Policy Forum (PF) is a network with over 70 NGO members registered in Tanzania and joined together by their specific interest in influencing policy processes to enhance poverty reduction, equity and democratization in the focal areas of local governance, public money and active citizen voice. Its vision for Tanzania is a future where policy processes are participatory and involve a broad-based engagement of all sectors of society in an accountable, empowered and informed way in all stages of policy processes and at all levels of society. It strives to realize this vision by opening and influencing policy processes in order to improve people’s lives, particularly disenfranchised and impoverished groups in order to empower them to self-organize and become part of asocial movement for change.

A key means of achieving its broader objective is through dissemination of PF’s analysis and monitoring information to policy makers, civil society and the general public in a manner that is accessible, relevant and useful. To this end, a significant ongoing activity that Policy Forum hosts is the monthly People and Policy Debates (‘Breakfast Debates’) which take place from 7:30 am to 9:30 am on the last Friday of each month in Dar es Salaam City Centre. The event is cost-free and open to the public, thereby engendering a broad-based, informal, and informative discussion on a topical policy issue over a light breakfast. Speakers are drawn from the public and private sector, academia, civil society, and donor agencies. Typically, speakers are invited to present their perspective on a topic, and thereafter participants are invited to discuss the issues raised in small groups before the floor is opened for wider plenary discussion. More information on previous Breakfast Debates as well as forthcoming ones can be obtained from PF’s website: www.policyforum.or.tz.