Building Local Democracy: Local agricultural planning has many obstacles:

Spend the money in a week – or send it back!

MS Tanzania shares experiences with partners and their collaborators in their respective districts: Farmers are sidelined by complicated planning procedures; guidelines are written in English; and serious delays of money for activities are common.

By Merete Holm and Katrine Plesner

25. august 2008

One of the cornerstones in strategic planning of agriculture in Tanzania are the so-called District Agricultural Development Plans (DADPs), where different actors within the agricultural sector, in principle, work together to prepare support for the agricultural sector in the local community.

DADPs also play a major role in the Building Local Democracy theme for MS Tanzania. Farmers’ and other private sector actors' inclusion in the creation process of the DADPs is an important part of increasing participation in the decision-making process.

A workshop where MS Tanzania shared its experience with farmer organisations and private sector inclusion with its partners and other NGOs shows, however, that there are a number of challenges to overcome before DADPs can become real democratic tools for farmers, civil society organisations and the private sector in rural areas: 

• Sometimes DADPs' grants arrive the week before they need to be spent. How can the district effectively implement the planned activities for a whole year in a week? An outcome of this practice is that a lot of grants are returned unused to the Ministry of Agriculture.
• Farmers and producers don’t get feedback on their contribution to DADPs. There is no system of feedback.
• Participants at all levels of the planning process are unaware of when they will get an answer to their specific proposals. This makes it very difficult for them to follow-up on them.
• The planning process is too long and too complicated.
• DADPs are done in a rush, and there is a lot of copy-paste from previous years.
• DADPs are written in English due to guidelines being in English, and because an English format suits donors’ needs. But most farmers don’t understand English! However, there seems to be a consensus among district officials in the MS Tanzania workshop that districts can choose to write their DADPs in Kiswahili. It is never done, though. The problem is a lack of resources. It is difficult to follow English guidelines and write in Kiswahili. Only one MS Tanzania partner, TAWLAE, has developed its own supplementary guidelines in Kiswahili.
• Priorities used to select or reject village and ward proposals at district level are not known by farmers and other private sector representatives.
• Individuals’ interests interfere in the selection or rejection of proposals, and it is not clear who makes the final decision.

Partners’ experiences and collaboration

MS Tanzania’s partners and their collaborators have different ways to include or be included in district planning and to interpret DADP guidelines.

One of MS Tanzania’s partners, Agricultural Council of Tanzania (ACT), presented at the workshop a pilot project with District Farmer Business Fora and public-private investment Plans. The investment plans are based on a value chain approach, where all links in the chain of inputs to and outputs from the agricultural sector are addressed, and therefore also include the private sector in the planning fora.

ACT and MS Tanzania have now decided to collaborate on strengthening farmer fora in Kilindi District - ACT is the coordinator of Tanzania Agriculture Partnership which will start in Kilindi in 2008-2009. To initiate a successful collaboration in Kilindi, the District Agriculture Development Officer has allocated human resources to MS’ partner in the district, TAYODEA.

Mbeya Rural and Mbozi District Council Officials have included commodity organisations and crop producer organisations in their DADP planning. The council in Mbeya District has furthermore translated the DADP guidelines into English and will share them.

NGOs from Mufindi and Iringa Rural have found ways to empower communities to participate in local government planning and to get projects co-funded through the DADPs.