THE UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA COMMENTS AT THE OPERATIONAL FORUM

Transcription

1 THE UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA COMMENTS AT THE OPERATIONAL FORUM BY HIS EXCELLENCY BENJAMIN WILLIAM MKAPA GLOBAL CONFERENCE ON SCALING UP POVERTY REDUCTION MAY 27, 2004

2 TALKING POINTS FOR HIS EXCELLENCY BENJAMIN WILLIAM MKAPA PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA ON OPERATIONAL IMPLICATIONS (R3) 1. Chairpersons. Your Excellencies. Ladies and Gentlemen. 2. I welcome the opportunity to join this conversation about what we as development partners might do concretely over the next 6-12 months to scale up our poverty reduction efforts, consistent with our experience in development and with the insights from this Conference and the learning opportunities that preceded it. 3. In my remarks yesterday during the plenary, I said that I am glad that the Conference looks back for inspiration and forward with determination. Actions over the next 6-12 months (and beyond) will require much determination. I also emphasized the importance of local ownership of the development initiative and agenda. I noted that ownership must be devolved from developed country and multilateral partners to national governments; it must also be entrusted to the level of communities. 4. To my mind, a key step the development community must take over the next 6-12 months is to re-affirm the commitment to country ownership. While we have learned many lessons from this Global Scaling Up process about the scope for greater creativity and effectiveness in project

3 2 work, we must ensure that the development activities that donors support are the activities that developing countries have themselves identified as their priorities. 5. This means respecting the priorities articulated in the poverty reduction strategies, offering us your ideas steeped in valuable knowledge of international experience, and then providing support in ways that are most effective and which make sense to us. At times this will mean projects scaled up based on successful experience at home and abroad. But for many of us, it will mean donor support in more flexible forms for the investment programs embedded in our poverty reduction and growth plans and in the budget. 6. I would like to propose therefore, that over the next 6-12 months, donor institutions including the World Bank, systematically review their programs, perhaps in a select group of countries, and subject their planned activities to a two-fold test: (i) is each planned activity consistent with the priorities set by the country? and (ii) is the institution using the most flexible, effective and harmonized modalities? 7. I would urge donors to conduct this review collaboratively, in consultation with the partner government concerned and with other independent groupings, and to make the results of such a review publicly available and open for discussions. To my mind, this will make a powerful statement about our willingness to implement the lessons from this Conference as well as the commitments already made in the Rome Declaration and elsewhere. It would also be a powerful statement to staff in the development business, those at headquarters and at field level, that they must translate high level political support for improved aid effectiveness into reality on the ground.

4 3 8. Ladies and Gentleman, I said in yesterday s plenary that Tanzania s experience in ownership, aid coordination and harmonization is available for the consideration of others. I would like to underscore one aspect of that experience for consideration and action by all donors and partner governments over the next 6-12 months. It is the role that independent monitoring can play in helping the authorities in developing countries and donors confront behaviors that are counterproductive in pursuing our shared commitment to poverty reduction. Relations between the Tanzanian Government and donors had reached a low point in the early 1990s. In order to address this situation an independent group of experts led by Professor Gerald K. Helleiner was appointed to study the situation and make recommendations. Based on their report and following a change of government, we began a concerted dialogue with donors in Subsequently, Professor Helleiner presented evaluation reports to CG meetings in December 1997, March 1999 and May At the latter meeting, we agreed that the monitoring processes and systems used were beneficial and needed to be institutionalized. 9. As a result, in February 2002, the Government of Tanzania and donors jointly appointed an Independent Monitoring Group (IMG) to review progress in aid relationships and to report to the next Consultative Group (CG) meeting. In 2002 we published the Tanzania Assistance Strategy which serves as a framework for partnership and defines the role of external resources for development. In short, independent monitoring helped all of us to look into the mirror and to adjust our priorities, our expectations of ourselves and others, and adjust also the attention we give to poverty reducing behaviors and to interventions. Over the next 6-12 months, I urge donors, partner countries, the private sector and civil society to establish such joint mechanisms in each and every country, and that findings of such mechanisms be discussed at every CG

5 4 meeting or equivalent forum. It will require political will but it will increase our overall accountability and will reduce the tendency for us to point the finger away from ourselves. 10. Finally, let me reiterate a point I made yesterday. Countries that have met all the reasonable conditions for support and growth should not be constrained for lack of financial and technical resources. With political will, the world can provide the resources. Ladies and Gentlemen, I believe that it is high time for action on this point. I encourage donors to move quickly to provide additional resources over the next 6-12 months to countries that have put suitable policies in place to accelerate progress toward achieving the MDGs, including improving the quality and quantity of ODA. It s time for countries that are doing the right things to attract an explicit dividend, thereby demonstrating to the rest of the world that poverty reduction efforts can successfully be scaled up and can produce tangible results. 11. Thank you.