In September 2000 189 world leaders attended the Millennium Summit at the United Nations and made a commitment to address the world’s most pressing development needs by 2015.
Leaders pledged to eliminate gender inequality, environmental degradation and HIV/Aids, and to improve access to education, healthcare and clean water.
Last month the world’s leaders gathered again at the UN to assess midway progress towards achieving these targets — known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The Mail & Guardian, in collaboration with the UN Millennium Campaign, is running a series of exclusive interviews with African presidents about the progress their countries have made towards achieving the MDGs.
This week we spoke to Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete
How do you assess the progress of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in your country and is your government on track to meeting these targets by 2015? What are the challenges your government is facing and how are you addressing them?
Tanzania is on track in the areas of universal primary education, gender parity in primary and secondary education and the reduction of child mortality. The poverty reduction goal is likely to be achieved if the GDP growth rate continues to remain above the 6% average of the past eight years vis-Ã -vis the annual population growth rate of below 3%. Recent Household Budget Surveys estimate the proportion of people living below the poverty line to be 33,3% in 2007 for the Mainland and 49% in 2005 for Zanzibar. In comparison, in 1990 the figures stood at 39% for the mainland and 60% for Zanzibar. Likewise, food poverty stood at 16,5% on the mainland in 2007 and 13,8% for Zanzibar in 2005; compared with 19% for the Mainland and 24% for Zanzibar in 2000.
Some of the challenges are exacerbated by the soaring prices of key commodities such as food and oil, poor market access for African goods, poor infrastructure and adverse changes in climatic patterns. However, the major stumbling block towards attainment of the MDGs remains Tanzania’s inability to mobilise sufficient resources. Therefore Tanzania, like other developing African countries, continues to urge the G8 and other donors to fulfil the official development assistance commitments made in 2005.
One of your government’s biggest achievements relates to education; however, citizens have raised the question of unsatisfactory quality as a result of increased enrolment. How does your government plan to address this challenge?
Tanzania has made exemplary progress in the implementation of the MDG on access to education. The gross enrolment ratio of boys and girls at primary school has increased from 96,6% in 2002 to 112,3% in 2008. At the secondary school level the gross enrolment ratio has risen from 9,4% in 2002 to 26,1% in 2008. Gender parity in the enrolment of schoolchildren has also been attained.
The rapid enrolment gains have indeed put pressure on the government. The government is addressing the issues raised by increased enrolment in various ways. In the fiscal year 2008/2009 the education sector’s budget accounts for 19,8% of the total budget.
The government has also expanded teacher training colleges to meet the acute shortage of teachers, which is estimated at more than 24 000.
Despite scientific and technological innovations children still die of preventable diseases. What has your government done to deal with this?
As a result of increased budget allocations to healthcare, deaths of infants and children under five years of age have declined to 68/1 000 and 112/1 000 live births respectively. Malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea, HIV/Aids and neonatal conditions account for more than 80% of deaths of under-five-year-olds. Widespread malnutrition is also a contributing factor.
The goals
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development
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Tanzania’s success is attributable to a number of interventions. Since 1996 Tanzania has adopted the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness strategy. This strategy aims to reduce under-five mortality by improving health workers’ skills in managing common childhood illnesses. It also aims to improve knowledge of healthcare, nutrition and development practices at the household and community level and to enhance the prevention and management of childhood illnesses. All districts in the country are implementing this strategy.
The call from citizens is that no woman should die in childbirth. What measures has your government taken to ensure this?
Like many other developing countries, Tanzania has high rates of maternal mortality. The Demographic and Health Survey of 2004 calculates the maternal mortality ratio between 1995 and 2004 at 578 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births. Major direct causes of maternal mortality include bleeding before and during delivery, obstructed labour, pregnancy-induced hypertension, infections and abortion complications.
Only 47% of all births in Tanzania occur at health facilities. Consequently, the government recently launched a national healthcare development programme, which will seek to establish a dispensary in every village and a health centre in every district with a view to ensuring access to health facilities and skilled health personnel within a 5km radius. Noting that there is an acute shortage of health care workers at all levels, the government is also collaborating with development partners and local and international civil society organisations to scale up the training of healthcare personnel rapidly so that this programme can succeed.
HIV and Aids activists have called for free treatment. How has your government treated this demand?
Following a recent national voluntary testing campaign, HIV prevalence in adults is estimated at 4,8% of the population. Overall, there is a decline in the prevalence rates if compared with the 2001/2002 figures of 9,6% HIV prevalence. Women and youth are the most affected.
In response to the pandemic the Tanzanian government distributes ARVs for free. However, the constraint that the government faces is not having sufficient medicines for all those who are infected. Thus the government continues to collaborate with development partners, civil society and the business community to try to provide ARVs to all infected people.
What measures is your government undertaking to address climate change?
The impact of global warming is already evident in Tanzania. Measurements from 21 meteorological stations have shown a steady increase in temperature over the past 30 years. Severe and recurrent droughts have triggered devastating power crises as Tanzania derives most of its electricity from hydro plants. Water levels in Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika have dropped significantly. Lake Rukwa has receded by 7km in the past 50 years. About 80% of the glacier on Mount Kilimanjaro has been lost since 1912. Flood disasters have had a devastating effect.
Poverty exacerbates the situation. A lack of alternative sources of energy compels people to resort to solid fuels, which deplete forest reserves. In Tanzania the major fuel source for more than 70% of the rural and impoverished population is still solid fuels.
Has your government considered collective debt repudiation proposed by some African states?
Tanzania is a beneficiary of the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative under which almost all its debt to Paris Club members has been cancelled and most non-Paris Club debt has also been reduced considerably. Thus Tanzania’s debt to GDP ratio is a low figure of 23%. This has assisted the government in raising its social sector spending dramatically, as evidenced by the progress that we have made towards achieving the health and education MDGs.
The danger with outright repudiation of debts is that developing countries face the risk of being unable to tap into global financial markets for the funds that they desperately need to develop their infrastructure. This implies the need for interventions that will ensure that developing African countries are ultimately deemed creditworthy in international financial markets.
What is your government doing to reduce dependency on international donors?
Tanzania has had a history of dependence on international donors. Understanding that this is neither a sustainable nor desirable situation, the government has committed itself to reducing this dependency by ensuring that it funds most of its budgetary requirements.
Generally, the government aims to reduce dependency by increasing domestic revenues and exercising fiscal discipline. This, in turn, implies boosting growth rates in productive sectors of the economy, developing the private sector and enforcing tax compliance.
To date, the government’s efforts have paid dividends, as evidenced by its ability to fund its entire recurrent expenditure budget from domestic revenue this fiscal year 2008/09, effectively reducing donor dependency from 42% to 34%. The growth in domestic revenue is underpinned by an estimated GDP growth rate of 7,8% and continued stability of critical macroeconomic indicators.
The UN Millennium Campaign supports citizens’ efforts to hold their governments and the international community to account in achieving the MDGs
Next week; an interview with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki