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No responsible leadership, no achievement of Millenium Goals
2005-09-21 06:49:38
By Editor
For the last ten years, the government with support from international development partners, has been engaged in a mighty struggle to bring hope and opportunity to Tanzania’s poorest people.
Along with significant new grants and debt relief resources to fight poverty, we have insisted on the reforms necessary to make this a fight we can win.
The fight has particularly focused on the values that make life worth living: for education, and health, and economic opportunity.
This is both the history of our country since early 1980s and it is the calling of President Mkapa’s times.
We have come to believe that the advance of free markets and trade and democracy and the rule of law will bring prosperity to impoverished Tanzanians.
During Mkapa’s rule, per capita income has climbed , even in some of the poorest rural communities.
Illiteracy has been cut by giving more children a chance to learn.
Infant mortality has been almost halved, giving more children a chance to live.
Yet, over half of the citizens still live on less than USD2 a day.
For some regions, especially the rural parts, poverty is spreading, and per capita income is falling.
Development is not always easy, but the conditions required for sound development are clear.
The foundation of development is security, because there can be no development in an atmosphere of chaos and violence.
Fortunately, to-date, Tanzania has won international acclaim as a haven of peace and political stability.
Development also depends upon financing. Contrary to the popular belief, most funds for development do not come from international aid — they come from domestic capital, from foreign investment, and especially from trade.
Trade is the engine of development. And by promoting it, we will be increasingly able to meet the needs of our poor citizens.
Successful development also requires citizens who are literate, who are healthy, and prepared and able to work.
Development assistance can help poor nations meet these education and health care needs, in line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Yet many of the old models of economic development assistance are outdated. Money that is not accompanied by legal and economic reform is often wasted.
What is needed is a non-corrupt environment where private property is protected, markets are open, and monetary and fiscal policies are sustainable. Private contracts have to be enforceable.
When nations refuse to enact sound policies, progress against poverty is nearly impossible.
In these situations, more aid money can actually be counterproductive, because it subsidizes bad policies, delays reform, and crowds out private investment.
The international development goals in the U.N. Millennium Declaration, are a shared responsibility of both developed and developing countries.
To make progress, nations and leaders must walk the hard road of political, legal and economic reform, so that all their people can benefit.
Good government is an essential condition of development.
So, development funding mechanisms of the type of USA’s Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) have resolved to reward nations that root out corruption, respect human rights, and adhere to the rule of law.
Hence, countries that live by these three broad standards — ruling justly, investing in their people, and encouraging economic freedom — have received more aid from America.
Tanzania missed out on the last round of MCA’s eligibility criteria, a thing that displeased even the President.
Fine, we might have not been clean enough in all of the criteria, one can conveniently guess.
However, we feel extremely disturbed when we are witness to actions committed by some of our leaders which seem to be aimed at ensuring that we remain in the quagmire of poverty.
The most recent case in point is the forcible eviction last Saturday of tenants from former Air Tanzania houses at Ukonga in Dar es Salaam by prison warders accompanied by prisoners.
In the scuffles that ensued, two journalists were brutally injured.
Capping the affair, Home Affairs Minister Omar Ramadhan Mapuri supported the beating of the journalists by prison wardens and police, provoking outrageous reactions from the media fraternity, human rights’ activists and media owners.
This is just too unfortunate, and may not augur well with the wishes of our development partners.
Evidence shows that where nations adopt sound policies, a dollar of foreign aid attracts USD2 of private investment.
And when development aid rewards reform and responsibility,it lifts almost four times as many people out of poverty, compared to the old approach of writing cheques without regard to results.
When governments repress and punish those gifts, no amount — no amount of aid is sufficient to lift people from poverty.
When a government honors these gifts, every citizen can know the blessings of prosperity.
The ruling party and the government are working to relieve poverty and suffering, and we are proud of their efforts.
Irresponsible, uncensured actions of the Mapuri type can doom this process, and ultimately ensure that the fight against poverty is unwinnable.
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