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PF Weekly Update 30/06/2008

Welcome to our weekly update which is sent out every Monday to provide members with news and links to items of interest to the network that have been collected by the PF Secretariat during the previous week. Our updates typically include news from PF member organisations, notifications of new publications, announcements regarding meetings and events, and information on the latest job and training opportunities. 

Policy Forum’s collaboration with Office of Parliament underway

Policy Forum’s planned collaboration with Office of Parliament for the year 2008 commenced this month with a series of sessions with Members of Parliament, parliamentary staff and members of civil society organisations.

Criteria for the selection of a partner network to work with for Social Accountability Monitoring (SAM):

1. 1.Must be a registered, not for profit, Non-Governmental/Civil Society Organization network;

Tanzania Forest Working Group launches Mama Misitu

Seventeen non-governmental organisations today signed a milestone agreement to launch the Mama Misitu campaign, aimed at tackling corruption and mismanagement in Tanzania’s forestry sector.

Professor Wangari Maathai, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace, formally launched the campaign in Dar es Salaam.

Annual General Meeting 2008

Policy Forum is holding its Annual General Meeting on the 10th and 11th of April at the White Sands Hotel. The Secretariat Office will be closed during this time and all enquiries should be sent to info@policyforum.or.tz . We apologise for any convenience this office closure may have caused.

Promoting Transparency & Accountability of Revenue from Extractive Industries

Policy Forum (PF) was invited to attend a workshop on the promotion of transparency and accountability of revenue from the extractive industries (energy and minerals) hosted by the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and Revenue Watch (RW). We have reproduced hereunder what we observed and noted. Please treat these remarks with due caution, as they are merely indicative (and not authoritative) of what transpired.

Biofuels: a solution to Tanzania’s energy crisis?

As the world faces an energy crisis due to limited oil reserves and a problem of climate change due to greenhouse emissions, increasingly, biofuels (fuel consisting of, or derived from biomass) are seen as the panaecea to these two predicaments by providing an alternative to fossil fuels. Countries of the developed North and the corporate world has been at the forefront of pushing for this alternative which is seen as a win-win solution (i.e.

PETS Manual Published

In conjunction with Hakikazi Catalyst, REPOA and TGNP, Policy Forum has published the long-awaited Public Expenditure Tracking System (PETS) Manual. Copies both in English (1000) and Swahili (1000) are available at our offices for collection. For our up-country members, please let us know how many copies you need so that we can arrange to send them via post. Otherwise, we’ll include one copy in English and another in Swahili in the next regular member info pack we send out.

Peer-Learning and Network-Building: The East Africa Expenditure Tracking Conference

Over the past decade, civil society organizations (CSOs) in more than 60 countries have initiated activities to analyze their governments’ budgets. Initially, CSOs specialized in budget analysis and advocacy to influence national budget policy. However, as a broader range of CSOs undertake budget work, the scope of this work has expanded to include activities throughout the budget process, including budget implementation and assessing the impact of expenditures.

East Africa in particular has ex

Launch of Popular Version of the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Act (PCCA)

This popular version of the PCCA is a useful source of information and can assist Tanzanians to better understand not only the laws relating to corruption but further what can be done once an act of corruption has been identified.