Poverty and HIV/AIDS hampering development

While the delivery of development services has been made more efficient, and the gross domestic product (GDP) of Tanzania has grown by 5 per cent in recent years, poverty-reduction measures are not yet reaching the rural poor, and HIV/AIDS poses such a threat that it could reverse all the gains recently achieved, according to the UN country team for Tanzania.

These were among the messages that emerged from a review of Tanzania’s development at the UN’s Economic and Social Council on Monday, which was addressed by a government official and the 10 agencies representing the UN system.

Joyce Mapunjo, Assistant Commissioner of the External Finance Division at the Ministry of Finance of Tanzania, said the country’s recent approach to development had been based, among other things, on national ownership and leadership; broad participation; openness and improved relationships with development partners; a more strategic approach to public spending, focusing especially on poverty reduction; and more attention to transparency and accountability.

Tanzania’s “Vision 2025” programme had set the goals of a high quality of livelihood by year 2025, including peace, stability and unity; a well-educated society; and a competitive economy based on sustainable growth and equity, Mapunjo said. One of the aims of the national poverty eradication strategy was to reduce abject poverty 50 per cent by 2010, and to eradicate it by 2025, she added.

The UN could support Tanzania’s efforts by backing national priorities, mobilising more resources to support poverty-reduction efforts, and by harmonising the rules, regulations and procedures of the various UN agencies to make them more user-friendly, Mapunjo said.

UNDP Resident Representative and UN Resident Coordinator for Tanzania, Sally Fegan-Wyles, said the key message was that policy coordination was an investment that could pay off and increase the efficiency of poverty-reduction schemes. She said the UN’s strategic objectives for Tanzania included enhancement of national capacity for development management; promotion of a democratic, transparent and community-driven enabling environment for development; and attention to a rights-based approach to all UN programming.

Members of the UN country team for Tanzania taking part in the discussion said successful individual projects in Tanzania had been implemented between 1985 and 1997, but had had little impact on overall poverty. Among the problems identified were insufficient national ownership and leadership in setting priorities, the absence of a holistic, multi-dimensional understanding of poverty, and weak UN coordination.

Since 1997, strong government leadership had resulted in a national framework and process for priority setting, they said. There was also a poverty focus based on a shared understanding of the multi-dimensional causes of poverty, and a strong development partnership had been established, with greatly improved coordination between national and international players and the UN, the speakers said.

Some national delegations wished to know more about how the United Nations Development Framework (UNDAF) interacted with the Tanzanian government’s poverty-reduction programmes, according to a UN press statement. It was said that the “transaction costs” of coordination efforts could have negative as well as positive effects, for instance by involving UN officials and resources in discussions about coordination when they might be focusing on “hands-on” work in the country.

There was also a call from national delegates for efforts to enhance and expand access to information and communications technology (ICT) in Tanzania.

The UNDP “Human Development Report”, launched on Tuesday, emphasised the vital importance of harnessing new technologies to help transform the lives of the poor. “Technology networks are transforming the traditional map of development, expanding people’s horizons and creating the potential to realise in a decade progress that required generations in the past,” the UNDP stated.

Tanzania was ranked at 140 in the UNDP’s Human Development Index on Tuesday, with an estimated life expectancy at birth of 51.1 years; combined primary, secondary and tertiary education of 32 percent; and a human development index value of 0.436, on a scale of zero to one.