Tanzania has recorded a notable progress judging from some indicators such as, enrollment rates, food self sufficiency ratio, and increased number of health facilities. Literacy rate was 69% in 2001 for 15+ population. The MKUKUTA target is 80%. If more efforts are put in improving the primary enrollment ratio, MKUKUTA target can be realized. The net primary school enrollment rate shows a steady improvement from 96.1% in 2006 to 97.3% in 2007 against the MKUKUTA target of 99% by the year 2010.

On the other hand, food self sufficiency ratio has been maintained between 100 and 112%. Also important to mention is reduction of infant and maternal mortality, where the infant and under five mortality rates in Tanzania has generally been improving from 99 per 1000 live births and 147 per 1000 live births in 1999 to 68/1000 and 112/1000 in 2004 respectively.

In spite of its success MKUKUTA has not been able to attain the overall targets of economic growth and reduction of poverty. During the past 4 years economic growth rate has averaged at less than 6%, while between 2000/01 and 2007 the food and basic needs poverty has declined from 13.2% to 12.9% and 25.8% to 24.1% in the urban areas respectively.

Likewise in rural areas the food and basic needs poverty has declined from 29.4% to 18.4%, and 38.7% to 37.4% respectively. Among the frequently mentioned challenges include failure to identify the most critical growth drivers, poorly implemented livelihood strategies, inefficient public spending, and unsuitable governance.

MKUKUTA’s terminal year is 2010 which is just around the corner. Subsequently, the Government of Tanzania has made a resolution to develop a successor poverty reduction strategy. A comprehensive process to review MKUKUTA is therefore underway. The findings from this review are meant to inform the next poverty reduction strategy framework. Note that, the government foresees a much focused, sharper and prioritized strategy than its predecessor.

This discussion topic is therefore intended to draw lessons from MKUKUTA implementation, in terms of drawbacks as well as strengths in order to inform the ongoing process of MKUKUTA review, and subsequently a successor strategy. Our discussion should therefore focus on addressing the following questions:

• What have been the achievements of MKUKUTA?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• What are the factors behind failure to achieve some of the goals and targets of MKUKUTA?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Identify the critical growth drivers in Tanzania
  

Nadhani MKUKUTA planners wameshindwa kuhusianisha lengo la MKUKUTA na walengwa kwani mkakati huu hauwahusishi walengwa moja kwa moja.pia malengo na utekelezaji wake hauwagusi watu walio kusudiwaila vina endeshwa vikao mijini wakati watanzania wengi wapo vijijini.

I write to introduce my Self as Mr. Ongwen Patrick Alfred from African Research and Resource Forum in Kenya, i work as a librarian/ICT officer.

A few weeks i visited ESRF and the discussion group. Am grateful having been accepted and we shall learn more from one another.

May the good lord bless you.

Thank

  Despite the fact that, MKUKUTA ‘s deadline  is nearing , Tanzania is still off-track due to several indicators such as: Inflation has reached two digits, escalating abject poverty especially in rural areas, deteriorating social service like health and education, etc;

• It is therefore imperative to consider the following aspects when designating the “successor” strategy;
  

• The government needs to do more on improving the quality aspects of its services even in the area such as education where it has done much in terms of access. It is an illusion to consider alleviating poverty while there is substantial number of illiterates in our country.
  
  
  

• Economic growth remains stunted because the government has despite the loudly sang song of agriculture being the main economic stay of Tanzania not given the sector the prominence it deserves in that it only allocates 6.2% of the budget to agriculture.
  

• The Government openly admitted that there are some flows in the disbursement of budgetary allocation to the district councils, and as such the are huge amounts of money which is meant for the district councils which remains unexpended, government attributes this to the LGA lack of capacity to expend the resources.

• There are also misappropriation of public funds by unscrupulous Government officials like the case of EPA, ICHMOND,etc. l  these wasted money could be channeled to development projects like power production, irrigation, and infrastructural improvements.

It indeed seem a small amount per capita when you compare it to advanced and transition economies. But again on purchasing power parity terms and considering the relatively lower cost of living in Tanzania, it amounts to something. So how effectively has this little money been used?

