Previously posted on my Facebook page. Not updated.
NEWS: “Tanzania’s First Female President Wants to Bring Her Nation in From the Cold.” And adds: “Samia Suluhu Hassan became the only female head of government in Africa when her predecessor suddenly died. She is setting a new course.” The utmost issue in Tanzania, as in almost all of Sub Saharan Africa, goes beyond gender politics. Gut. Fundamentals of existence. Fact is, most of the continent’s problems, notably unattended diseases, gnaw and bite and kill as we in America talk and argue politics, nonstop.
Although the government in Dodoma has made some progress towards reducing extreme hunger and malnutrition in recent years, the pandemic’s whip and continued sociopolitical strife, with some sliding from across its borders place the country’s 61 million population in distress.
The Global Hunger Index ranked the Tanzanian situation as "alarming" with a score of 42 in the year 2000; since then, the GHI has declined to 29.5. Children in rural areas suffer substantially higher rates of malnutrition and chronic hunger, although urban-rural disparities have narrowed as regards both stunting and underweight.
Low rural sector productivity arises mainly from inadequate infrastructure investment; limited access to farm inputs, extension services and credit; limited technology as well as trade and marketing support; and heavy dependence on rain-fed agriculture and natural resources.
Hence, if only the world’s two major superpowers agree and pool resources via a common development tact, then there’s hope in Tanzania and the entire Africa. 🇹🇿🇹🇿🇹🇿
APPROXIMATELY 68 percent of Tanzania’s people live below the poverty line of $1.25 a day. 32 percent of the population are malnourished. Yes, despite improvements in the last decade. Regardless of a fluctuating relatively fine GDP growth rate of 4.1 percent to 5.8 percent, the unemployment rate stays high at around 9.30 percent. Such a trend isn’t strange in poorer nations with economic potentials: Unequal distribution of national wealth.
Tanzania's industry is based on the processing of its agricultural goods and on import substitution—that is, the manufacture (often from imported materials and parts) of products that were once purchased from abroad. The principal industries are food processing, textiles, brewing, and cigarette production. Which easily makes China the country’s top trading partner. Others are Germany, Japan, India, the European Union.
Historically, China has assisted Tanzania with a variety of economic aid programs. The most notable early aid project was the TAZARA Railway built from 1970 to 1975. The 1,860 km railway connects landlocked Zambia with Dar es Salaam. The Chinese government sent as many as 56,000 workers.
From 2000 to 2011, there are approximately 62 Chinese official development finance projects identified in Tanzania through various media reports: From the launch of the Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank to a loan of $400 million to help alleviate the Kiwira coal mine's financial problems etc etcetera.
However, too much loans/investments from foreign powers, as we know it, only weakens a poor nation’s leverage in the long term. So true in Sub Saharan Africa and in almost all underdeveloped or developing economies, especially in regards to financial relations with the IMF and World since the end of World War II. 🇹🇿🇹🇿🇹🇿
TO finally introduce a new level of progress in Tanzania, new president Samia Suluhu Hassan has to institute a better negotiating stance with outside powers, especially economically or amidst a surge of Chinese FDIs that are all directed towards Beijing’s trade expansionism blueprint Belt and Road Initiative.
A BRI project that was canceled pending renegotiation, was the construction of the Benjamin Mkapa Olympic Stadium in 2020. It was part of a $10 billion loan offered by China to then President John Magufuli, who died last year. The loan was signed by Magufuli’s predecessor Jakaya Kikwete, specifically to construct a port at Mbegani creek in Bagamoyo.
Chinese investors requested a 30 years guarantee on the loan and 99 years uninterrupted lease. Before his death last year, Magufuli had initiated a renegotiation process by pressing the investors to bring down the lease period to 33 years from 99 years. President Samia Suluhu Hassan takes it from that point.
Meanwhile, what about the United States and Tanzania relations? 🇹🇿🇹🇿🇹🇿
AS in most if not all of America’s foreign affairs, much of the relationship between Tanzania and the United States has been framed first by the Cold War, which is of course hawk-tied with military/security. Such a stance is exacerbated by the country’s anti-colonial liberation conflicts in southern Africa.
Second, U.S. policies work around development and investment—per political agreements. Hence, relations between Washington and Dodoma are mostly politically tense, as the U.S. ups its mojo in protecting markets and business interests in Africa via military/security “aid.”
These interests were often in conflict between 1961, and the late 1980s. However, since the late 1980s, relations between the United States and Tanzania have improved as a result of mutual interests in debt relief, successive refugee crises, the liberation of southern African countries, and an improving Tanzanian economy. Until the Chinese came with their FDI enticements.
Ergo: Tanzania’s socioeconomic well-being hinges on how its leadership (or governments of “smaller” nations) deals with the United States and China, which obviously differ in tackling their respective foreign affairs. 🇹🇿🇹🇿🇹🇿
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