Julius Nyerere led Tanzania to Independence – and is revered as the Father of the Nation.
He turned it into a model of African socialism. And then had to watch while his policies were reversed, and structural adjustment led to reinstatement of the private sector.
Now we have a new biography, in three volumes. For these and more information regarding the event, please click the link below:
In the last 45 years we have funded 607 projects, at a cost of £2,4 million and benefiting an estimated 608,000 people. In our anniversary month we look back at what we have achieved, and celebrate some of our highlighted projects and team members.
For more information; Please visit: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/tanzania-development-trust-at-45-an-overview-and-lessons-learnt-tickets-125774178955
Join us in this interactive webinar on Zoom to hear from the following panelists:
Chambi Chachage – Analyst and commentator, Postdoc Research Associate at Princeton University
Mwanahamisi Singano – Gender and governance analyst, Program Manager at the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET)
Constantine Manda – Co-founder & Director at the Impact Evaluation Lab, Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF)
Chair:
Ben Taylor – Editor, Tanzanian Affairs
For more information, please click on the link/video clip below;
Here below was the AGM’s Invite:
You are cordially invited to the AGM of the Britain Tanzania Society and Tanzania Development Trust, which will be held by Zoom at 2pm on 24th October.
This is a chance to find out more about the work of each organisation, what they’ve been doing over the last year, meet the post holders and others and ask questions. We are delighted that David Concar, who took up his post as UK High Commissioner to Tanzania in August will speak about his work, as will our local reps Rhobi Samwelly from Hope for Girls and Women Tanzania, Benedicto Hosea from Mboni ya Vijana, and many others. Ngailla Alpha will talk about his school’s success in the Schools’ Enterprise Challenge and how he collects poverty data via the free ODK app.
Ben Taylor, will talk about Tanzanian Affairs, of which he is editor. For more details, please click on the link below:
You are invited to the interactive webinar on the impact on, and support for, people experiencing homelessness during and after COVID-19, and make recommendations for immediate and post-crisis support. Please click on the link/video clip below for more information:
Tanzania has responded to the Coronavirus pandemic in some unusual ways – withholding data from the public, questioning the reliability of tests, and calling for God’s assistance. There are signs that the outbreak was spiralling in late April, since when there has been very little reliable information, though the government claims that the crisis has passed.
This discussion will cover the COVID-19 outbreak in Tanzania and the national response. What is known about the extent of the outbreak? How have the government and the public responded? What evidence is there that the outbreak is truly under control, as the government claims?
Confirmed speakers include:
Zitto Kabwe MP – opposition leader representing ACT Wazalendo
Fatma Karume – prominent lawyer and critic of the government’s response to COVID-19
Ben Taylor – analyst, blogger and editor of Tanzanian Affairs
Roland Ebole – Amnesty International Regional Researcher for Tanzania and Uganda based at the East Africa Regional Office, Nairobi
A representative of the Tanzanian High Commission in London has also been invited to speak.
The event will take place online, using Zoom. There will be a general discussion and a chance to ask questions.
Report of a BTS Seminar on 2 September 2019
Tanzania has been slow to take up the challenges of changing climate. It did not ratify the 2016 Paris Agreement on climate change till 2018, and has not yet produced the detailed strategy required under the Agreement. However, resources are available from donors and the private sector for projects which can demonstrate that they can reduce emissions, or “capture”, carbon.
Andrew Coulson introduced the topic with pictures of Mount Kilimanjaro showing the dramatic shrinking of the ice cap since 1993.
The decline started before the most dramatic increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so it may have more to do with deforestation and cultivation of crops on the mountainside, which have reduced the amounts of mist attracted to the mountain and hence the amounts of snow, than with global warming in general; but, as with glaciers all over the world, and the ice caps around the North and South Poles, the retreat has got much faster in recent years.
Overall, Africa is badly affected by climate change. The worst impacts are away from the equator, where the Sahara and Kalahari deserts are expanding fast, making farming almost impossible. In contrast, parts of Tanzania, such as the areas around Dodoma and Kongwa, appear to have benefited from more rain. But this may not continue, and higher temperatures in the future are likely to reduce the yields from maize and many other crops. Meanwhile storms are causing floods in Dar es Salaam and other cities, and soil erosion. The continuing use of wood or charcoal for domestic cooking, and illegal land clearances for agriculture, are leading to reductions in forests and trees. Tanzanian farmers are not in doubt that temperatures overall are increasing, and that the rainfall patterns are becoming more unpredictable. Those living in coastal areas and fishermen are also aware of such threats, with bleaching of corals and coastal erosion increasing.
