize its role as regards the urgent practical needs of the nation as well as the wider intellectual horizon.¹⁰

At the University of Nairobi, the need for geographers to address themselves to urgent problems of development is reflected in the growing output of research papers and books covering such fields as population problems in relation to planning, industrial and agricultural geography, land utilization, geomorphology, problems of large-scale irrigation, and in the compilation of the National Atlas. Educational institutions now have at their disposal school atlases reflecting a new concept of what school geography should be. This research is, as in the other institutions, directed to fulfilling the needs for data on which informed policy decisions could be based as well as to meeting the expanding needs indicated by the undergraduate and graduate programmes. This is but a beginning on the foundation which must be further strengthened and must carry the future of the discipline in the service of African development in Kenya and Eastern Africa.

The advancement of geography in Africa continues to be nourished by the interest of international scholars throughout the world. In America the African Studies Association maintains the keen attention of some of the distinguished names in the development of twentiethcentury geography. Regular visits are paid to the continent by scholars and students from Europe, North America, and other parts of the world.

In Britain interest in African geography is maintained by scholars who have taught or been engaged in research in various African countries. Geographical research and contributions in this field draw on the concern in developed parts of the world with the need to ensure a rational and rapid development of African resources to meet the expanding needs of her growing population. At a recent meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science Professor R. W. Steel took up the theme ‘Geography and the developing world’ for a Presidential Address to Section E of the Association. In this address the contribution of British and other scholars in the field of African geography is ably summarized. Professor Steel