EMMANUAL GIROUD, Dar Es Salaam | Thursday
A DECADE of liberalisation has earned Tanzania, which goes to the polls this weekend, a reputation as a star pupil of the International Monetary Fund, yet its people remain among the poorest in the world.
Annual per capita income hovers between $200 and $250.
More than half the country’s 32 million inhabitants and more than 80% of the working population depend on an agricultural sector that has yet to recover from the failed experiment of collectivism and “African Socialism” put forward by the late founding president Julius Nyerere in the 1960s, 70s and early 80s.
Food security is a key issue and at the best of times Tanzania, where much of the population are subsistence farmers and where drought has struck for three years running, is just about able to feed itself.
Heavily dependent on international aid, Tanzania is “considered a good African pupil of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), more than ever since 1995, when (Benjamin) Mkapa came to power,” according to one western diplomat.
“Donor countries, the IMF and the World Bank have taken into consideration the immense efforts over the last ten years to open up the economy to free market forces but the people have not seen the advantages,” remarked a Tanzanian economist.
“The results we had hoped for are not there yet, despite a good growth rate of 3.5 to four percent for 2000, but the foundations and structures are promising,” he added, noting that inflation, at around six percent has, under Mkapa’s regime, fallen dramatically from the 30% of 1995.
In July, the World Bank agreed to lend Tanzania $212m to support economic reforms, making Tanzania the first country in Africa to benefit from the advantageous terms of a Planned Structural Adjustment Credit.
In April, the IMF and World Bank had already eased Tanzania’s $2bn debt burden and the IMF agreed to lend the country $181.5m. The same month, the Paris Club, a group of western creditor states, agreed to write off $390m of debt. – AFP