The national development strategy and UNIDO alignment
Tanzania’s development aspirations and priorities are outlined in the Vision 2025 (Mainland Tanzania), Vision 2020 (Zanzibar), the National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (NSGRP, also known as MKUKUTA under its Kiswahili acronym), the Zanzibar Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (ZSGRP, also known as MKUZA under its Kiswahili acronym) and the Joint Assistance Strategy (JAS).
The Tanzania Vision 2025 strategy, published in 1999, aims at improving the quality of life of the people of Tanzania and to realize an environment of peace, security and unity; good governance; a well educated and learning society; and a competitive economy. It is envisaged that by 2025 Tanzania should be a middle income country with a high level of human development, free from abject poverty.
The development priorities for Tanzania are summarized in three interlinked MKUKUTA clusters of poverty reduction outcomes: (i) Growth and reduction of income poverty, (ii) Improved quality of life and social well being; and, (iii) Good governance and accountability.
The national development strategy, NSGRP or MKUKUTA, especially cluster I six goals, resonates with the main areas of UNIDO’s focus in Integrated Programming, which supports policies with pilot interventions in agro-based industries.
The revised Integrated Programme UNIDO/MITM (2008-2010) prioritizes industry/SME support areas where UNIDO is the partner of choice in line with the MKUKUTA/MKUZA and MDG targets and JAST division of labour. Also, the reformulation team of UNIDO technical experts – Agro/food processing, Energy Efficiency and Quality and Standards, Private Sector Development – aims at supporting Tanzania line ministries of Industry, Trade, Agriculture and Energy and the private sector chambers and decentralized councils to define specific interventions for UNIDO support for the next cycle and resource requirements in terms of budget and sources of funding.
More specifically, given the scope of its activities, UNIDO’s activities take into account and align mainly to the national strategies as set up in the following policy document: Sustainable Industrial Development Policy 1996-2020 (SIDP). The SIDP was formulated in 1996 and outlines the short, medium and long-term policy objectives on promotion of private sector led industrialization and stimulating a competitive industrial sector. The objectives of the new policy include: overall contribution towards human development and creation of employment opportunities; economic transformation for achieving sustainable economic growth, improving external balance of payments; environmental sustainability and equitable development. All of these are consistent with the long-term national development goals of Vision 2005.
The SIDP is to be implemented in three phases. Phase I (1996-2000) contained a short-term priority programme focusing on rehabilitation and consolidation of existing industrial capacities through restructuring, including divestiture. Phase II (2000-2010) is a medium-term priority programme paying attention to the creation of new capacities in areas with potential for creating competitive advantages, through the application of efficient technologies and learning processes. In this phase, production of intermediate goods and light capital goods is to be initiated. The long-term priority of Phase III (2010-2020) is to achieve major investments in basic capital goods industries, to ensure sustainability and consolidation of the industrial structures developed in the first two phases.
UNIDO is actively engaged in assisting the government in conducting industrial policy studies and contributed to the review the SIDP to obtain a clearer understanding of the enabling and competitiveness environment envisaged as well as the competitive capacities.
Other government policy documents relevant to UNIDO activities in Tanzania are:
- Environment Management Act (2004)
- National Environment Policy (1997)
- National mineral policy (1997)
- National trade policy (2003)
- SME development policy (2003)