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DFID Tanzania
5th Floor, Umoja House, Garden Avenue, PO Box 9200, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Tel: +255 22 2110141 | Fax: +255 22 2110130/8
Map courtesy of the FCO
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Tanzania
Tanzania has enjoyed virtually uninterrupted political stability and peace
since independence in 1961 and union with Zanzibar in 1964. The country has one
of the greatest ranges of ethnic and religious diversity in the world (some 120
tribes) and manifests a tradition of strong ethnic and religious tolerance.
Economic and Political Summary
 Tanzania
is an emerging, multiparty democracy. Elections have been held three times since
1995, and each has been dominated by the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party.
President Jakaya Kikwete is currently the president, having won an overwhelming
victory under the CCM party in the country’s third general election in 2005.
Since 2000, the Tanzanian economy has become better at withstanding adverse
shocks and has consistently achieved growth rates above 5% per year, up
from an average of 3% per year in the late 1990s.
Tanzania has undergone significant macroeconomic and structural reform but it
still has a long way to go in reducing poverty. It is heavily aid dependent
(approximately 40% of the national budget is funded though aid) and more than
one third of the population lives below the national poverty line.
Tanzania also plays a significant role in the Great Lakes peace process and
has been home refugees from Rwanda, Burundi and DRC.
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Poverty Reduction
Tanzania has implemented a Poverty Reduction Strategy since 2000,
supported by a comprehensive and strong National Poverty Monitoring System which
DFID has supported since 2001. Over
this period, public spending doubled in most of its priority sectors:
- Education
- Health
- Agriculture
- Roads
- Water
- The judiciary
- HIV and AIDS.
The Government has launched a second poverty reduction strategy called
the National
Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty more
popularly known by its Kiswahili acronym
'Mkukuta'. It concentrates on three main areas:
- Reducing income poverty by achieving and sustaining broad
economic growth
- Improving the quality of life and social well-being of Tanzanians
by ensuring that everyone has equal access to quality services
- Promoting good governance and the rule of law.
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DFID in Tanzania
 DFID
supports the Government of Tanzania in the implementation of “Mkukuta”. Our
assistance to Tanzania has risen from £80 million in 2003/04 to £120 million
in 2007/08, with more than 80% going to
general budget
support. Our plans are to further increase our level of assistance in
Tanzania over the next few years.
Our aim is to provide high quality development support and assist Tanzania to
make faster progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. The core
principles of our approach are to strengthen national policy, planning,
budgeting and monitoring systems, contribute to making aid more effective and
reduce the costs of delivering aid.
In the next three years, we will work on six areas that we believe are a
prerequisite for Tanzania to make significant progress towards the MDGs. These
six areas are mutually reinforcing, and are drawn from and contribute to the
Tanzanian Government’s key policy statements including MKUKUTA and Vision 2025.
These areas are:
- Promoting broad-based and sustained growth;
- Assisting the Government of Tanzania to develop policy, planning and
resource allocation decisions that are better aligned and
evidence-based;
- Increasing the capacity and effectiveness of government to provide
improved services;
- Assisting the Government of Tanzania to enable all Tanzanians,
particularly the poor and vulnerable, to increasingly access quality
basic services and social protection measures;
- Assisting Tanzanians to claim and exercise their rights as citizens,
including through a strengthened civil society; and
- Contributing to changes in the efficiency and effectiveness of
development partners in Tanzania to improve aid effectiveness.
Our assistance combines general budget support with a targeted programme of
technical and financial assistance that supports:
- Further development and embedding of national processes to aid
growth and poverty reduction; and
- An effective and accountable government, with strong domestic
accountability.
Further information on our programme and approach can be found in our
Country Assistance Plan for 2007 to 2010(392
kb), which was published in January 2007.
The Government of Tanzania and the donor community have made significant
progress over the last few years to line up donor support behind Tanzanian
priorities. DFID has been active in this work and has put substantial resources
into getting the donor community to work in harmony with the Tanzanian
Government’s systems and procedures. The establishment of the General Budget
Support (GBS), which is the Government of Tanzania’s preferred aid modality and
which we see as the most effective way to support the Government, has been
strongly championed by DFID. DFID is currently the chair of the group of 14
donors providing general budget support in Tanzania.
DFID is working alongside the Government of Tanzania and other development
partners to implement the new Joint Assistance Strategy for Tanzania (JAST),
agreed in 2006. The JAST is a medium-term plan for managing development
cooperation between the Government of Tanzania and development partners, and has
been designed to make aid more effective in line with the
Paris Declaration on
aid effectiveness.
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Tanzania and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
On
current trends, Tanzania is in line to meet two of the MDGs by 2015 - universal
primary education and gender equality in the ratio of boys to girls in primary
school. Abolition of school fees in 2001 has resulted in an
increase in the
number of children enrolled in primary school from 4.4 million in 2000 to 8
million in 2006. About 96% of children aged 7 to 13 are now enrolled in primary
school, and there are broadly equal numbers of boys and girls in primary school.
Progress against the rest of the MDG targets is slow. With a weak human
resource base and limited local capacity, the country faces major development
challenges.
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Links
Last updated: 26 March 2008
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