Tanzanian civil society organisations on Friday 27th May, 2016 elected five representatives to the 3rd Tanzania Extractive Industries Transparency and Accountability Committee (TEITA Committee) formally known as Multi Stakeholder Group (MSG) which will be operational until May 2018.

The TEITA Committee brings together government, companies and civil society representatives that oversee the production of reports which allow citizens to follow the value of Tanzania’s natural resources from extraction all the way into government financial accounts for discussion and public debate.

A call has been made to the government to meet the demands of free education including capitation grant, financing infrastructures, school feeding porridge program and compensation of school fee secondary education inorder to achieve a balanced budget in the education sector 2016/2017. In addition for this to occur there would also need to be an increase to 30%-40% of development budget for the education sector budget and a perfect match between allocation and actual expenditure in development budget.

The Policy Forum Secretariat is deeply saddened to announce the untimely death of Alex Modest Ruchyahinduru, our Communication and Advocacy manager, passed away at the Aga Khan Hospital in Dar es Salaam in the early morning of the 1st of May, 2016. Some of you will have heard of the news of his hospitalisation following a craniotomy (brain surgery) during the Easter weekend a month ago. Alex joined Policy Forum in March 2009.

Tanzanian members of parliament have been urged to press the executive for more investments in the education and health sectors in order to meet its commitments to provide free education and affordable, equitable access to health services for all.

Policy Forum, in collaboration with the International Republican Institute (IRI) organized a training for members of the African Parliamentary Network against Corruption (APNAC) Tanzania Chapter on social accountability monitoring and budget analysis techniques on Thursday 7th April 2016.

Local Government Authorities (LGA) leaders have been urged to fight corruption in all its forms and work towards maximum revenue collection in their areas for the benefit of Tanzanian citizens. The call was made by the Honorable Prime Minister, Kassim Majaliwa during his speech at the Association of Local Authorities of Tanzania’ (ALAT) Annual General Meeting held at Dodoma on 7-9th April 2016.

The government is determined to put in place robust strategies that will help promote community engagement in all sectors of the Tanzanian economy, the country's National Economic and Empowerment Council (NEEC) said last week.

Speaking at a meeting with Policy Forum members, Neema Lugakingira, the Acting Director of Local Content and Investments at NEEC said that in order to promote efficiency, the government has moved its local content enhancement work to the Prime Minister's Office.

Policy Forum elected its new Board of Directors during its 2016 Annual General Meeting held in Dar es Salaam on the 18th of March. The outgoing board members are Nancy Kaizilege-United Nations Association Tanzania (UNA-Tanzania), Ibrahim Kabole/Mwaikinda -WaterAid Tanzania, Paul Daniels - Care International, Jimmy Luhende-Action for Democracy and Local Governance (ADLG) who retired during this AGM leaving behind Donati Senzia-PELUM, Charles Meshack-Tanzania Forest Conservation Group (TFCG) and Dr.

Prior to the October 25th 2015 general elections, civil society organizations under the Policy Forum Budget Working Group prepared and presented what was termed “Our KEY ASKS to the Next Government” for the consideration of different political parties that were taking party in the polls.  The document contains a number of critical issues that required the attention of the government.    

Tanzania has been urged to entrench and integrate science, technology and innovation strategies in education, industrial, agricultural, trade and investment policies to enable attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the eradication of extreme poverty for all people by the year 2030.