MORE READERS, PLEASE!

In the previous newsletter I was asking for contributions and comments from readers, and it worked! Thanks a lot! However, I still need your help in order to make this electronic newsletter more successful. Our newsletter is set up in a system which provides us with the option to see how many email addresses which are signed up, and who actually reads it (the system registers if people open their mail with the news letter). At the moment these figures are not uplifting.

I would like these figures to increase. You can help me by forwarding the newsletter, encourage people to sign up, or print it and hang it on the notice board in your office for people to read it. Also let your organisation know that if it has something to share in the news letter they can send it to me.

Pernille Baerendtsen
Information Officer

CALENDAR

Land Rights Workshop on December 3, 2007

Topic Team Planning on December 4 - 5, 2007

Development Worker Days – DW-Days on December 6 - 7, 2007

MS Tanzania's Annual Meeting takes place on March 31 - April 2, 2008

CONTACT

MS Tanzania
463 Charambe Street, Upanga
P.O.Box 2519, Dar es Salaam
Tanzania.

Tel: +255-22-2117945/8
Fax: +255-22-2115913

mstan@mstan.or.tz
www.ms.dk/tanzania

MS TANZANIA

MS Tanzania is part of the Danish Association for International Co-operation (MS).

Our vision is a world in peace where co-operation between people promotes global equity and ensures improved conditions for poor and marginalized people.

MS Tanzania has been present in Tanzania since 1963, and since 1993 we have partnered with local civil society organisations (CSOs).

The main theme of MS Tanzania’s programme strategy is Building Local Democracy with two sub-themes on Land Rights and Youth.

MS Tanzania aims at defending and enhancing popular participation under the assumption that strengthening democracy at local level will help fight poverty.

CONTRIBUTIONS/
COMMENTS

For contributions to the newsletter or further information, please contact Pernille Baerendtsen at info@mstan.or.tz

You can subscribe to the newsletter here: www.ms.dk/tanzania. If you receive this newsletter by mistake or if you no longer want to receive it, you can unsubscribe here, too.

Youth for development
We are living in a rapidly changing world where yesterday’s conventional wisdom might not take us through next week or month. We are also, however, living in a world where the gap between the fast moving segments of societies and the slow moving segments is widening at a frightening speed.

Looking at Tanzania there are many rural areas where lifestyle and life conditions have not changed dramatically over the last few decades whereas in many urban areas things have really changed. How to bridge such gaps and how to secure a harmonic development of society where everybody feels part of the larger community?

This is a huge challenge for any government and for any society. Unfortunately such gaps can breed unrest and frustration as seen in many parts of the world. Improved access to information and communication has resulted in many more people knowing about the new opportunities and wanting to take advantages. In particular young and better educated people will react if they find themselves excluded from the new opportunities and reactions can come in many forms. The big challenge is to channel any reaction into development and into activities that can narrow the gap.

MS Tanzania is working with a number of youth organisations, and we have chosen Youth for Development as one of two sub themes under our overall Building Local Democracy theme.

One of the objectives of our support to Youth for Development is to support the channelling of youth aspirations into constructive engagement with policy makers and government authorities. Only through constructive engagement can less constructive mode of expressions be avoided and only through constructive engagement and through partnerships can the energies and aspirations of the youth become valuable contributions to the development of Tanzania.

Tanzania is blessed with a huge population of youth – as compared t.ex. with my own home country where youth is becoming a rare commodity. In my country the youth have strength in their small numbers because all sectors of the economy need them. In Tanzania the youth have strengths in their big numbers but that strengths can only be realized through coordinated actions and organization. MS Tanzania is committed to support the youth of Tanzania to realize that strength of numbers and to use that strength to build a dynamic and democratic society with room for realizing dreams and aspirations of its young citizens.

WORK PLAN FOR 2008, DECEMBER 3-7, 2007

During the first week of December MS Tanzania will take some important steps towards implementing the new Country Programme Strategy (CPS). The whole week will be devoted to ‘un-packing’ the CPS and making it operational. In other words: We need to make a workable strategy and work plan for how to meet the objectives set out in the CPS.

Land Rights Workshop on December 3, 2007
The planning week will start with a Land Rights Workshop on December 3. Partner organisations working with Land Rights are invited along with interested DWs and other stakeholders. We have contracted with external capacities to guide us through in order to come up with an operational strategy on how to support Land Rights. A Land Right Working Group will be established to follow up on the one-day workshop. The Land Right Working Group will be lead by Programme Officers Maselle Maziku and Florida Henjewele, with Maselle taking upon him the co-ordination.

Topic Team Planning on December 4-5, 2007
The Topic Teams (TT) are going to incorporate the objectives set out in the CPS and will have to define adjusted operational strategies and work plans for 2008. This will take place on December 4 and 5 with the first day allocated for a joint meeting for all TTs aiming at enhancing programme coordination and improved utilization of human and financial resources. The second day will be taken up by the three TTs individually to take the day-one planning ‘down’ to TT level. Specific work plans for each TT must be developed.

