World Bank Blogs
Syndicate content

Tanzania

How Can Aid Agencies Promote Local Governance and Accountability? Lessons from Oxfam’s Work in Five Countries

Duncan Green's picture

Community discussion class participants in Bardiya village talk about their plans for building a community clinic.Oxfam is publishing a fascinating new series of case studies today, describing its programme work on local governance and community action. There are case studies from Nepal (women's rights, see photo), Malawi (access to medicines), Kenya (tracking public spending), Viet Nam (community participation) and Tanzania (the ubiquitous Chukua Hatua project), and a very wise (and mercifully brief) overview paper from power and governance guru Jo Rowlands. Here are some highlights:

“Governance is about the formal or informal rules, systems and structures under which human societies are organised, and how they are (or are not) implemented. It affects all aspects of human society – politics, economics and business, culture, social interaction, religion, and security - at all levels, from the most global to the very local."

In Africa, Seizing Carbon Finance Opportunities

Harikumar Gadde's picture

I’m amazed at what Africa is doing to address climate change, a crisis in the making that could have devastating consequences on the continent, its agriculture, and millions of people who had little role in creating it.

The latest updates came during the 4th Africa Carbon Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. What I heard there was quite a change from the Forum four years earlier and not what I had expected.

Building Accountability in Tanzania: Applying an Evolutionary/Venture Capitalist Theory of Change

Duncan Green's picture

I’ve been catching up on our accountability work in Tanzania recently, and it continues to be really ground-breaking. Rather than churning out the standard logical framework of activities, outputs and predicted outcomes before the project even starts, the programme, known as Chukua Hatua (Swahili for ‘take action’) uses an evolutionary model of change (try out numerous approaches, drop the less successful ones, scale up and develop the winners). It’s more like a venture capitalist backing ten start-up firms knowing that most will fail, but some will win big. This has been possible partly because DFID has been willing to fund such an experimental approach as part of its ‘Accountability in Tanzania’ (AcT) programme (props to them).

18 months into the programme, it’s good to see that Chukua Hatua is, errmm, evolving, according to programme coordinator Jane Lonsdale.

The first phase piloted six approaches:

Public Finance for Water in Sub-Saharan Africa

Meike van Ginneken's picture

We know that water and sanitation services do not always recover their costs from tariffs. So, if communities or governments are to maintain the infrastructure properly, they depend on the public budget. And those expenditures must be predictable and transparent.To take a closer look at this issue, the World Bank analyzed public expenditure on water supply and sanitation from fifteen countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, assessing how much public money was budgeted for the sector and on what it was spent.

Weekly Wire: the Global Forum

Kalliope Kokolis's picture

These are some of the views and reports relevant to our readers that caught our attention this week.

Frontline SMS
New Resource: Using SMS as an Effective Behavior Change Campaigning Tool

“Behavior change campaigning is inherently interactive. In order to encourage positive behavior change it is important to not only push campaign messages out to people, but to listen to the responses. To run a campaign which has a real impact, you need to listen to ensure you’re being heard. This is one of the main reasons why SMS – as a widely accessible and inherently interactive communications channel  – is an ideal tool for campaigning.

This is the topic explored in a new resource which FrontlineSMS is releasing with Text to Change today; best practices when using SMS as a behavior change campaigning tool. This resource has been put together collaboratively to provide an introductory guide, suggesting some key points which can usefully be considered if you are planning to use SMS as a campaign tool. The resource is by no means exhaustive, but it outlines some key considerations which can hopefully serve to help guide discussions around best practices in SMS campaigning.” READ MORE

Mind Your Cowpeas and Cues: Inference and External Validity in RCTs

Berk Ozler's picture

There is a minor buzz this week in Twitter and the development economics blogosphere about a paper (posted on the CSAE 2012 Conference website) that discusses a double blind experiment of providing different seeds of cowpeas to farmers in Tanzania.

A woman holds together a business and a family in Tanzania

Mehreen Arshad Sheikh's picture

"If you incapacitate a woman, you incapacitate the whole world."

Pili Kafue of Tanzania speaks about her challenging role as a wife, mother and business owner.

On Nov. 11, 2011, more than 48 World Bank countries participated in the One Day on Earth campaign and filmed working women across the globe to capture their thoughts on what it means to have a job.The results were extraordinary and all regions around the world were represented.

Tanzania: Building bridges through education and small businesses

Jacques Morisset's picture

Stevan Lee, Senior World Bank Economist, is co-author of this post.

Attracted by the prospects of large unexploited natural gas reserves in the south of Tanzania, big players are in town. The British Gas Group has publicly announced that it may invest over US$35 billion in the next 25 years – 1.5 times Tanzania’s current GDP. Policymakers and donors are jockeying to position themselves and understand what is at stake.

eLearning, Africa, and ... China?

Michael Trucano's picture

sisters in development?Earlier this year, over 1700 participants from over 90 countries attended eLearning Africa (previous blog post here) to share lessons and make contacts at what has evolved into perhaps the continent's premier annual knowledge sharing event related to the use of ICTs in education. Not surprisingly, given that the event took place in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania led the way in terms of attendance by its nationals, followed by its East African neighbors, with South Africa and Nigeria not too far behind.

