Newsletter January 2006

For MS Partners and development workers in Tanzania

January 2006

Editor: Information worker Lisbeth Jensen

Editor-in-chief: Director Flemming Winther Olsen

Letter from the Director

A new president and a new parliament are now in place in Tanzania – and the new brooms are for now brushing quit a bit of dust into the open. President Kikwete is busy touring all ministries – he has added a few himself! – and is making bold statements on improved services, better business environment, less corruption and more accountability. Not much is being said about civil society and its organisations and there is a wide spread ‘wait-and-see’ attitude among NGOs and other civil society organisations.

The election process and the results did bring both good and bad news for the state of democracy in Tanzania. The fact that is was never questioned to uphold the two terms limit on presidential terms must be highly applauded – not least in light of the development in neighbouring countries! That in itself demonstrates a healthy level of political maturity. The presidential elections themselves were also by most observers found to be a fair and true representation of peoples wish.

The parliamentary elections on the other hand did contain disturbing elements of heavy handed party discipline and manipulation on the part of the ruling party CCM. Numerous reports on vote buying, intimidation of opposition candidates and an un-compromising use of a very effective party machinery did somehow cloud the democratic skies of Tanzania. The outcome of the parliamentary elections adds to the concern for the state of democracy. The opposition was basically wiped out. There are fears that one consequence of this effectively one-party parliament will be that parliament will become largely irrelevant – the Government does really not need to be concerned about Parliament. Unless the small opposition groupings left in Parliament gets organized and manages to add value to the political agenda in Tanzania, fear is that Parliament will continue its focus of its first meeting after elections: on higher remuneration and other perks for MPs!

Few observers have entered into speculations on what this massive mandate for the ruling party may imply in terms of living conditions for civil society organisations. It is a general notion among NGOs that the political climate towards NGOs has become more hostile over the past few years. Hope is that the secure position in which the new Government finds itself will translate into a more relaxed attitude towards civil society organisations – but for now it is ‘wait-and-see’!

On the home front MS Tanzania will conduct its Annual Meeting 2006 in mid February, after which the revision of focus and strategies will be finalized and communicated in the next Newsletter. An extraordinary General Assembly of MS Denmark (January 28^th 2006) brought further clarification on overall policies and strategies. The overall theme for MS will be support to democracy building in all aspects of life. The proposed theme of “Rural Livelihood – Rural Development through Popular Participation” clearly falls within the new overall MS theme. More on this in the next Newsletter after the Annual Meeting.

Further on the home front the Country Office has conducted interviews for two new Program Officer – from which results will also be communicated in the next Newsletter upon finalization of contracts. A transport officer Mr. Moses…..? has been employed as from February 1^st to enhance maintenance of our vehicle fleet.

Address list revisited

Our address list for this newsletter has become very long, and many names on it are unfamiliar to present staff at Country Office. Therefore we kindly ask you to reconfirm your wish to be updated on the daily life in MS Tanzania. You can do this by just replying to this mail.

Visit of Danish Members of Parliament

MS Tanzania hosted a meeting between Danish parliamentarians and Tanzanian civil society on the 17^th of January.

The Committee for Foreign Affairs of the Danish Parliament chaired by Steen Gade and the Minister for Development Aid Ulla Tørnæs has paid a week-long visit to Tanzania and besides visiting DANIDA funded projects and talking to government representatives they also met with a selection of representatives from the Tanzanian civil society at the meeting at the MS Tanzania Country Office.

For two hours there was a lively discussion on opportunities and problems. The questions and answers were very frank and touched upon governmental harassment of critical NGO’s, weak Medias and distrust between civil society and government.

MS Tanzania director Flemming Olsen briefed on the MS program in Tanzania. All NGO representatives presented the Committee with the need to invest much more in strengthening civil society organizations for building true democracy in Tanzania.

The national NGO’s further pledged with the politicians to create access to development information via DANIDA. “The big donors know more about government plans and intentions than we do!” it was claimed by local NGO representatives.

The represented NGO’s apart from MS were: ADRA Tanzania, HakiElimu, NGO Policy Forum, CARE International Tanzania and Tanzania Gender Network Programme (TGNP)

Big step for UVUKI

UVUKI, an umbrella organisation for cashew nut farmers’ cooperatives in Kibaha, has just succeeded through collaboration with MS to get a substantial bank loan to finalize a factory and for operational capital.

During March/April they hope to be ready to employ and train workers and start processing the raw nuts from all the members.

The members of UVUKI hopes to get a better income from their nuts by selling them as processed nuts in stead of selling raw nuts. They also hope to get access to market without selling through middlemen.

UVIKU provides inputs to production at better prices; they provide training in modern crop production and training in cooperative management. The cooperatives under UVUKI provide common store facilities, machinery for spraying and nurseries.

TRCC training on information

The Coalition of Teachers Resource Centre is sending out a newsletter to the 150 members across Tanzania. As the first partner of MS they asked for in-house coaching and training from the information advisor DW at Country Office.

During a day the staff involved in the newsletter went through basic steps of writing and editing a newsletter.

As training material the previous newsletter and planned articles for the coming issues served well. In that way the training was actually part of the work for the next newsletter.

All partners of MS are welcome to ask for in-house training in information work from the advisor. Just ask the programme officer or Lisbeth Jensen directly.

WTO meeting in Hong Kong in December

The vice-chairman of the board of MS Denmark, Nils Brøgger Jakobsen, participated in the WTO meeting in Hong Kong in December, and his conclusion was clear: The rich world did not give anything to better trade conditions for the developing world and the rich world still protects their agricultural sector with subsidies and import restrictions.

But he saw one positive new trend. 110 developing countries for the first time talked with one voice in their demand for better trade possibilities, and many of the country-delegations had strong representation of NGO delegates.

DW leaving

Pernille Cordes is leaving TRCC – Teacher Resource Centre Coalition by the end of January.

Henrik Zilstorff is leaving Mapambano Centre after a short term contract by the end of January. Henrik will, however, continue on a new short term contract for 4 month where he will use his long experience from working for MS Tanzania to assist MS Tanzania in developing and operationalizing our revised strategies and working modalities.

New DW

Tine Fromberg Arvid will start in March on a short term contract at TRCC.  Tine is MA in Educational Studies and she has previously worked with TRC in Namibia. Tine already lives in Dar es Salaam with her husband Jørgen, who is a Danida advisor. They have two teenage children.

Adverts for 5 new DWs have been posted and can be found on the MS website.

Link to information

www.id21.org offers free access to hundreds of short easy-to-read highlights on international development topics. You can also subscribe to a newsletter. It is funded by DFID and edited at Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, UK

For contributions to the newsletter or further information please contact lisbeth@mstan.or.tz