Here our Controller and Auditor General is saying all is not well: Some expenditures are not accounted for (so you can’t say for sure where the money went), some goods and services are overpriced (there is an issue whether there is value for money spent), and yet some resources are spent but not for the intended purposes.

In the just released CAG report (April 2009 for Financial year 2007/08) not a single spending entity in the government that was audited was issues a clean audit opinion. The best performers managed an unqualified opinion ‘with emphasis on matters’.  The CAG goes on to say, and I quote,

‘’Since the trend of audit opinions has not shown positive improvements, there is a need for management in the MDAs/RAS/Embasies and Missions to closely make follow up of the weaknesses in financial management which have been emphasises by the auditors’’ end of quote.  (see the CAG report for FY 2007/08, page xiv)

The CAG has drummed time and again to our parliament and to the accounting officers in government the message that things need to change in how the business of financial management is conducted, and more aggressively since the period of implementation of MKUKUTA started. His sentiments corroborates the high level corruption and abuse of public office allegations that have come to dominate our newspapers in the last few years. 

Are we thus surprised that we are not getting where we should be going? I am not, and if one asks which measures should be priorities in the next MKUKUTA, I would quickly spring up for number one to be ‘good public financial management’. The reason is quite simple, ‘’fedha bila daftari hupotea bila habari’’. And if poverty reduction is the priority that the government says it is, then it also needs to recognise how important it is to start setting the books straight.

Fourth, I think Tanzania needs to do away with aid dependency if meaningful poverty reduction is to happen. And here I would demand a clear strategy out of the aid trap a.k.a 'dependency syndrome' as one of the means towards meaningful poverty reduction.

More on this next time, as it is, this is perhaps one of those long entries

Ciao

Rose

Our government has not let the people take effective leadership of their own development, but has spent sisproportionately more energy and time telling them what to do instead of listening to them about what they want done, and allow them the space to deliberate about how do it.
 
And with limited understanding of the peoples' plight, the context that faces them, and their thoughts about how their problems could be solved, our leaders (or rather rulers to be precise) have sat in Dar es salaam or Dodoma and have continued to send directives on what the people should/should not do. With very few exceptions ( call them islands of excellence) here and there,
 
I dare say that one of the things that have contributed to the failure of MKUKUTA in achieving its objectives has been its implementation not being adequately participatory, and the lowest level  not having an opportunity to influence its content, or course in a meaningfull way.  Someone might say, but well, Tanzania is a 'representative' democracy. That is right, but that also means that to work well the legislature need be really representing the voices of those who elected them. Yet for a very long time and for diverse excuses our parliamentarians could hype about, something has remained significantly missing.

And third, what about the resources available for implementation of MKUKUTA, were they adequate? Were they effectively utilised?

I have not had a chance of reading the cost of MKUKUTA anywhere to be able to say the gap between was available and what should have been. I also wonder whether there was a comprehensive costing exercise to estimate what would be required to implement the five year program. If you have come accross it, I would be happy to hear your views.

So I shall look instead at how effectively and efficiently the available resources have been put to use. As some of you know, Tanzania's Government budget (assume eventually it is executed more or less as planned) was around 1.3 trillion shillings in 2000/01, about 41,000 shillings per capita (per person per year). This has grown fivefolds in absolute terms in a period of seven years and in (2008/09) it is 7.2 trillion shillings, equivalent to a little over 160,000 shillings per capita.

  (My sourse of data the Economic Survey 2007 and budget for 2008/09) Note that this is what is captured by the exchequer and is presented as ‘central government operations’, rather than ‘General Government Operations’. If a margin of error could be allowed for off budget resources that are spent by government agencies one could comfortably say that Tanzania could be spending as much as 10 percent more than what is reported in the CGO reports.
 
I don't go into how it is distributed among priority outcomes, as that would be another long discussion.

continue .....

I am coming a little late in this discussion, however I am as well honoured to be making a contribution to this discussion. I appreciate the contributions that have come before although I have not thoroughly read each and everyone of them.

Let me first start by reflecting on what one of our colleagues has said and that is, (we were not ready) Tanzania was not ready to embark on such an ambitious program since we lacked at the time the institutions that could see this program through. I agree that weaknesses of our institutions have not served the MKUKUTA justice, however I also think that the simple fact that they (the insitutions) were weak should have compelled us (as a country) to do something about them.
 
