Update on Tanzania

In Tanzania, MAFAP will partner directly with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives (MAFC), working with a team comprising staff from the MAFC, Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development and Ministry of Industry and Trade, as well as non-government partners.

MAFAP will analyse policy and market distortions to price incentives for a total of 15 commodities: maize, rice, wheat, beans, coffee, cotton, sugar, cashew nuts, coffee, cow milk, live cattle, sunflower, mangoes, tea and tobacco.

The Annual Agriculture Policy Conference will take place from the 2nd-4th of December in Dar es Salaam. During this event MAFAP will present the latest results on agricultural public expenditure. Additionally, MAFAP and the Agriculture Non State Actors Forum (ANSAF) will hold a session on policy issues constraining Tanzania’s cashew nut sector, which will close with a joint presentation on policy recommendations for reforming the sector.

A MAFAP policy dialogue event is tentatively planned for mid-January 2015 to formally launch MAFAP’s second phase and to consult high-level government officials from the MAFC and line ministries on key policy issues constraining Tanzania’s agriculture sector. The expected output from this event is a list of prioritized policy issues for which the government would like MAFAP to articulate and assess various policy reform options during Phase II.

Following the policy dialogue event, FAO will hold a MAFAP Capacity Development Workshop, organized in collaboration with ANSAF and Michigan State University (MSU) in Bagamoyo. The purpose of this workshop is to provide intensive training on the three components of MAFAP’s methodology: price incentives, public expenditure and policy coherence.