Tanzania Newsletter January 2007

Letter from the Director

This being the first Newsletter of 2007, I wish you all the very best for the New Year. Fortunately Tanzania has been blessed with good rains in most part of the country, indicating a good start of a year in which, however, new challenges can be expected for civil society organisations.
The good news here at the very beginning of the year is that MS Tanzania by and large reached the targets set for 2006. Together with our partner organisations we have completed the process of formulating the content and strategies of the three Topic Teams and we are now ready to start working along the new guidelines. The activity level was very high during 2006 and from the Country Office I want to thank all of you from partner organisations that spent a lot of time during 2006 in formulating the new strategy. Without your hard work and valuable inputs we would not have been where we are today.

The not so good news is that the political and economic environment we will be facing in 2007 is likely to become less friendly. The new government has been in place for a year now – and has promised us the moon! That can of course not be delivered and as that becomes increasingly clear, any critical voice can be expected to be met with increasing hostility. The proposed Access to Information bill – likely to be presented to parliament in its next sitting – is potentially the most serious attack on freedom of expression this country has seen since independence. If this proposal becomes law, the government will have the instrument to effectively curtail the free press and the power to decide who can work as a journalist and who cannot.
Holding the government accountable and defending the democratic space will be major challenges for CSOs during 2007. It will take courage and determination – but first and foremost it will put new demands on CSOs in terms of professionalism, transparency and accountability. Without having their own houses in order, the credibility of CSOs will rightly be questioned.

MS Tanzania is determined to increase its professional support to partner organisations embarking on defending and expanding the democratic space provided for in the constitution of Tanzania. We are equally determined to increase our support to CSOs and private sector associations fighting to eradicate poverty and striving to improve the livelihood of their members.
Together we can do it and together we can make life for poor people in Tanzania just a little bit better in 2007.  Let us set realistic targets and reach them while keeping the larger picture of a prosperous and democratic Tanzania as a vision not to be compromised on.

Topic Teams ready to work

After a year of planning and training, MS Tanzania is ready to present the team approach as a practical and professional way of working together with our partners in 2007.
Around the three topics: Organisational capacity building, Public Private Partnership and Networking, strategic planning and fundraising we have three teams of qualified and experienced partner representatives and development workers. Each team is coordinated by a Programme Officer, also an expert on the topic.
On the MS Annual meeting in February the work plan for 2007 will be presented to all partners. There will be activities and training for clusters of partners with similar needs as well as individual advising and mentoring.

PAB meeting

The December meeting in the Policy Advisory Board (PAB) had a visitor from Head Office in Denmark, the director of MS in the South, Bente Topsoe. MS Denmark has send representatives to all PAB meetings in November and December to get the last inputs to the overall focus of MS on Democracy. The 5^th of January all PAB chairpersons meets to discuss further at TCDC and on the 17^th of January the final decision will be taken at the MS Board in Copenhagen.

East African Federation – views from civil society

The PAB has once again discussed the East African Community and the now fast tracking process of becoming a federation.
Tango and MS will look into the possibilities for the civil society organisations in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania to have a joint say on the matter.
Just last week in Tanzania the special committee appointed by the President to collect views on the federation has started working. The committee consists of 15 members chaired by Professor Samwel Wangwe. The committee will set up a web page, were citizen can send there comments, they can send comments by mail to the committee as well as air their opinion through the media.
Until end May the committee will visit all regions and district and conduct meeting with both officials and civil society. The first meeting were held in Kindoni, Dar es Salaam, next will follow the three other districts in Dar. After that the committee will go to Zanzibar and up country.
This is a good opportunity for all to raise their voices on the future of the East African Community, and hopefully all CSOs will use this opportunity, even if the East African Federation seems a long way from their rural district.

ADDA – new in Tanzania

MS Tanzania has an extensive partnership with the small holder farmer association, MVIWATA – headquartered in Morogoro. Being a farmer association MVIWATA obviously receives many requests from members within all aspects of farming and rural life. Not all demands can be met and certainly MS cannot support MVIWATA on most of the agro-technical demands coming from member as we are not a production technology providing agency or organisation.
Many of the demands put on MVIWATA can be met only through networking, subcontracting and out-sourcing. No organization – including MVIWATA – can or should do everything themselves. The trick is to compose a program with services and activities that meet most member demands – and then get the best people, organizations, institutions and companies to do the actual work. Only such an approach will make an association like MVIWATA sustainable and manageable and only such an approach will deliver the professional service demanded by members.

In search of partners that can deliver what MS cannot, a Danish NGO specialized in agriculture has been identified. Its name is Agricultural Development Denmark Asia (ADDA) as it so far only has programs in Asia. ADDA is, however, interested in getting programs in Africa and Tanzania and MVIWATA have been identified as a suitable beginning of an African program.
ADDA is specialized in agricultural training and extension and in sustainable production technologies. Its best know projects in Cambodia and Vietnam are within Farmer Field Schools and Integrated Pest Management.
A fact finding group from ADDA visited Tanzania and MVIWATA in early November and the visit turned out very positively with a strong commitment from both ADDA and MVIWATA to continue exploring the possibilities for entering into partnership. MS Tanzania has been the midwife in this process and will continue to provide support for such partnership.