Development Worker Days – DW-Days on December 6 - 7, 2007
The last DW-days of 2007 will follow immediately after the TT meeting. The theme for these DW days will be Information, Communication, Fundraising and Advocacy, including the Partner Database. The inputs will be centred on tools for internal communication in MS Tanzania, and on how DWs can give inputs to an MS Tanzania Strategy on Information, Communication, Fundraising and Advocacy. Additionally, we will also have a discussion on the media situation and development in Tanzania.

FORUM WILL POINT AT BEST PRACTICES IN AGRICULTURE

What works in agriculture in Tanzania when it comes to policies and practice? And how can we learn, share and network around best practices?

As part of the ‘Private Sector Civil Society Agricultural Working Group’ MS Tanzania is the co-organiser of a ‘learning and sharing’ event on best practices in agriculture on November 19 to 22, 2007 in Tanga. More than 100 representatives from civil society and public sector will participate.

The purpose of the meeting is to present best practices and lessons learnt through cases and share the understanding of what is actually working in the agricultural sector in Tanzania. The plan is to make the ‘Forum for Learning and Experience Sharing’ an annual event.

Apart from the learning event the objectives for the working group is to advocate for an agriculture policy and business environment where CSOs and the private sector effectively engage with and influence agriculture sector policies and practices, and to provide effective analysis of existing agriculture policies and providing alternative directions.

The “Private Sector Civil Society Agricultural Working Group” consists, apart from MS Tanzania, of Oxfam, SNV, VECO, TOAM and Concern among others.

More information at: www.bestpractices.or.tz

TRAINING IN WEB MANAGEMENT – VISIT THE JOOMLA KABISA BLOG

Seven MS partners were trained in web management at MS TCDC through Joomla, a free content management system. The course went very well, and the MS partners are now managing their own websites.

A new blog dedicated to web management through Joomla was made during the course, where Joomla related topics will be posted regularly, and where people, especially the MS partners, can ask Joomla related questions, or suggest topics for future articles.

Since a popular web host for a number of Tanzanian NGOs is Kabissa, an organisation working with organisational capacity building within ICT in Africa, the blog is called Joomla Kabisa.

http://guhle.typepad.com/joomla_kabisa/

Zonal Teachers’ Resource Centre (TRC) Coordinators’ meeting held in Dar.
At the Annual General Meeting in May 2007 it was decided that the Regional Representatives should visit all the TRC’s in their respective regions in order to collect and share some good/bad practices or experiences. Mr. David Ikinyenge, the Chanzige TRC Coordinator in Kisarawe District and the Coast Region Representative to the AGM initiated a joint meeting for the Coast and the Dar Es Salaam Regions. The meeting was held on November 29 at Mikumi TRC in Dar Es Salaam and was attended by 19 participants where every participant donated to the expenses of the meeting by paying all his/her expenses.

Besides the TRC coordinators also the TRC Coalition participated together with representatives from the Macmillan Book Company. The meeting received a situational report of the TRCs in the Coast Region following the visits of David. It was the impression of the meeting that TRCs in both the Coast Region and in Dar es Salaam are not performing effectively because they lack both financial and material support from the Local Government Authorities. Among many things the participants resolved to make annual work plans for their TRCs for the year 2008 and present them to the respective district authorities for being included in the 2008/09 budgets and reminded themselves to continue sharing ideas with the DEOs to ensure that resources were allocated to the TRCs. Besides the participants decided, that similar meetings should be convened at least twice a year and that Morogoro Region should be included in these meetings. Finally the coordinators commended the efforts of the TRC Coalition in bringing together all the TRCs and for creating a platform, where TRC Coordinators could air out their views.

Seven Regional Sensitization Seminars on TRCs in 2008
The Foundation for Civil Society (FSC) has approved a 45 million TSH grant to the Coalition of Teachers’ Resource Centres to conduct sensitization seminars in seven regions beginning January 2008. The seminars will be conducted in Mbeya Region, Kagera Region, Arusha Region, Mtwara Region, Dodoma Region, Morogoro Region and Tabora Region. With these seminars we want to create awareness to stakeholders on the importance of Teachers’ Resource Centres for continuous teacher professional development and to present policies and guidelines on the TRCs. We want to address the challenges which currently are facing the TRCs and to lobby for the inclusion of TRCs in the District Plans and budgets.

A wide range of participants will be invited. These will include District Education Officers/Districts Executive Directors, Regional Education Officers, Zonal Inspectors of Schools, Regional Local Government Officers, Regional Secretaries from TTU, Head Teachers, Ward Education Coordinators, members of School Committees and class room teachers.

NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT INFORMATION FROM MVIWATA

One of the great challenges Tanzania faces today is the ability to manage natural resources. To raise awareness on the matter Mviwata has published a brochure documenting how six small scale farmers from different regions of Tanzania have taken action and adopted innovations or invented new ones to make a difference to our environment and to improve their livelihood.

You can read about the knowledge and experiences of the six farmers by downloading the documents here:

PDF English version
PDF Swahili version

You can also require a printed brochure from Mwivata by writing to Esther Carlo on mviwata@africaonline.co.tz or call her on +255 -23-2614184. The printed version is in Swahili only. Oxfam Ireland and MS Tanzania have funded the brochure.

HABARI ZA TANZANIA

Re-design in colors – soon to be distributed.

The next issue of Habari za Tanzania is in process. MS Tanzania has decided to reduce the quantity, but improve on the quality of the magazine. In the future we will produce two to three annual magazines, and we will put energy into making the design more lively and the content more colourful.

We have no intention of providing you with less information, on the contrary. We are producing the monthly electronic newsletter, which is the one you read here. Additionally, we are working on an up-date of our web-site, and our intention is that the new Country Programme Strategy (CPS) and other new things soon will be reflected here. The site is to have more details about partners, development workers and MS Tanzania’s activities, too.

TOPIC TEAM UP-DATE

Topic Team 3:
Baseline Study: Training on Baseline Study and Research has been postponed to January/February 2008. Several partners have indicated that they are interested to participate in the pilot workshop on Baseline Study. It will later be decided who are going to take part in the pilot workshop.

Toolboxes: The toolbox on the Gender Strategy will be provided from MS Denmark, but there is no news about a toolbox on Youth Strategy and therefore Topic team 3 will develop a toolbox in this area. Hakikazi has developed a toolbox on PETS (Public Expenditure Tracking System). We will see if we can use this toolbox in stead of creating a new tool.

Partner-mapping: Topic Team 3 is still working on “the partner-mapping” exercise. We want to collect as much information about the partners as possible to make the mapping more useful and we want to make a common mapping of all MS Tanzania partners. We want to use the MS-intranet to describe the partner organisations and their activities.

CPS and fundraising: At the TT3 meeting on November the 5th we had a long discussion on how to launch the CPS and how to work on fundraising. This will part of the common Topic Meeting in the beginning of December.

NB. At the time of editing this newsletter the two other Topic Teams were busy in the field.

THE MTV-PROGRAMME

On November 1, 2007, MS Tanzania received 12 Danish volunteers. Six of the volunteers have participated in the Global Platform in Zanzibar for one month just before arrival, and six are coming straight from Denmark.

The volunteers will stay in Tanzania for three months, and be placed and work as listed here:

Matilde Andersen and Trine N. Kruse, the Good Samaritan Centre, Dar es Salaam.

Nikolaj Bork and Ingeline Khan Kreb, Edeyane School, Dar es Salaam.

Tea Sylvest and Estrid S. Mortensen at St. Anne School. Dar es Salaam.

Pernille Kjaer Jensen and Nanna L. Larsen at TYC, Dar es Salaam.
Asger S. R. Jensen and Trine L. G. Koefoed at Transcend School, Dar es Salaam.

Katrine M. Haugaard and Maria H. Knudsen, Mkuza Youth Development Organisation, Kibaha.

Please welcome them!

CHECK THIS OUT

Research on Poverty Alleviation
Issues of governance for local government are the main focus of this study: local government autonomy, bottom-up planning, trust relations, citizens' rights, corruption, gender mainstreaming in local government reform, and participation in local elections. These guidelines provide practical advice on writing a concept note and a proposal for analytical research. There is also a section of suggested research topics under REPOA’s research themes. The material is available at the MS Tanzania Resource Centre or here:

http://www.repoa.or.tz/

http://www.repoa.or.tz/documents_storage/Special_Paper_07.22.pdf

Press Freedom Ranking
It appears that Tanzania has improved in Press Freedom Ranking - a big jump up the scale from 92 to 55. Reporters Without Borders has compiled this index by sending a questionnaire to the 15 freedom of expression organisations throughout the world that are its partners, to its network of 130 correspondents, and to journalists, researchers, jurists and human rights activists. Find the ranking here:

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24019

MS SIGNS A MEMORANDOM OF UNDERSTANDING WITH ACTION AID

The Memorandum of Understanding with Action Aid International (AAI) describes the mutual understanding regarding the joint exploration of a proposal for association of MS with AAI. In the Memorandum of Understanding AAI explicitly acknowledges the minimum requirements that the MS General Assembly decided on in September 2007. AAI declares that these conditions will not in themselves be a hindrance for AAI accepting MS as an associate member. The Memorandum of Understanding is accompanied with a comprehensive work plan for the exploration process.

Read more here:
http://www.msblogs.dk/actionaid/