I beg to differ that Tanzania should wait/should have waited until the time when it got the ‘institutions right’ before it could start. Reform is a rational and learning process, and I think it was right to start then. That said, I also think that MKUKUTA identified rightly broad areas for its intervention (the famous domains) one of which is improving governance and which includes strengthening institutions.

Still there are a lot of things that the implementation of MKUKUTA has left to be desired. First and foremost, I support the position that it was ‘overly ambitious’. Indeed one should be realistic and take on his/her plate what he/she can handle.

The MKUKUTA however, with its shift from priority sectors (of the first generation PRS) to a focus on outcomes (without a particular priority of outcomes to pursue) and clear milestones to reach at specific times during implementation lost touch with this important aspect of real life.

The government focused on everything and could not be equally effective and efficient in all of them. Each one, matched to the attention placed on them, has achieved something if you consider it on a progressive scale. But when this achievement is compared to the magnitude of the challenges facing the country’s poor, you get a sense of foreboding that the MKUKUTA is lagging far behind in meeting its schedule of achievements come 2010.

Second, I think that there is something mistaken as well in the way the implementation of MKUKUTA has been handled.  Much as it is said to be a participatory Strategy, developed in a participatory manner by Tanzanians for the cause of the country, its implementation has been highly centralised, with major directives drafted and sent forth from Dare s salaam instead of they being informed by our local governments/grass roots and this to the chagrin of the D by D.

This also makes it kind of normal thing that we are where we are today with mixed results in delivering on the promises.

continue .....

My take on this is that, we must make hard strategic ideological choices before we can simply rush into these "emperically self-defeating neo-liberal policy initiatives" usually promoted by apologists of failed Washington-Consencus project.

The MKUKUTA,MKURABITA and so on...are practically programmes meant to mitigate the effects of the blind and crue forces of capital and can hardly successfully ameliorate and finally address the structural sources of poverty.My myopic option,thus far.....we resort back to the ARUSHA Declaration. PUNTO

I am highly satisfied with Mr. Mar's recent contribution while trying to practically conceed that formaly he used a technical language , not simple as in his recent contribution. He didn't use swahili either to to make me perceive his line of thinking, he just used simple languge to the point.

My contribution to MKUKUTA can well be perceived in a "seing is believing" approach . I would suggest to Mr. Maro and other members who resides in Dar and near by, to spare their time and some finances to visit Vikuge village in Kibaha district where they will witness the succees of Mkukuta.

 In this Village there is a project of diary cattle distributed to villagers in principles of giving to a neighbour the first calf and and also a second calf to a different neighbour . The project has improved the life style of a good number of  villagers who happend to be in the project.

They are now living in good houses , good health able to pay school fees to their children etc.In short the project has improved their social life and economically empowered them.

May be the question Mr. Maro may ask is how many people / household were inted to benefit through the project say by year 2008? and how many have actually  benefited?

What are the problems encounterd in such  aproject ?

How should such constrains be adressed?

Here now comes  the real common weakness in implementation , the aspect of Monitoring & evaluation. wheather this deliberate or otherwise is another subject of discussion.But this is the area of our failures in most cases.

The elight group should take the lead through participatory :- 1) Show the way which projects are viable? 2)  What benefitsare expected ? 3) Available Options for implementation and 4) Let them decide which options . Iam sure a good Manager would have convienced others to choose the best and so monitoring and evaluation will be easy

Thanks all.

Reading through, I have learnt many from my fellow contributors, from language to moderation. Since am one of the moderator, I encourage use of Swahili. I know the problem of most of us who English is our third language (kilugha, kiswahil and English) it becomes difficult in articulation of our ideas but am sure reading is not a big problem. Kindly use Swahili whenever you think English vocabulary has flew away along the thinking process. Absolutely feel free.

Coming back to the discussion, Lugendo has asked to clarify one of my contributions. Here am referring to social transfer, it simply means redistribution of resources directly to target group to solve specified poverty dimensions e.g. malnutrition, education enrollment, etc.

I have said so since, currently such programmes are being "project-zed" while are the fundamental in poverty eradication. Preference to this kind of arrangement actually stem from criticism of the World Bank PRSP's by prominent economist.
 