DW workshop

The last days of November all Development Workers and Programme Officers met at the country office to a training session on the Local Government Reform.
Cooperation between civil society and the Local Government Authorities on development is a priority issue for MS in the coming year. The latest issue of Habari za Tanzania coming out in December has the theme of Local Government and civil society. Many of MS partners already work closely with local authorities to promote better development in the villages and district. More and more funding are channelled through the Districts, but many Districts still lack capacity to implement plans and projects without help from other partners. It can be civil society or it can be private business.
MS Topic Team II strives to create trust and skills to use this opportunity.

Research training workshop

All partners were in November invited to a workshop in basic research skills. After a week of hard work the MS Partner representatives could return with skills and knowledge to do small surveys themselves, or set op Terms of References for consultants.

Both partners and MS want development work and advocacy to be based on facts. At the Annual Meeting in February 2006 the partners expressed the wish to get support to research, and MS Tanzania managed to get some extra funds for the training from Copenhagen.

UNDP Human Development Report 2006

Clean water and proper sanitation are basic conditions for development and poverty eradication. As long as women and girls use many hours every day to collect water, they are not participating in economic development of their livelihood.
As long as children and adult are sick or hospitalized because of dearer education and economic development are delayed.
Actually the fulfilment of all 8 Millennium Development Goals is delayed because of lack of water and sanitation.
The UN organisation UNDP in its annual report The Human Development Report 2006 ask all governments of the world to look at access to water as a human right for all, and free for the poorest.
They ask all government to spend at least one percent of the GDP on water and sanitations, and the donor community to prioritize the area.
The Tanzania UNDP Resident Representative Mr. Oscar Fernandez-Taranco praised the Tanzania Government to have the plans in place:

• The MKUKUTA
• The Water Sector Development Programme 2006-2025
• The Strategy for Urgent Actions on Land Degradation and Water Catchments 2006.

But in the implementing of these strategies and plans the civil society also has a big role.
We still have enough water in the world, but the distribution between countries and between the poor and the rich are unfair.

Spam warning

 

Never trust an e-mail telling you have won thousands and thousands of Dollars or Euro in a lottery you have never heard of. Never give your bank account to an e-mail address you don’t know.
Just now the police in Dar are investigating this kind of dangerous spam mails. But they are hard to trail as the internet is world wide and the tricksters can sit in Dar or Miami, Denmark or Singapore.
The trick mails all have the purpose to cheat money away from you, even if they promise the opposite. It can be the big lottery win, free education abroad, begging letters or any creative idea.
Be careful and don’t trust e-mails from persons or organisations you don’t know. Delete them without answering them.

Naramatisho PPP success and challenges

Naramatisho in Chalintze has now embarked on the PPP approach. The Maasai women had no access to market for their milk, and they did not have money to invest in milk-tanks to cool the milk for preservation.
But today the Maasai women have both.
Naramatisho made agreements for two villages with a Dar based dairy. The dairy provided the milk-tank and bought the milk. Naramatisho provided the training and supervision, and the villagers built the house for the tank and they run the place with the control of the incoming milk. But partly because of the power situation in Dar, the dairy plant collapsed and sold the machines and buildings to a juice producer. Now Naramatisho sells the milk to small scale buyers again. The experience with a partnership with a dairy plant was, however, positive and Naramatisho is in the final stage of negotiating a partnership with Tanga Fresh, a well reputed milk processor.

UVIMTA promote village dispensary as PPP

In Itulahumba village in Njombe a very fine example of PPP is growing. The village previously had no dispensary. The villagers had to walk to the tea estate Kibena to visit a clinic. Many of the villagers are fulltime or seasonal workers at the estate.

The Village Government Authorities and the local UVIM group together with UVIMTA discussed the problem and solved it.
They set up a proposal for building a dispensary in the village and send it to Kibena Tea Estate to apply for funding. And it worked out well. The tea estate is funding and building a nice house for the dispensary. The Local Government is providing staff and running costs and the villagers through the UVIM are building houses for the staff.

Soon the dispensary is ready for use, and the village chair Mr. Ben Mvugi who is also member of UVIMTA, is proud of the development in the village.

Joint fundraising working in Zimbabwe

The European Commission has approved a joint project proposal between MS, Novib (Holland) and FACHIG (MS-Zimbabwe partner):
"Sustainable Agriculture Contributing to Enhanced Livelihoods among FACHIG Members in HIV/AIDS Affected Farming Systems in Zimbabwe"
The overall objective is to 'contribute to poverty alleviation by enhancing food security and improving the socio-economic position of households in HIV AIDS affected farming systems in Zimbabwe.'
More specifically '12.600 farming households in Mashonaland Central province have the organizational capacity, knowledge and skills to increase and diversify agricultural production, and are engaged in agro based micro-enterprises.'
The total budget is EUR. 2.078.530 - the EC funds EUR 1.263.530.
The project will run for 4 years from 2007.

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