Do you want to eradicate poverty in your life time?

Frederick Kwame, Country Programme Manager of Oxfam GB, kick-started the ‘Forum for Learning and Experience Sharing’, organised by the Private Sector Civil Society Agricultural Working Group (PSCSAWG) on November 19-22, 2007 in Tanga, by asking a very central question: 'Do you want to eradicate poverty in your lifetime?'

Frederick Kwame, Country Programme Manager of Oxfam GB, kick-started the meeting.

Kwame elaborated his opening remark further by explaining, ‘In 2000-2001, 36% of Tanzanians were living below the poverty line, only 3% less than the 39% registered in 1991-1992. If we keep on shaving off 3% every 10 years, it would take another 120 years to eradicate absolute poverty in Tanzania. At least four generations away!’

Poverty in Tanzania is mainly a rural phenomenon. Eighty percent of the poor live in rural areas, and the majority of these depend on agriculture or agriculture-related activities. The concept behind the PSCSAWG is to capture best practices and lessons learned from initiatives in agriculture in Tanzania and to organise these in a consistent system, to enable actors to get the opportunity to devise new methods and to avoid duplication of efforts, resources and mistakes that hinder the development of the agricultural sector in Tanzania.

In short, the idea is that if the agricultural sector develops for the benefit of the majority of Tanzanians dependent on it, poverty can be reduced. The low rate of agricultural growth over the past years also makes it clear why rural poverty has not decreased, but it also give reasons for the fact that an increased growth of agriculture is necessary in order to reduce poverty.

The partnership approach

MS Tanzania is a member of the PSCSAWG forum and contributed with an example on the use of the partnership approach and how this has contributed to reducing poverty. Florida Henjewele, Programme Officer for MS Tanzania, presented the partnership with Uvimta Mdandu, a community-based organisation in Njombe District.

Florida explained, ‘If the donor-recipient approach had been applied to Uvimta, it wouldn’t have given people in the community the time or space for learning and developing their skills which were required in order for them to match donors’ demands. The partnership approach here gave a platform for involving many different representatives in the community, but it also provided the time to debate and compromise. The support might easily have failed due to the fact that Uvimta did not know how to account or report in the beginning. Uvimta had to learn it!’

John Wihallah from Uvimta Mdandu

Influencing policy-making

Uvimta was represented by its Director, John Wihallah, who emphasised the opportunity to get inspired with regards to networking and lobbying. He went on to explain, ‘Last week we had a meeting in Njombe with the district authorities where we debated the budget for agriculture. One thing is transparency, in order for us to know how much money is put aside for agriculture, but now I see that others utilise the opportunities of lobbying to make these figures bigger. We also have to influence policy-making, John added, and concluded, ‘Here in Tanzania there is always a ‘know who’ – in opposition to the ‘know how’. ‘Know who’ is linked to corruption, and therefore information about opportunities is the way for us not to lag behind’.

Besides providing space for presentations on best practices, the forum in Tanga also took the participants to visits to Katani Ldt., in order to give insights on sisal production and to inspire participants with examples of how traditions can be challenged.