Tanzania faces food shortages, yet it may not qualify for help with loan repayments, writes Charlotte Denny
Angelus Mtego is in his final year at Lusala Primary School in the Ludewa district of southern Tanzania. Children start their education later here and, like most of his leaving class, Mtego is aged 15.
His main ambition in life is to move on to the local government secondary school by passing an exam. Last year only 10 out of 70 in the year group were accepted.
But for Mtego, the biggest hurdle is the cost of education. His father is too poor to pay his primary school fees of 3 000 Tanzanian shillings per year (about $5), let alone the $100-a-year fees for a secondary school education.
Schools used to be free in Tanzania but in 1993, at the instigation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government introduced education and health fees to cut its huge budget deficit.
Government finances are under pressure because of Tanzania’s foreign debt. It owes $8-billion to its international creditors – $266 for every man, woman and child in the country. The government must spend nine times as much on debt repayments as on basic health care and four times as much on debt as on primary education.
Since the government was forced to cut back on spending, school buildings have fallen into disrepair and there are shortages of equipment. A recent Oxfam report estimated that, on average, there was one desk per seven pupils, and each textbook was shared by four children. Classes of more than 50 pupils are not uncommon.
At Lusala school the children are comparatively lucky. The parents built the school themselves in the days when the government still provided free roofs. There are seven classrooms for 450 pupils, and almost every child has a desk.
But the introduction of fees has made the school unaffordable for some. The headmaster, Matano Nguwila, estimates that one in four children in his area are not in school because their parents cannot afford the fees. Some pupils attend school even though their parents cannot pay. The school cultivates and sells its own coffee crop to cover the shortfall.
Others like Angelus pay their own way. Since the age of 12 he has supported himself by working on his own tiny field. He now pays his own school fees and those of his brother, and buys exercise books and pens.
Last year he made a profit of around 10 000 shillings ($15) from his bean crop. After paying two sets of school fees he had just 4 000 shillings left to feed and clothe himself. His school uniform is torn and he goes barefoot.
The government hopes that some of the pressures on its budget will be relieved soon through the World Bank’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative.
The main lenders – Western governments and international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF – have agreed to write off up to 80% of the loans for developing countries with unsustainable debts. Tanzania should be the next in line for relief under the HIPC initiative – provided its debts still meet the definition of “unsustainable” stipulated by the IMF and the World Bank.
Their criteria are strictly financial. If a country spends more than 20% to 25% of its export earnings on servicing debt, it qualifies for relief. Tanzania would have qualified three years ago, but it has since had several years of strong export growth.
Christopher Mwakasege, executive director of the Tanzania Social and Economic Trust which campaigns on the issue, is concerned that his country will miss out.
According to Mwakasege, the economic figures don’t reflect the reality of life for ordinary families, who are facing their third bad harvest in a row. Household production is not included in national accounts, so the fact that famine is looming in parts of Tanzania is not reflected in estimates of gross domestic product growth.
The World Food Programme estimates that 40% of the population face food shortages and is planning a mass feeding campaign in Tanzanian primary schools.
Debt relief alone cannot reduce poverty but it is a necessary first step, says Simon Levine, Christian Aid’s programme officer for Tanzania. “Tanzania will never be able to provide any kind of reasonable living conditions for its citizens without debt relief,” he says. “Tanzanian poverty … isn’t about a sudden catastrophe like Hurricane Mitch, it’s people being slowly ground down.”