Monitors hail improved government-donor relationship

The Independent Monitoring Group (IMG), an body set up to analyse government-donor relations in Tanzania, has said that following the "dire situation" in the mid-1990s "major improvements" have been made in recent years. In its first report, made public on Monday, the IMG said donors now had greater trust in the government, which had responded in various ways to improve its policies and practices in the management of the US $1 billion in annual foreign aid. "In the mid-1990s, there was a feeling that the government wasn't doing enough to mobilise domestic resources, collect input support funds, and it was seen to be corrupt," Samuel Wangwe, the chairman of the IGM and principal research associate at the Dar es Salaam-based Economic and Social Research Foundation, told IRIN on Wednesday. Wangwe said his group had found "increased openness, transparency and accountability" on the part of the government, helped by the "emergence of a political leadership committed to building constructive relationships with donor partners" and a "greater degree of Tanzanian ownership of policies and processes". He said that donors seemed to be accepting the principle of ownership and were more or less listening to the government's priorities. They had also taken a number of steps towards reducing duplication, the number of missions and the policy of conditionality. Nonetheless, the IMG said there was room for improvement on both sides. It called on donors to continue the transition towards programme support as opposed to project support, reduce the amount of tied aid and, most importantly, to focus more on capacity building.