Tanzania

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Thematic Focus
• Progress on Aid Effectiveness
• Achievements

Overview

Tanzania is a young but stable democracy and has one of Africa's stronger governance and human rights records. Institutional capacity remains weak but is slowly increasing, particularly in the ministries of finance, education, and health.

Tanzania continues to be affected by the global economic downturn and is experiencing shortfalls from projected revenues due to lower prices and diminished demand for tourism and for major exports such as cotton, coffee, tanzanite, and diamonds. The country ranks 152 out of 187 on the United Nations Development Programme's 2011 human development index.

While food security is not currently a significant problem, Tanzania's vulnerability in this area remains moderately high. Over the past several years, cereal production has only been sufficient to cover national requirements, and regional disparities in availability and access to nutritious foods persist. To date, the government has responded effectively to these issues as they have arisen.

Tanzania is on track to meet the education, equality between women and men, and some health-related Millennium Development Goals but is off track on reducing income poverty and maternal mortality and in combatting HIV/AIDS.

Thematic Focus

In 2009, as part of Canada's new aid effectiveness agenda, Tanzania was selected by CIDA as a country of focus. CIDA supports the achievement of the development outcomes outlined in Tanzania's National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty II (PDF, 1.43 MB, 170 pages) with which CIDA themes closely align.

In this strategy Tanzania's aims include:

• Improving economic growth and reducing income poverty
• Improving the quality of life and social well-being of Tanzanians
• Promoting good governance and accountability

CIDA is committed to tightening its focus and scaling up its impact in three sectors, in line with the strategy. These sectors include health, governance, and private sector development—all identified by Tanzania and Canada as central to poverty reduction efforts.

Children and youth, including maternal, newborn and child health

CIDA's focus on maternal and child health is critical to improving the quality of life and well-being of Tanzanians. CIDA's support increases access to skilled health workers, increases the number of babies born in health facilities, helps prevent malaria and tuberculosis, helps prevents the spread of HIV/AIDS among youth and reduces its impact on children and their families. CIDA's support to the Government of Tanzania's education efforts boosts literacy rates, improves the quality of teaching, increases equitable access to secondary and vocational education and provides young people with skills and training to secure jobs.

Economic growth

CIDA contributes to sustainable economic growth through its support to the Government of Tanzania's efforts to improve the management of public finances, strengthen government transparency and accountability and improve the environment for businesses to start and grow, including greater access to financial services and credit.

Progress on Aid Effectiveness

Tanzania has been a leader in aid effectiveness, showing strong national ownership, high-level commitment to important reform areas, and leadership in coordinating development efforts around the PRSP. The 2006 endorsement of the Joint Assistance Strategy for Tanzania (Microsoft Word format) by the government and donors has led to increased alignment with national priorities and increased use of country systems for program delivery. This has improved harmonization among donors.

Significant progress has been made on a division of labour exercise, whereby the government and donors agreed to rationalize sectors of engagement by donors based on Tanzanian priorities. CIDA has been identified to lead donors in important social sectors—education, human resources for health, and HIV/AIDS—as well as on the crosscutting legal reform.

Achievements 2011-2012

Children and youth, including maternal, newborn and child health

• Improved vaccination coverage from 83 percent in 2011 to 90 percent in 2012, protecting even more children against preventable diseases such as measles, tetanus and diptheria
• Through support to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, helped distribute 23 million insecticide-treated bed nets in Tanzania since 2004 to prevent malaria
• Helped 47 percent of women of reproductive age get access to contraception, up from 20 percent in 2004
• Helped train 4,900 teachers to help youth prevent or cope with HIV/AIDS infection through support to the Tanzanian Commission for AIDs
• Through support to the World Health Organization's Stop TB Partnership, helped improve detection of tuberculosis cases in Mbeya (a poor area in rural Tanzania) by 85 percent in 12 months — allowing infected individuals to rapidly receive treatment, improve their likelihood of being cured and reduce the spread of the disease
• Helped the Government of Tanzania double enrolment in primary school since 2000 — in 2011, 94 percent of school-aged children were enrolled in primary school — and reduce average class sizes from 64 to 49 students in primary school
• Helped the Government of Tanzania increase enrolment in technical colleges by 79 percent between 2008 and 2011 — from 47,000 students to 84,000 students

Economic growth

• Helped increase the number of women and youth accessing financial services by 18 percent, from 449,000 in 2010 to 532,000 in 2011, through the Financial Sector Deepening Trust
• Improved financial services for small businesses with new mobile money initiatives, including cell phone banking and improved data sharing among financial institutions to increase access to credit
• Supported greater transparency and accountability in the mining industry with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative by ensuring that mining companies publicly report all taxes and royalties and the Government of Tanzania discloses what it receives from companies
• Helped the Government of Tanzania improve its public sector management by developing client-service charters, strategic plans and performance appraisals in most of the government's almost 260 ministries and departments

Achievements 2010-2011

Children and youth, including maternal, newborn and child health

• Helped increase the percentage of mothers giving birth in a health facility attended by trained personnel from 46 percent in 2004 to 50 percent in 2010
• Through multidonor support to the national health sector strategy, helped provide primary health care services, including maternal, newborn, and child health services, to more than 43 million people through 4,600 local health facilities
• Helped increase cold-chain storage capacity for vaccines at the national and regional levels, allowing two new lifesaving childhood vaccines—against rotavirus and pneumococcal disease—to be introduced in the next two years
• Provided 13 districts with needed vaccines, medicines, and health equipment and supplies
• Helped contribute to a 46 percent increase in secondary school enrolment and a 13 percent increase in primary school teachers between 2008 and 2011

Economic growth

• Helped increase credit for microenterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises, and poor people from $115 million in 2009 to $190 million in 2010

Achievements 2009-2010

Economic growth (2008-2009)

• Helped create market opportunities for farmers through the construction of 110 market centres for crops and 38 for livestock
• Helped create more than 1.2 million jobs by providing business and job creation funding to the private sector

Children and youth (2007-2009)

• Supported the construction of 968 classrooms, 709 teachers' houses and 716 pit latrines, at the primary school level
• Helped increase by 15 percent the annual rate of boys and girls advancing through secondary school
• Helped distribute more than 60,000 English, braille, and local language books to schools across the country
• Helped 248,280 people with advanced HIV infections receive antiretroviral combination treatment by May 2009, compared with 80,628 persons at the end of 2007
• Helped 88 percent of the population receive measles vaccinations in 2009; this number is expected to rise to 90 percent by 2010

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