Life is Possible Without “Dead Aid” A Lesson from Ngarenaro Community.

Most development projects in Tanzania especially those which are community based are donor dependent. Even where the national policies and laws indicate the willingness of the government to support community based projects; nothing is implemented in the national budget by using government revenue. For example generally, all community based wildlife and forest management projects area funded by donor agencies like Africare, African Wildlife foundation (AWF), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Danish Hunters Association (DHA) and Frunkfut Zoological Society (FZS) among others. Others are supported by local NGOs like TFCG, WCST and MJUMITA, which depend entirely on donor funded projects. This provides evidence that if our policies and laws are not made by donors (former colonialists), the government formulate them, and sit down or sleep fo-fo-fo… and wait for Wazungus/Wakoloni to come to implement them. Such tendency has built a general nonsensical policy of dependency among most Tanzanians that ‘we can’t’.

Independency Vs Dependency; ‘Setlife’ Vs ‘Sisitiza Mazingira’ Groups. Lesson from YETs Field Visits.

Most Tanzania’s community development projects are entirely left on the brains of foreign donors (our former colonialists). This starts from researching and analyzing the problems, developing solutions and funds for implementing them. Almost all infrastructure development projects, health and other social development projects and natural resources and environmental conservation projects are dependent on foreign donors. Does it mean that Tanzanians (including elites from universities) cannot even identify their own problems?

“Consolation” should never be Treated as “Compensation”! (Lesson from wildlife conservation act 2009)

Communities living adjacent to wildlife protected areas of Tanzania have been the victims of crop raiding and destruction, livestock and human killing and habitat destruction by wildlife, since the introduction of wildlife protected areas regulations, during colonial rule, up to date. Under effective collaboration with NGOs, CSOs, and humanitarian organizations their major claim to the State has been compensation for the destructions, especially for the lost crops, livestock or relatives, sons and daughters. The government and its wildlife conservation agencies have been resisting by providing weak and shocking reason that, to give compensation is difficult. For example the government has been holding that, it is difficult to value and compensate for the lost human life! This is never a good reason to come with the slogan of “no compensation”. If we can’t estimate the value of human life, is it reasonable to give it zero value??

Biofuels: An Open Road to Starvation and Enslavement

For the past few years, agrofuels have rapidly emerged as a major issue in agriculture sector.
Development, energy policy, and natural resource management. Growing demand for agrofuels is being driven by recent high oil prices, energy security concerns, and global climate change and the need to shift into clean utilization of our natural resources. In Tanzania, there has been a growing interest from foreign private investors in establishing agrofuels projects since 2000, Since then, now we are having more than 40 foreign companies in the country investing in the agrofuels differing in implementation modalities. Few companies for instance Diligent in Arusha promote ‘outgrowers’ by letting the community use their land to cultivate jatropha and they buy seed from them. Others compete and acquire like Sun Biofuel in Kisarawe and Bioshape in Kilwa Masoko to mention few, acquire big land and implement the project themselves.

Biofuels are broadly defined as liquid, solid or gaseous fuels that are predominantly or exclusively produced from biomass. The main types of biofuels