Who argue trickle down benefits to poor will never happen even though economic growth is one of the condition for poverty reduction but as it has been found, it difficult for developing country to sustain the level of economic growth for poverty reduction. Am sure you also witnessed some of major events that shake our economy from the gains we achieved during Mkapa regime. But we have lost ground through, 2006-07 draught, high fuel and food prices, and global financial crisis.
 
So when will the trickle down effects reach the poor? at what rate of economic growth we can achieve this? How can we sustain it?(can we isolate from world economic shocks to sustain it?).

This is a reason I suggest that the next MKUKUTA should have a broader strategy for social protection which have special instruments like social transfers to targeted poor communities to prevent transgeneration of poverty. In other words preventing the poor households from having poor children help to eradicate future poor or poverty. We have to make a war in poverty ends. Not every year we should focus on poverty.

greetings dear members...

i have never gotten rained on by so many messages before.taknet, a rain coat and an umbrella wouldnt do!but i think its all because i registered as a member and went silent after i became one.

i have never contributed before so if i say repeat words of advice or anything, in advance i convey my apologies.i first of all do not understand for whom our contributions are meant,if it is ourselves "the so called knowledgeable", then i will not complain but if it is for the millions of tanzanians who live in hopelesness,i will have to urge my fellow members to consider the use of swahili which is our mother tongue and which to many will be understandable if ever this knowledge network will be open to the general public.

getting to the point, (MKUKUTA & Mkurabita), i kan openly say that i have limited knowledge of it in a sense that i only went through a summary of the programme but just like a few members have said, the plan was very ambitious.i know some of you have worked in the target areas and know much more but as far as i know, there was probably not enough consultations with key stakeholders who would have pointed out key issues that may really help improve the quality of life of many marginalized tanzanians.for example, most of the buildings in the informal settlements are tenant occupied,with owners who only once in a while stop by to collect the rent or to just "check on things".

when such properties are formalized so that the owner gets easier access to loans n gets a sense of assurance of ownership,there are slim chances that he/she may get a loan and improve the condition of his property. 

even if they do, an improved environment requires an increased rent! people get displaced(we all know where they go when they get displaced)..in most cases, they would just build a new structure somewhere else and the renting business lives on!so if it is the lives of these owners that MKUKUTA aimed to improve,it has been successful! i have no idea from which standpoint we all argue but as far as growth and reduction of income poverty is concerned or improving the quality of life, problems still exist. nonetheless, i beg to be corrected!

Dear friends,

 I see the logic of urguement to have several topics running at the sametime. One is by default that issues are simply emerging and we need the speed to catch up and second, it is demand driven!

Good to have them running but as others are suggesting, the moderators of the topics need to work hard and make weekly synthesis of the contributions into short summaries of key issue raised.

After a reasonable time of contribution (3-4 weeks) depending on the sensitivy and urgency of the topic, the moderator shall then remind people to wind up their contributions in a way forward manner and where feasible, suggest a short plenary debate for those able to meet at ESRF or else where......soma club?

I am part of a similar e-mail forum on capacity building and it has worked fine with this approach.

 Otherwise tuendeleze debate

Dear Japjet,

Iam sure ther's more good than harm in the speed of discussing various issues within the time presented the reasons are:-

1.0   The curret happening must be sddresed at the earliest time otherwise some critical   elements may not feature if discussed later.

2.0   It a undeniable fact that we all are not jack of all trade i.e some are well suited and tallented to certain displines of which they can discuss better and so others benefit more so delaying the topics may not improve the intended output.

3.0  Ia not sure of the acual number of participants to this website but are many may be  thousands so let them have a wider choice at a any point in time.

I think MKUKUTA hasn't achieved a lot of what we expected,the fact that it was too theoretical is one but also it didn't concentrate on the right people(The real target).We were not well prepared informative wise and resource wise to accomplish what we had set up in MKUKUTA.

 We were to have a cycle like structure which I can simply say it could be like:

Well informed people-----Experts + Resources-------Plan(MKUKUTA package)-------Exection of the plan.

With constant evaluation that could work,but with missing or weak links we'll fail again.

