As indicated in the National Environmental Policy of 1997, Tanzania faces several environmental challenges which include land degradation, lack of accessible good quality water for both rural and urban habitants; loss of biodiversity, deteriorations of aquatic systems, deforestation, environmental pollutions, climate change and a scant financial resource to address these challenges.

The impacts of environmental degradation affect vital sectors that have direct effects to agriculture, food systems and people’s livelihoods.

I4ID has completed a programme on using an “iterative programming and adaptive management approach “. The programme worked through problems that connected with and mobilised the interest and capabilities of relevant stakeholders in Tanzania to develop feasible solutions, that are scalable and replicable and deliver inclusive development outcomes.

Policy Forum is pleased to announce the newly elected board of directors for 2020/22. Elected by 44 members at the Annual General Meeting held in Dodoma , Tanzania. The incoming board has four (4) returning members and three (3) appointments. The returning board members include :

To reach those who are furthest behind in society, it is important to institute a system of just and fair social economic development. This is key especially during these tough times of the COVID-19 pandemic where global health and economic systems have been significantly disrupted. Through the years that I have been working with communities, I have observed how important it is to have groups of people who are empowered and have a voice and the capacity of being active players in raising concerns that affects their wellbeing.

Findings have revealed that the need for promoting women leadership was as important as creating an enabling environment for women to hone their leadership qualities. Despite umpteen measures to empower women and see them in leadership positions, the representation of women in such positions across the globe is quite upsetting. Women make up just 4 percent of CEOs in the world’s 500 top companies, even a lesser percent of heads of government at national level belongs to women and the least percent of international leadership positions is occupied by women in the world today.

This submission from the Policy Forum (PF), a network of 76 Tanzanian NGOs brought together by their interest in public money accountability, is a continuation of efforts to contribute to the budget process, discourse and performance. Compiled by its Budget Working Group, the submission focuses on key public sectors namely; education, health, agriculture, youth and water and presents crucial concerns related to resource mobilisation, allocation, and execution and makes recommendations worth consideration in the Parliamentary deliberations.

Recently Policy Forum did an analysis to assess the extent to which Tanzania’s mining fiscal regime is aligned with the Africa Mining Vision (AMV). The AMV, which was adopted by the Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) in February 2009, serves as a regional policy tool to guide the development of mineral resources in Africa.

We are all by now undoubtedly aware of the global pandemic outbreak known as Coronavirus (COVID-19) that is highly contagious which has resulted in one case being confirmed in Tanzania on Monday the 16th of March 2020. In response,

lthough the Parliament of Tanzania as a major decision-making body adopted a quota system in 1985 to address gender imbalance, the national assembly still consists of about 37 percent of women Members of Parliament whereby 30 percent are from special seats arrangement and 7 percent are elected by the citizens in their constituencies. There is a deficit of 13 percent of women in parliament to achieve a parity with men in the National Assembly.

Policy Forum adopted social accountability monitoring (SAM) in 2008 as one of its strategic approaches to capacitate its members working at the sub-national level in Tanzania to engage in policy processes more meaningfully. Since then, I have seen SAM initiatives contribute to building teacher’s housing at remote schools, the operationalisation of primary health care facilities, and the empowerment of communities to lead participatory forest governance efforts among others.