H.E Jeroen Verheul , Ambassador of the Kingdom of Netherlands in Tanzania today paid a courtsey call on Policy Forum to familiarise with the work of the network and to learn more about Civil Society advocacy efforts in Tanzania.

On the right is PF Coordinator Semkae Kilonzo , H.E Jeroen Verheul (Middle) and on the left is Neema Matafu, Embassy of Netherlands Policy Officer for Public Administration and Economic Policies.

People living in extreme poverty hesitate to pay taxes for their development because they think that the government fails to fulfil its responsibility of solving their development challenges. The challenges include poor infrastructure, lack of medical care in the village dispensaries, poor education system and lack of clean water. That is said today in Dodoma by Hon. Mendrad Kigola (MP) during the follow-up meeting of the stop the bleeding campaign coordinated by Policy Forum (PF) in collaboration with Tanzania Tax Justice Coalition (TTJC).

HakiRasilimali - Publish What You Pay Tanzania, a platform of civil society organizations working on extractives advocacy in Tanzania, has called on stakeholders to acknowledge, appreciate the role of civil society and preserve its space in the natural resource governance in Tanzania.

The call was made ahead of a national conference on mining, oil and natural gas sector in Tanzania aimed at "collaborative reflection on how this sector can effectively contribute to sustainable development in the country" to be held in Dodoma this week.

The Policy Forum monthly breakfast debate on September 29th, 2017 dedicated to discussing the Concealed Opportunities of the Informal sector in Tanzania. The debate entitled “The Power of Tanzania’s Informal Economy: Unveiling the Concealed Opportunities”, was presented by William Madiwa from Tanzania Trade and Economic Justice (TTEJF).

It has been revealed that the sustainability of social accountability monitoring (SAM) as a tool and an approach would depend on how it is successfully entrenched within Tanzanian communities with gradual reduction of dependency on donor resources as an exit strategy. If SAM continued to be donor-driven, it would one day collapse, stakeholders at a recent learning event were told.

Policy Forum (PF) network is looking forward to framing its future efforts on Social Accountability Monitoring (SAM) based on the lessons learned in the previous years of implementation in Tanzania.

Despite the optimism around the draft National Land Policy 2016, stakeholders have advised the government to adequately address the resettlement of people facing acute land shortage to areas with adequate land and to empower the landless including women.

Policy Forum monthly breakfast debate on the 28th of July, 2017 was dedicated to the launch of the last of a series of the Tanzania Governance Reviews (TGRs) by Policy Forum that measure the quality of governance in Tanzania. Entitled “Tanzania Governance Review 2015/16: From Kikwete to Magufuli: Break from the past or more of the same?”, the publication was presented by Brian Cooksey from the Tanzania Development Research Group.

Although Tanzania has a mature mining industry and is Africa’s fourth-largest gold producer with revenues constituting 80% of the extractive industries’ 12% contribution to Tanzanian government revenues  based on data collected during 2016, the country scores 49 of 100 points and ranks 42nd  among 89 country assessments in the 2017 Resource Governance Index (RGI) on governance in the sector.

At a public hearing today, HakiRasilimali submitted to the parliamentary committees on Energy and Minerals and Constitutional and Legal Affairs its opinion on the following bills tabled in parliament on the 29th of June 2017:
1. The Written Laws (Miscellaneous Amendment) No. 4 Of 2017
2. Natural Wealth and Resource Contracts (Review and Renegotiations of Unconscionable Terms) Act 2017
3. The Natural Wealth and Resources (Permanent Sovereignty) Act 2017