Date : 29-30 May 2014
This was a conference promoted by the University of Bradford, England. Several members of the BTS played active parts. Andrew Coulson’s paper “From the Arusha Declaration to Big Results Now: The Political Economy of Tanzania” may be downloaded.
Date : 18 April 2014
This was built around an illustrated presentation by Julian Marcus, Chairman of the Tanzania Development Trust, who had recently returned from a visit to many of the small projects supported by the Trust. Many in the audience were themselves involved with small development projects, and the discussion allowed a valuable exchange of experience and ideas, not least to ensure that, as far as possible, money gets spent where it is supposed to be spent.
Date : 10 March 2014
This seminar provided an opportunity to discuss the issues relating to mental health in Tanzania, how they are being dealt with, and what more can be done. The discussion was introduced by Professor John Hall and Tina Everett. John is a clinical psychologist at Oxford Brookes University, formerly at the Warneford Hospital, Oxford. Tina is a physiotherapist, with a longstanding involvement in physiotherapy mental health training. The two have been involved in creating a pioneering post-graduate programme in clinical psychology and physiotherapy at Muhimbili University, Dar es Salaam. The seminar brought out the miniscute resources devoted to formal mental health in Tanzania – there is just one residential mental hospital.
Ben Wisner from the Aon-Benfield Hazard Research Centre, University College London, gave a presentation on this topic at a BTS/SOAS seminar on 30 January 2014. Here are some notes based on the discussion.
Continue reading “Seminar – Climate Change in Northeastern Tanzania – January 2014”
Martin Walsh’s notes from a seminar on “Tanzania’s Agro-Pastoralist headache”
Continue reading “Seminar – Tanzania’s agro-pastoralist headache – October 2013”
Date : 13 March 2013
This event, sponsored by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tanzania, included presentations on gas in Southern Tanzania and offshore by Rob McCann of BG Group and Roger Nellist, and on transparency in contracts for extractive industries by Graham Gordon and the Tanzanian High Commissioner in London, Peter Kallaghe.
Date : 12 February 2013
This event, sponsored by a number of APPGs, discussed presentations ol the work being done in Tanzania to counter some of the lesser known diseases. Dr Moses Bokarie, Director of the Centre for Neglected Tropical Diseases at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, described the campaign against lymphatic filiarosis (elephantitis). It was then very informative to hear from an anthropologist (Melissa Parker from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) who has looked at how people actually behave when given drugs – and the special difficulties which arise in persuading them to take preventative drugs when they have no symptoms of illness.
On Thursday 6 December 2012 BTS and SOAS organised a seminar on Democracy and the media in Tanzania. The presentation by Ben Taylor is available on his blog and we also have a short report of the seminar.
Continue reading “Seminar – Democracy and the media in Tanzania – December 2012”
This was arranged in partnership with the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tanzania. Andrew Coulson summarised the debate between the proponents of large farms and those of small. Monique Mikhail from Oxfam made the case that women are “female food heros”. Daniel Hulls, of AdDevCo, explained the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania, which will be anchored around very large farms, but also relate to and provide access to markets for large numbers of small farmers. Professor Andrew Westby of Greenwich University spoke about the need to think of whole value chains: transport, storage, processing and manufacturing and not just production, and his special interest, cassava.
We have a short report on a seminar on agriculture from October 2012, together with copies of two powerpoint presentations (these are quite big!) on cassava and on Oxfam’s work on agriculture and a (pdf) presentation on the work of Ag DevCo.
Date : 12 October 2012
This was an all-day event held in Redditch near Birmingham, in partnership with the Redditch Mtwara Link. Speakers included Yusuf Kashangwa from the Tanzania Trade Centre, Nigel Vere Nicoll from the African Travel and Tourism Association, Mark Watson of Tourism Concern, Catherine Brennan who had used a climb of Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for local projects, and others from local schools and churches which have maintained links with Tanzania – not least the Redditch link with Mtwara which continues strong after more than 30 years.
