Operation Vijiji (''Operation Villagisation'') was an exercise in
social engineering carried out in post-colonial
Tanzania
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...
in 1973. The operation involved the relocation, sometimes forced, of many thousands of rural Tanzanians to ''
Ujamaa
Ujamaa ( in Swahili) was a socialist ideology that formed the basis of Julius Nyerere's social and economic development policies in Tanzania after it gained independence from Britain in 1961.
More broadly, ujamaa may mean "cooperative economic ...
'' villages in order to facilitate
communal farming and common services. The intention was that the whole rural population would move by 1976.
[Benschop, Marjolein. (2002]
''Rights and Reality: Are women’s equal rights to land, housing and property implemented in East Africa?''
Nairobi: United Nations Human Settlements Programme
The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) is the United Nations programme for human settlements and sustainable urban development. It was established in 1977 as an outcome of the first United Nations Conference on Human Settlem ...
, chapter 4, p. 100. The project was, and still is, controversial and was abandoned in the 1980s. Many people then attempted to return to their former homes, leading to widespread land disputes.
References
{{Tanzania-stub
Political history of Tanzania