Jo Anderson spoke about the work of Carbon Tanzania, which was set up in 2011 to support the retention of forests. They are supporting small-scale activities in three contrasting areas across Tanzania. If they can demonstrate that forests have been retained or extended, then “carbon credits” mean that the communities can be paid under the REDD scheme (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation). However, payments are only made when preservation or expansion of the forests is confirmed by audits, which may be based on aerial photos. The costs of the audits make it hard for poor farmers or villages to access the funds without technical help from outside agencies, such as Carbon Tanzania.
Tanzania was chosen by the European Union as one of four African countries to pilot projects relating to climate change under the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) initiated in 2007. Eco-ACT Tanzania, a social enterprise committed to developing environmental solutions, got support from the European Union (€ 2.3 million over 3 years) for developing three ecovillages in Tanzania, including Chololo (close to Dodoma) which piloted over 20 range of environmental innovations, which proved widely acceptable to the villagers. Following the success of the first Ecovillage project a further project was approved, supporting 5 Ecovillages, for an additional € 8 million, until 2019. Tim Clarke, formerly EU ambassador to Tanzania, who was one of the individuals promoting this pioneering programme, would have liked Tanzania to become a world leader in climate change technologies, rolling out more widely the ecovillage programme both in Tanzania itself and promoting this approach elsewhere on the African continent, establishing a world class International Climate Change Centre on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and promoting solar and other renewable energies. He still hopes that the government will take up the new challenges and opportunities provoked by climate change.
Introducing a new book by Karim Hirji
Hirji is a distinguished Tanzanian mathematician and statistician. But as an undergraduate at the University of Dar es Salaam in the 1970s, he edited the student magazines Cheche and Majimaji, which published Issa Shivji’s pioneering Tanzania: The Silent Class Struggle. He has continued writing on Tanzanian politics and education, and in the last 5 years published six books. This one brings together his writing on education from the 1970s to now.
This event will launch this book. It will also assess Hirji’s work, in the context of the outpouring of creativity at the University of Dar es Salaam in the 1970s.
It will be introduced by Andrew Coulson who has written extensively about Tanzanian political economy. There will be short comments by Colin Leys (better known for his critical work on private capital in the UK NHS), Abdul Paliwala, Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Warwick, and George Hadjivayanis, all of whom were in Dar at that time. Followed by discussion. The event will be chaired by Ida Hadjivayanis, a lecturer at SOAS and family friend.
This will interest all who care about education in Africa, especially at the tertiary level. But also those who are revisiting what happened in Dar es Salaam in the 1960s and 1970s, and how education and ideology played their parts in the dramas that unfolded.
This event is promoted by SOAS and the Britain Tanzania Society.
Aim:
Exploring our responsibilities for the ONE WORLD, utilising the link between Redditch and Mtwara. We will be sharing recycling initiatives, raising awareness and responsibilities, investigating how the way in which we live impacts on other parts of the world, with reference to Mtwara and Redditch. For More Information, please click here and here
How is climate change affecting Tanzania now, and how prepared is it for future changes?
Jo Anderson from Carbon Tanzania will discuss “The potential for Climate Change action to deliver economic benefits for Tanzania”
The Paris Agreement on Climate Action allowed for all signatories to decide how they as nations could best contribute to mitigating the effects of dangerous human-induced climate change. Many tropical countries committed to reducing their emissions by dealing with land use, land-use change and forest loss. Tanzania itself has included reducing emissions from deforestation as a key element of their contribution, and in the past 18 months finance has increasingly become available for measurable actions to fulfill this end, with governments and multinational companies committing to “nature-based solutions” and “natural climate solutions”. However the process of securing this finance is complicated and as yet not completely set in stone, and forest nations are still working out how they can best secure finance to help them reduce deforestation and sustainably manage their natural environments. nearly 80% of Tanzania’s carbon emissions come from the land and forest sector, so there is a huge potential for the government, non-state actors and international organisations to bring finance to the country for results based forest conservation.
What needs to be in place for Tanzania to access this opportunity and what actors can be brought together to make it happen?
There will be another speaker, to be confirmed, a chance to ask questions and time for general discussion.All welcome!