Dear all,

Professionals say that 'don't talk if you don't have data'. Weare waiting for the data and studies to come from those who live poverty or those who describe povert! But accumulating evidence in urban and rural show that we are not achieving our 3 outcomes of MKUKUTA.
 
One will not wholly but partly achieved and we as always come out with reasons for non-achievement.

However, it is clear even before the information is amassed that poverty of the majority is not being reduced with PRSP-II alias MKUKUTA Strategy. Maro say, and I may second him, it is not suprising.

The problem I see is deeper than the strategy document. But remaining with the MKUKUTA document I see that the document was with ambitious outcomes, unaccessible even those key stakeholders.

We may have lost 5 years! Let us not write another document  with talkshops, talkshops..but with workshops ..at national/regional / district levels.

Those who live poverty need to have information and their knowledge taken on-board. If MKUKUTA can still be defended that it was the good (well-written) document, let us may be reduce it and go for small but effective, practical objectives and indicators.

Above all PRSP-III/ MKUKUTA II should have an inclusive, focused and informed and effective Participatory Development Management (PDM). Unfortunately this is where we stumbled and fell.

AudaxRwechungura

Africa 2000 Network Tanzania

Dear members

I have discovered that, very few contributions for this important topic have been made so far. I would therefore urge members to take initiatives and make more contributions on this theme.
This is particularly important because our current poverty reduction strategy (MKUKUTA) will conclude next year, and a new successor strategy will immediately be developed. Experience and lessons of the predecessor strategy are therefore critical if our successor poverty reduction framework is to learn and borrow the lessons of the past framework.

The three contributors so far have made very important and useful observations regarding the implementation of MKUKUTA. Issues of weak instructional framework in supporting implementation of MKUKUTA are extremely pertinent. So, the question will be – do we have strong institutions in place to make our MKUKUTA effective? As Dorothy correctly put it – we obviously don’t have them. Meaning, Tanzania was not ready for the ambitious MKUKUTA.

The issue of merger resources to finance MKUKUTA also verifies and/or validates this claim. You are very right Festo - Failure to witness the trickle down effect of growth suggests that the mechanism for promoting equity is not in place.  I am also happy to see what Lwitiko contend -
'an Eagle chasing two rabbits, catches none'! Why not un-bundle and/or unpackage MKUKUTA so that we remain with a few manageable priorities which have higher multiplier effects.

However, is it true that these are the only lessons from MKUKUTA? I personally don’t think so! How about external influence? What about the roles and mindset of Tanzanians? If we are to un-bundle the present strategy – which priorities should be maintained and which ones should be postponed?? These are examples of areas our discussion need to focus, among many others. Please join us in this critical agenda which need to be discussed by all of us. Karibuni Wote!!! Feel free to use English or Swahili (Our national language).      

The other concern was the issue of low public spending in agreed priority areas--- now with the external global financial shock must have made a bad situation worse... The mismatch between priorites and funding is a dead end. WE would like to see a direct correlation between the focused priorities and funds allocated,especially public funds... That is why consensus building around the priorities is mandatory - so that there should be no issue if funding is being allocated towads a specific initiative or sector.

As you may be aware, TAKET has just closed the first round of discussion where three topics were considered. Four new discussion topics have subsequently been introduced and posted for discussion. One of these topics is titled "National Poverty Reduction Framework – MKUKUTA: What are the Lessons" - which I am moderating.

The rationale and significance of this topic sterms from the fact that, our current MKUKUTA is ending next year (2010) - and the Government has started preparation for formulating a successor strategy which need to be much focused, sharper and prioritized strategy than its predecessor. In addition, MKUKUTA review process which is also meant to form a major input to the next strategy has started. This discussion forum is therefore intended to provide space to the members of the public to make their contribution and/or input on what they believe the next poverty reduction initiative should consider based on the lessons from the present initiatives.

I am therefore writting to invite members to start the discussion by posting their views so that we are not left behind this important process. Note that, it is the obligation and right of each of us to air our views for the benefit of our nation. The following questions should therefore guide our discussion:

(a) What have been the achievements of MKUKUTA?

(b) What are the factors behind failure to achieve some of the goals and targets of MKUKUTA?

(c) Identify the critical growth drivers in Tanzania

It is my hope that members will start making their contribution.

Good Luck

.