Dar es Salaam Diary

This past Saturday I was awarded the dubious honor of being asked by my boss to go with him to the annual World Bank/Government of Tanzania meeting on public expenditure monitoring and poverty reduction. Apparently this meeting used to be about a week long, with four days spent discussing public expenditure reviews and two spent discussing implementation of Tanzania’s poverty reduction and growth strategy (or, MKUKUTA as it is more commonly known by its Swahili acronym), which is the joint agreement between the World Bank and the GoT laying out a long-term plan for, you guessed it, poverty reduction and growth. In any case, this year the meeting was condensed into two days, with the stated rationale that public expenditure reviews should inform implementation of MKUKUTA and vice versa. Another view is that the whole meeting is largely a formality, so who cares if it’s only two days long. In any case, a look at the schedule was rather telling in terms of the faciliators’ priorities… Over the two days, “civil society representatives” had about 40 minutes total to speak, whereas there were two separate cocktail receptions, one of which was two hours long…

Unfortunately I did not stick around for the cocktails, but I did get to shake hands with the World Bank country director for Tanzania and Uganda, a somewhat stern but plucky seeming woman… I particularly enjoyed when she pumped her fist in the air in response to a “shout-out” she received during one of the morning. (I suppose the World Bank did just agree to give TZ 200 million bucks this year, so she deserved her props). Another highlight was the inappropriate use of Hanukkah clip-art during one of the Power Point presentations. A Tanzanian World Bank guy was giving a presentation on the Public Expenditure and Financial Accounatibility Review (did I mention this was how I spent my Saturday?!) and got to a section in which he was recounting “highlights.” In order to underline the fact that he was presenting the highlights, he had adorned the Power Point slide with three huge menorahs superimposed on Jewish stars… The humor of his choice was lost on much of the audience but I did hear a few other stifled laughs.

So anyway, I think that there was a lot about this meeting that I didn’t really understand or fully appreciate, but it was an interesting glimpse into the political landscape here in Tanzania. It’s especially interesting being here after working in Washington, D.C. for two years since the scene is so different.

Different how, you ask? Well, perhaps since I’m still in Power Point mode, I will enumerate those differences in three bullet points:

• The lack of a true multi-party system
• The proliferation of donors
• The politicization of “civil society”

Tanzania has a somewhat unique political history in from independence (in 1961) until the 1980s it was a socialist, one-party state. Tanzania’s first president was the much-loved Julius Nyerere (he’s up for beatification, I believe), by many accounts a visionary and an inspiration, but by others the cause of great “backward” strides in terms of economic development. Tanzania only became a multi-party democracy in 1992 and while there are now about 10 political parties, all the three presidents who have followed Nyerere (Ali Hassan Mwinyi, Benjamin Mkapa, and the recently instated Jakaya Kikwete) have been members of the current iteration of Nyerere’s party (the Chama Cha Mapinduzi, or the Revolutionary Party). Tellingly, in the last election, Kikwete received over 80% of the vote, and few people are able to articulate what the differences are between CCM and the opposition parties. The Kikwete regime is also referred to as the “Fourth Phase” government, as in the fourth phase of the CCM’s rule. So, this means that “the Government” is a pretty united entity. Perhaps this makes it more effective since not plagued by the partisan gridlock we suffer in the States, but I’m not sure…

The second point, which I have touched upon briefly before, is the ubiquitous presence of donors (foreign development agencies, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID) in Tanzania. Last year, over half of Tanzania’s budget was funded by foreign aid. As I noted earlier, the West is fond of giving Tanzania money since this is an African country characterized by relatively low corruption, stable institutions, and peace. This might at first seem like an unequivocal good thing, but it actually ends up creating significant problems for the Government, since Tanzania does not have the channels for effectively absorbing all the money that is pouring in. To put it in development policy wonk jargon, Tanzania is having significant challenges in terms of “operationalizing” all of the donor funds. Furthermore, since money talks, the Government often finds itself more accountable to donors than to the citizens. In addition, donor support is often uncoordinated and disjointed. In response to this lack of coordination, there is a current push for donors to provide what is called “general budget support,” whereby all aid money is put into one big pot that can be used at the government’s discretion. But this raises further questions about accountability (it might be easier to skim off the top of the pot without anyone noticing, e.g.), and many donors are still not so keen on the idea, since they still want to fund their pet projects.

The government is not the only recipient of donor money, however. The other major beneficiaries are non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as my own dear employer. Perhaps the fact that the government and NGOs are competing for donor funds is what is behind the politicization of civil society. I was struck at Saturday’s meeting by the level of defensiveness on the part of government officials regarding the role of civil society. There was a lot of harsh rhetoric about how NGOs should stop telling the government to be transparent and should open up their own books, etc., etc. This sort of ire is nothing new after spending nearly two years of D.C., but it’s weird when civil society as an institution is under attack, rather than different political parties facing off against each other.

So, to grossly oversimplify, in D.C. I was used to the “good guys” and the “bad guys” being the two major political parties (you can use your judgement as to which is which). Whereas here the main division seems to be between civil society and government (again I’ll let you use your judgement…) What’s more, the amount of donor money being thrown around makes everything a bit murkier, as does the fact that TZ has a relatively non-confrontational culture and so “advocacy” as we understand it in the States is in its infancy. As I’ve lamented previously, the whole scene reeks of neo-colonialism at times, but I also don’t think it would be the best thing in the world if all the donors just pulled up stakes and left…

OK, I think that’s enough political babble for now, especially as I’ve been sitting in complete darkness for the past hour and a half and the reserve battery on my laptop is about to run out (Apparently they’ve started rationing the power again, which is a bit annoying…)

For proof that I do more than ponder over the political ramifications of the current world order in Tanzania, please see my photos, which have been updated with pics from our recent housewarming party (and my new, it’s-perpetually-hot-and-humid-and-I-didn’t-pack-a-blowdrier haircut!!)