One nationality was largely noticeable through its absence: the Chinese.  Why do I mention this? Outside the conference, signs of growing cooperation between Tanzania and China (and India, whose Prime Minister was in Dar the same week on a state visit) were hard to miss, and indeed, the increasing 'presence' of China across Africa is undeniable, and the topic of much reporting, scholarly interest and discussion, including at the World Bank. Looking around the conference itself, this cooperation wasn't immediately in evidence related to international cooperation around the use of educational technologies.  Participating in and listening to many conversations at the event, however, one got a bit of a different story related to potential cooperation going forward between China and a number of African countries on ICT/education issues.

Prospects Weekly: Q3 Euro Area GDP growth remained positive

Despite escalating debt concerns, Q3 Euro Area GDP growth remained positive mostly on account of robust growth in the two largest economies Germany and France. Q3 GDP growth was even stronger in the US, Japan and China (all of which benefitted from the post-Tohoku bounce back), with consumer spending also being an important growth driver. Reflecting weak consumer spending in the Euro Area, retail sales fell in October. Forward looking indicators suggest that growth prospects for the Euro Area remain dim, and with the EU being a major trading partner for many countries this reduces prospects elsewhere. In anticipation of the slowdown, monetary policy tightening has declined significantly in developing countries, although tightening continues where inflation remains above-target.
Euro Area member states grew modestly and unevenly in Q3, but recession looms ahead. Euro Area GDP was up 0.8% (q/q, saar) in Q3. Much of the increase was driven by Germany (2%, q/q saar) and France (1.6%, q/q saar), while periphery countries registered significant declines. Q3 GDP growth was even stronger in the US (2.5%, q/q saar) and Japan (5.5%, q/q saar). Reflecting uncertainty related to the debt crisis and fiscal austerity across the Euro Area, Q4 growth prospects for the Euro Area are dim. European business surveys in October show production and order books pointing towards recession, while stocks of unsold finished goods remain high. The EC forecasts Euro Area Q4 GDP to contract by 0.4% (q/q, saar) and to stagnate in 2012 Q1. Developing country exports to the EU will be impacted.

 

Strength of consumer spending diverges across regions. Consumer spending in the third quarter provided significant support to GDP growth in Germany, France, and the United States (1.72 percentage point contribution to GDP). October releases of retail sales data show momentum growth on the upside for the United States (supported by a pick-up in consumer sentiment since August and moderate job creation), and moderating in China and Japan (where retail sales growth is stabilising from the post-Tohoku bounce back). However, retail sales in the Euro Area declined in October, with momentum growth dipping towards a deceleration, as consumers faced with job fears related to the ongoing Euro Area debt crisis and fiscal austerity, hold back on spending.

 

The pace of monetary tightening in developing countries slows. As inflationary pressures abate and the global economy slows down, the number of developing countries tightening monetary policy has fallen sharply. In recent months some of the larger developing countries (Brazil, China, Indonesia, Russia, and Turkey) have moved from tightening to a neutral or looser monetary stance. Elsewhere, interest rate hikes continued in developing countries where inflationary expectations remain elevated (Bangladesh, India, Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Vietnam) and where price pressures continue to be felt (e.g in East Africa). Indeed, interest rates in Kenya and Uganda have been increased by atleast 800bps over the past two months.

 

Source: Thomson Datastream and World Bank DEC Prospects Group

Download the Prospects Weekly as PDF here.

The Regressive Demands of Demand-Driven Development

Berk Ozler's picture

There is a frustratingly weak and positive finding in the literature that examines the targeting performance of social funds projects, which, over time, took on many of the characteristics of community-driven development programs and became an important part of the social protection strategy in many countries by funding projects that provide public (and sometimes private) goods requested by communities: they are only moderately pro-poor.

Reporting back from eLearning Africa 2011

Michael Trucano's picture

badiliko kwa mjukuu uanze na babueLearning Africa (eLA) bills itself as 'the premier annual event bringing together e-learning and ICT-supported education and training professionals from across the continent'.  If you want a 'crash course' in what is happening in a variety of contexts related to ICT use in education in countries from Algeria to Zambia, you could do much worse than to attend this increasingly informative and useful event. This year the event was held in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania and featured over 1700 participants (and over 300 speakers) from 90 countries around the world; it included daily plenary and 65 parallel sessions to share and debate emerging lessons from experiences in this fast-moving field.

Weekly Wire: the Global Forum

Kalliope Kokolis's picture

These are some of the views and reports relevant to our readers that caught our attention this week.

Space for Transparency
Mobilising to Make Aid Transparent

"How much money are donors giving to Liberia, Peru and Sri Lanka?

It sounds like a simple question and one that should have a quick answer – but it does not.

Donors have pledged in international agreements to provide such information by making their aid more open and effective, but most have failed to fulfill these promises. Making aid more transparent allows citizens in countries giving and receiving aid to know what it is funding and where. It is information that is essential for ensuring aid has the most impact. It is critical to make sure aid is not wasted or lost to corruption."  READ MORE


Pages