Policy Forum was this week invited to a stakeholders meeting to validate a report which looks at the Tanzania Water, Sanitation and Hygiene sector (WASH) strengths and gaps for WaterAid Tanzania (WAT) to reflect on as they plan their new strategy. The meeting also aimed to offer an opportunity to gain insights on stakeholders’ plans with respect to key areas highlighted in the report and to solicit feedback and suggestions from partners on where they think WAT can add most value in the sector in the next five years.

The following are the key issues observed at the event:

“In many countries today, there are huge expectations from extractive revenues which can ultimately lead to overspending and debt among other things. Therefore it is important to have a law in place that manages these risks and challenges so as to meet the desired goals.”

Nancy Kaizilege has been named Chairperson of Policy Forum and Paul Daniels as Vice Chairperson. Ms. Kaizilege is Secretary General of United Nations Association Tanzania (UNA - Tanzania), an  organization that aims at promoting public awareness, engagement and understanding of the activities of the United Nations in Tanzania. Mr. Daniels is the Care International Tanzania Country Director, an organisation working to enhance gender equality and climate change adaptation in the rural environment of Tanzania.

New commitments on financing for development are being negotiated in July in Addis Ababa at the Third Financing for Development Conference (FfD3). Tax and domestic resource mobilization have been placed in a central role in the negotiations. In order to increase domestic revenue, illicit financial flows and harmful tax practices have to be tackled.

On the 25th of June, 2015, Policy Forum participated in the public launch of the “Stop The Bleeding” Campaign in Nairobi aimed at curbing Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) from Africa.

On June 16th, 2015, the Government of Tanzania tabled in parliament three bills related to extractive industries under Certificates of Urgency. The bills are The Tanzania Extractive Industries (Transparency and Accountability) Act 2015, The Oil and Gas Revenue Management Act 2015 and The Petroleum Act 2015. 

To this effect, we the undersigned Civil Society Organizations convened and deliberated on the bills in Dares Salaam from the 21st to 23rd of June, 2015 aiming at providing inputs for improvement of the proposed legislations with national interests at the fore.

An Interim Working Group (IWG) of the African IFF Campaign Platform made up of six Pan-African organisations namely Tax Justice Network-Africa (TJN-A), Third World Network-Africa (TWN-Af), Africa Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD), the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), the African Regional Organisation of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa) and Trust Africa supported and joined by the Global Alliance for Tax Justice (GATJ) will launch a unified African Campaign platform on IFFs.

“With more women in the boardroom, greater legislative rights, and an increased mass of women’s visibility as impressive role models in every aspect of life……. one could think that women have gained true equality” (2000 and beyond) theme for the International Women’s Day, 2015.

But to what extent does that quotation reflect our experience of the reality within our own society?

To confidently claim that the government is using the maximum of its available resources, the allocations have to be sufficient to address the available challenges. Looking and the Tanzania education budget for financial year 2015/16, the government still has not met the universal agreed standard of investment to the sector as the 17% allocation still falls short of the 20% of the National budget as stipulated in the Dakar EFA agreement and UNESCO’s  Global Education Forum. 

On the 18-24 May 2015, Policy Forum – Local Government Working Group (LGWG) was invited to participate in the “World Village Festival” and other subsequent events organized by Kepa in Helsinki, Finland. The event brought in different NGOs from Europe, the Middle East and Africa to discuss the opportunities and challenges related to development that developing countries are facing but more specifically how decisions made in the north affect the lives of people in poorer countries.