Untapped Tanzanian Economy

Speaking in the official opening of Young Environmentalist Trainee training at Tanzania Episcopal Conference Center, the honorable John Lomoy, the ambassador of Norway to Tanzania, acknowledged Tanzania of being endowed with a lot of natural resource ranging from biological like wildlife, forestry, fisheries, water and minerals that could bust the economic development of the country. He pointed out that it is amazing in the world of economic Tanzania being still ranked in the poor countries in the world. He further said poorest of the country has rendered inadequate education service, poor health services that have been reflected in death of pregnant mothers and young. Among other problem that has been the result of the situation is the ongoing malaria disease, HIV and the workshop diseases where people has seen as the loop hole to fraud the donor funds.
Owing to that situation, he said that why Norway through its embassy in Tanzania and in collaboration with WWF TPO and WWF Norway has decided to fund the programme to rescue the situation.

Honorable ambassador also added that Norway in the last hundred years so to speak was poor, as Tanzania seems to be. But he said they were able to develop with their resource by having what he called “three pillars”,
1.The strong government that created sound policies, laws and ensuring their implementation,
2. Strong private sectors that helped the government through taxation and
3. Active civil society organizations that put pressure on the governance of the government.
He called upon Tanzania to adapt some of the same strategies so as to get rid of poor economic situation that it does not deserve as far as being endowed with resource to develop. And it is upon the Young Environmentalist Trainee to oil the wheel as the change agent to make the programme more successfully for the national betterments.

The Ambassador was speaking at the opening of the new YET-programme of World Wide Fund for nature Tanzania Programme Office (WWF TPO) in cooperation with other CSOs. The programme has been running since January 2008, implementing a programme to strengthen the capacity of Tanzania environmental civil society organization. The goal is to make them more conscious of their role as watchdogs, more actively engage in the management of environment and natural resource. In this year WWF TPO has added a group of Young Environmentalist Trainee that will be trained by WWF TPO to act as “change agents” when working with the community Society organization. The programme being funded by Norway government through its embassy here in Tanzania.

By William Nambiza
kalistomfuse@yahoo.com